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Pariah3j wrote:

MechAg94 wrote:

Pariah3j wrote:As I believe that bill of rights dictates natural rights that were imbued by God - I don't think man/the courts have the right to take away those rights permanently. There should be a cooling period, X number of years per the crime but after enough time they should be restored. Violet crimes should have a longer cooling period, and I could even see an argument given for those who repeatedly offend having extra time added to their sentence of removing their rights - this could be something like they are suspended during the parole period or work similarly to parole.

Remember the Bill or rights were put in place to prevent government abuse, if we allow the government to dictate how those rights to be stripped, it gives the government an avenue for abuse. Just my .02 cents.

This is kind of where I started to rethink this. If the person is so bad they should never be given rights back, why are they not still in prison? I am undecided on where I would draw that line.

I think what Mr. Cotton mentioned about an administrative procedure to restore rights later is a good idea. If someone has completed their prison sentence as well as parole then they should be able to get basic rights restored after some time period. At some point assuming no further criminal conduct, I think we can say they are good members of society.

My only problem with an administrative procedure to restore rights, is we are still giving the government the ultimate power to revoke someone's natural rights indefinitely - I've always felt like that was at odds with what our founding fathers intended. Mr Cotton's argument is well thought out, I'm just not sure that I trust the government or an administrative body to be the deciding factor. What happens when the code of law gets so bloated and obtuse that you can be charged with felonies you didn't even know exist... oh wait - we are already there. There are laws on the books that 'aren't being enforced' but still are binding law, so what happens is they use these outdated/non-enforced laws to go after people they disagree with, etc.

If we believe that Criminals have repaid their debt to society, then why are we stripping them of natural rights? What happens when the majority of the country has been stripped of rights because they are 'criminals'?

There’s a corollary problem........ Anything that happens in the courts - whether they are administrative courts or trial courts - has a political cast to it, no matter how honestly courts may seek to avoid that. Prosecutors are elected. Some judges are elected. Those that are appointed, are appointed by political figures. There’s never been a civilian court in the US that is not in some way or other tinged with politics. The reason this is a problem is that the political cast can and often will influence the court’s decision in a restoration of rights case. Assuming identical conviction profiles, racial profiles, and other social influences, is a Massachussetts administrative court which is charged with deciding such a case any more or less likely to rule for or against the petitioner’s favor than a similar court in Idaho?

I would submit that there would be a significant difference between the verdicts, and that the difference would be prompted by the political differences between Massachussetts and Idaho. The obvious conclusion is that assuming the felon deserves restoration of his/her rights, when it comes to gun rights specifically, the outcome is going to depend on whether or not the political climate in which the administrative procedure occurs handles gun rights as if they were uninfringable natural rights, or gov’t permissions.......or something in between.

Obviously, we don’t allow a convicted felon (or any other convict for that matter) to bring their gun into prison with them. So when society decides, through the court system to temporarily abridge a person’s civil rights, gun rights are part of that package. When we gradually restore civil rights as the convict processes through release, parole/probation, etc., I’d be curious to know how SCOTUS has ruled in the past on the permanent suspension of Constitutional rights, and what their reasoning was.

I think it really depends. If the felony conviction was for either a crime of physical violence, particularly one where someone was gravely injured or killed, or a crime committed using a firearm to unlawfully threaten use of deadly force, then I would say no to restoring firearm rights. Incidentally, I wouldn’t want that person to have their voting rights restored either. In either case, I would grant an exception if the felon were willing to commit to a post-incarceration period of public service, which could take any number of forms that might meet the voting public’s approval..... for instance, military enlistment, or something like the old WPA, where they could work for a “better than prison” wage rebuilding the nation’s infrastructures like interstate highways and bridges, etc. But that would have to be something offered only to those who had been (A) model prisoners while incarcerated, and (B) who were not recidivist criminals.

Other kinds of felonies ought to be treated much differently than they currently are, in my opinion. A felony weed conviction, on it’s own, without any associated things like cartel membership or gang membership, and including things like how they interacted with police at the time of their arrest, the existence of any prior criminal history, etc, shouldn’t be a permanent disqualifier for firearms or voting rights.

One of the problems of course is the difference between how states handle felonies versus the feds. The federal gov’t has a hard enough time swalllowing the idea of perfectly innocent law-abiding citizens owning guns, and there are always efforts underway to curtail that right. So it seems to me unlikely that the federal gov’t would cooperate by allowing restoration of gun rights for those convicted of federal felonies - no matter how relatively harmless they might be.

That wouldn’t be such a bitter pill to swallow if the feds showed a little more interest and alacrity in throwing their own behind bars for obvious felonies........

Edited to add.... I’ve just gone back through the thread and read Charles’ and Clarionite’s posts, and I’d have to say that I’d agree with them both, and modify what I’ve written above accordingly.