Posted on 12/10/2002 12:22:01 PM PST by coloradan
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Federal agencies first, not the courts, should decide whether convicted felons can regain their rights to own guns, the U.S. Supreme Court (news - web sites) ruled unanimously on Tuesday.
Felons are barred from carrying guns after their release from prison, but they can ask the government for an exception. The ruling clarified how the procedures work in such cases.
The case involved Texas gun dealer Thomas Bean, who was convicted in a Mexican court of importing ammunition into Mexico. As a result, he was barred from possessing firearms or ammunition, losing his livelihood.
Bean applied to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms for relief. The federal agency returned the application unprocessed, saying it was barred from spending any funds to investigate or act on such applications.
A 1992 law stopped funding of ATF investigations of whether felons' gun ownership rights should be reinstated. It was passed after an outcry over a study showing the agency had granted thousands of applications from convicted felons, at a cost of millions of dollars.
Bean had sued, asking a federal judge to conduct an inquiry into his fitness to possess a gun and issue a judicial order granting him relief. The judge ruled for Bean, a decision upheld by a U.S. appeals court.
Justice Clarence Thomas (news - web sites) said the appeals court was wrong. Under the law, judicial review was allowed only after an actual denial by the ATF, Thomas said.
He said judicial review cannot occur without a decision by the agency. Thomas rejected Bean's argument that the government's inability to act amounted to a denial of his request.
Yes, but you can include me out of that fight.
If there's one thing that I've learned about the US government and American society, it's that you're a fool for being a patriot when it's much easier, lucrative, and popular to be a criminal.
If you refuse to uphold and enforce the United States Constitution....who will?
Convicted felons have forfitted certain rights because their proven behavior makes them a risk to society in general. It is up to them to prove themselves worthy of regaining those rights.
by Larry Margasak Associated Press WASHINGTON — Oct. 16, 2002
Thomas Lamar Bean's associates left 200 rounds of ammunition in his car during a dinner visit to Mexico four years ago, costing the Texan jail time and his gun dealer's license.
A federal appeals court ordered that Bean's license be reinstated, but the Bush administration, despite its pro-gun stance, was arguing before the Supreme Court on Wednesday that judges can't restore gun rights to convicted felons.
Bean's lawyer counters that he had no choice but to go to court, since the federal agency that rules on license restorations has been barred by Congress from doing so.
Lawmakers took that action a decade ago, out of concern that too many felons were regaining the right to own guns.
The trouble started for Bean, a businessman with a clean record, when at least one of his assistants failed to follow instructions to remove the bullets from his car prior to a dinner trip to Mexico.
When Bean and his three associates tried to return to Laredo, Mexican border authorities discovered the bullets and detained only Bean. Since carrying ammunition was a crime in Mexico, Bean was held for two months and sentenced to five years in prison. After serving four months in Mexico, he was transferred to a prison in Texas and quickly released on probation.
Bean was a convicted felon and could not even possess a firearm, let alone run a gun business - unless the Treasury Secretary granted an exception. The Treasury agency that handles such matters, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, informed Bean that it could not process his application for a new license because Congress refused to provide money for restoration investigations.
Bean persuaded a federal district judge in Texas to restore the license, and in June 2001 the ruling was upheld by the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
The Bush administration opposes the decision, even though the Justice Department has reversed a decades-old stance and taken the position that the Constitution guarantees a right to gun ownership. The administration argues, however, that the executive branch must make the determination since Congress did not grant courts the independent right to restore gun licenses.
The Bush administration has said the case was not about Bean, but other felons who would expect courts to restore their gun privileges.
In 2000, when he petitioned to get his gun rights - and livelihood - back, the 60-year-old father of two adult children was supported by two police chiefs, a sheriff, a judge, a prosecutor and a Baptist preacher.
Since Bean's conviction, Mexico has reduced the charges for importing ammunition to a misdemeanor. The federal judge who ruled in his favor on the gun privileges also found that the Mexican conviction did not classify him as a U.S. felon.
Other federal courts have agreed with the administration that judges should not be making the license decisions. And a Texas state court has determined that Bean is not considered a felon.
The case is United States v. Bean, 01-704.
It seems that we need to force Congress to fund this process.
This is a disappointment of extreme magnitude.
Our government takes in trillions of dollars in taxes and is suffering from no "inability" to act. They have been proscribed by a lack of specific Congressional funding which is intended to have the observed consequences. For Thomas to allow such an Orwellian decision is a surprise to me. I will have to read the decision in great detail but I am not encouraged by how this is being reported.
I had hoped that the Supreme Court would find that the right to keep and bear arms does not stop at our borders. Those who distribute Bibles in China risk having the US Supreme Court helping China to punish such behavior.
The rights with which we are endowed by our Creator are not stamped "Made in America." The right to self-defense and the right to overthrow a tyrannical government are the rights of people everywhere and not just in the US.
Agreed, but as it stands now, there is no avenue via which such proofs can be offered.
He said judicial review cannot occur without a decision by the agency. Thomas rejected Bean's argument that the government's inability to act amounted to a denial of his request.
Thomas fails the sanity test with this argument. SCOTUS is supposed to resolve Catch-22s, not validate them.
Ummm, the entire point of the case was that the govt. has set it up so it is quite literally impossible for them to do that.
You should read about this guy's "crime" before making that call. He drove across the Mexican border with a box of cartridges in his car. No big deal here; landed him in prison there. That's why he can't get his firearms privileges returned to him.
The SC has been heading in a Orwellian direction since the 1930's...
I think a better challenge would be against this law. Someone is convicted of a STATE felony, yet the feds can act against them at the FEDERAL level. That amounts an additional sentence not covered by the state law, outside the state court.
I can see that as well, to some extent. But it hardly creates faith in government to have SCOTUS uphold a catch-22 like this one. I agree with the logic in the lower courts - the BATF, for whatever reason, failed to offer a decision - but the net result of that was to make a de facto decision denying Bean the right to own a gun. As Rush once said (the group, not the person), "If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice..."
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