Posted on 03/26/2014 12:30:59 PM PDT by Lurking Libertarian
No, the Court did not create any special relationship. State legislatures in all 50 states made domestic violence a separate crime from ordinary assault. Congress then said that people convicted of that crime cannot possess guns. (And the Lautenberg Amendment was enacted unanimously, or nearly so, IIRC.) Blame the state legislators and Congress, not the Court. The Court is enforcing what Congress said; to do otherwise would be judicial activism. (Unless the statute is unconstitutional, of course, but the defendant in this case did not challenge the constitutionality of the Lautenberg Amendment.)
It’s hardly worth it, but in my original comment, I lamented that there was no challenge to the constitutionality of defining some groups as more special than others and suggested that they would rue not pressing that issue.
I am not saying in any way that convictions should not be used to deny a person their right to bear arms as that involves due process. I do doubt that inequity in application of the law is a different matter.
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