Global Courant
By Brendan Pierson
(Reuters) – The US government cannot prohibit people convicted of non-violent crimes from owning guns, a federal appeals court ruled Tuesday.
The 11-4 ruling by the Philadelphia-based 3rd US Circuit Court of Appeals is the latest defeat for gun control laws in the wake of a US Supreme Court ruling last year that expanded gun rights nationwide.
The decision stems from a 2020 lawsuit by a Pennsylvania man, Bryan Range, who was banned from owning a gun under federal law after pleading guilty to social fraud. He claimed the ban violated his right to bear arms under the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
“We are very pleased that the 3rd Circuit has upheld our client’s rights by faithfully applying the Supreme Court’s decision,” Range’s attorney, Peter Patterson, said in an email.
The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, which enforces federal gun laws, declined to comment.
Range pleaded guilty in 1995 to social fraud in Pennsylvania to obtain $2,458 in food stamps, a misdemeanor punishable by up to five years in prison. He was sentenced to three years’ probation.
Federal criminal law generally prohibits people convicted of crimes punishable by more than one year in prison from possessing weapons. Such crimes are usually misdemeanors, but the law also includes some state offenses, such as that of Range.
A federal judge ruled against Range in 2021. Last June, however, the US Supreme Court ruled that the Second Amendment protects the right of individuals to publicly bear arms for self-defense, and that any restrictions on that right must be consistent with state law. historical tradition of gun regulation.
Chief 3rd Circuit Judge Michael Chagares wrote for the majority on Tuesday that the administration failed to point to laws from the United States’ founding that established a tradition of disarming non-violent criminals.
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Four judges disagreed.
“Where, as here, the legislature has rendered reasonable and considered judgment to disarm those who disrespect the law, it is not the place of unelected judges to replace that judgment with their own,” Circuit wrote. Judge Cheryl Ann Krause, one of the dissenters.
(Reporting by Brendan Pierson in New York; editing by David Gregorio, Alexia Garamfalvi, and Leslie Adler)
