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...If the person has no active warrants, is not violating the law by trying to rent (e.g., no restrictions on living within x feet of something), it is not the property owner's business what their history is. The only issue is whether they have financial ability to pay, maybe some references. If a person is currently able to pay, regardless of felon, gun ownership, past bankruptcy, party membership, etc. they should be able to rent. It is a financial transaction, nothing more. Otherwise, like recently in Boston, a place kicks out someone because she owns a gun...

As a landlord with multi-family properties, I call BS on your ideas.

My business model is that I keep my units filled, my tenants happy, and my rents coming in, by operating a family friendly, squeaky clean complex. I will always prefer a family I think will appreciate a family atmosphere over people with a history of drug offenses. And my experience has been that tenants with a history of petty theft means that cars in the parking lot are going to be subject to burglary and vandalism. Low-life tenants litter the grounds with cigarette butts and miscellaneous trash. What is unfair about excluding those with a probability of being bad tenants? There are places with less stringent rules.

Are you telling me I can't run my business on my model?

I follow the law and do not discriminate on the basis of any protected attributes, but being blind to past bad behavior is just asking for trouble. Actions have consequences and prior criminal behavior is an indication of a bad attitude.

Your level of rent should filter out undesirables. Anyway, once you get past their ability to pay and whether they have any active restrictions, the rest is very subjective and most often discriminatory--rent to non-gun owner, rent or not to someone with no kids, rent or not to someone of a particular religion, rent or not to someone of certain age, rent or not to someone based on attire or car or something. It is all a slippery slope.

Having owned, been rentee, and renter, I have zero sympathy for owners sued for bias or discrimination of any form. End of day it is a business transaction, nothing more or less.