Legal Trivia time:MoJo wrote:A convicted felon can not even handle a firearm.
He abridged his own rights.
Once convicted of a felony your gun rights are null and void. He could have been arrested and sent back to prison if stopped by a cop with the gun on his person.
For those convicted of felonies in Texas, this is true. Not true for all states.
The one case I know of where the Feds tried to prosecute a CHL holder under the Gun Free School Zone Act for having a gun within 1000 feet of a school, the Feds also charged him with being a felon in possession of a firearm, because he had indeed been convicted of a felony in another state (Michigan, I think, but too lazy to go look it up again.)
However, under that state's law, when you have completed your felony sentence, all your rights are automatically restored (I think there are some exceptions, but generally this is true). Both the federal trial court and the appellate court ruled against the Federal DA, finding that since the man was no longer a felon under state law, he was not a felon under Federal law either. (The Feds also lost on the GFSZA charge -- they argued that the state rules for his CHL weren't tough enough to qualify as a CHL under the GFSZA (and he was a felon!), but the judges didn't buy that argument either, since the GFSZA does not specify any specific requirements for a CHL other than the holder be licensed by the state in which the school zone is located.)
Edited: Ok, I had to go look it up, it was Michigan that automatically restores rights "by operation of law;" The case is 202 F3d 1320 United States v. Tait