December 19, 2014
By Lyle Dennison
Breaking ranks with other federal appeals courts, (click here) and probably setting up a major test case for the Supreme Court, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit has ruled that laws imposing controls on the personal right to have a gun must satisfy the most rigorous constitutional test. And, in another split with other courts, it was the first to strike down a federal gun law under the Constitution’s Second Amendment as expanded by the Supreme Court six years ago....
...If the government appeals the decision, either to the en banc Sixth Circuit or to the Supreme Court, and if the ruling were to be upheld, it could have an impact on gun control laws well beyond the specific limit at issue in this case. It appeared to cast into constitutional doubt at least some of a host of laws, federal and state, that impose categorical bans on groups of individuals — that is, bans that preclude anyone in an excluded group from being able to prove individually that they should have access to guns....
This individual was found to be incompetent at some point for whatever reason there was. It is the burden of the individual to have a psychiatrist find him competent to reverse his inability to possess firearms. There is no reason why the same system of protections for both gun owners and society can't be accessed to renew Second Amendment rights. This is ridiculous.
The decision states: (click here) Bottom paragraph page 46,
...The government’s interest in keeping firearms out of the hands of the mentally ill is not sufficiently related to depriving the mentally healthy, who had a distant episode of commitment, of their constitutional rights....
The challenge to the law is CHOOSING to state the government is not the people with a vested interest in who is allowed to possess a gun legally and who is not. The fact of the matter is the "government" in the law legislated has a very direct interest in the safety of society with innumerable examples especially in recent years. The law has a right to exist in the face of an obvious danger to society.
This is typical of right wing impressions that the US Constitution stands alone outside the dynamics of the society that lives under it. It's ridiculous. It is like saying in 1776 there were five people living in Michigan and therefore there was no reason for law. That might have also been the case with Kentucky and Daniel Boon's ancestors. But, as time passes and populations increase, the political demographics and geography of the country changes the 'definition' of safety changes. The subsequent laws of the USA since the adoption of the USA Constitution matters.
This is where any argument by strict constructionists fails. They won't admit that it fails, but, it does. Strict constructionists of the practice of USA Constitutional law don't provide for the social dynamics that impact citizens and the very real need to pass laws upholding a standard of safety. This lawsuit is extreme and never should have existed in the first place. Someone decided to make a mess of the law again.
The burden lies with the individual to present evidence to mental competency and not the government. The government can offer a vehicle for the individual to return a finding of competency such as a form from a qualified psychiatrist, but, it is not the government's place to allow those found incompetent to have guns no matter how many years have passed since the initial finding.
By Lyle Dennison
Breaking ranks with other federal appeals courts, (click here) and probably setting up a major test case for the Supreme Court, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit has ruled that laws imposing controls on the personal right to have a gun must satisfy the most rigorous constitutional test. And, in another split with other courts, it was the first to strike down a federal gun law under the Constitution’s Second Amendment as expanded by the Supreme Court six years ago....
...If the government appeals the decision, either to the en banc Sixth Circuit or to the Supreme Court, and if the ruling were to be upheld, it could have an impact on gun control laws well beyond the specific limit at issue in this case. It appeared to cast into constitutional doubt at least some of a host of laws, federal and state, that impose categorical bans on groups of individuals — that is, bans that preclude anyone in an excluded group from being able to prove individually that they should have access to guns....
This individual was found to be incompetent at some point for whatever reason there was. It is the burden of the individual to have a psychiatrist find him competent to reverse his inability to possess firearms. There is no reason why the same system of protections for both gun owners and society can't be accessed to renew Second Amendment rights. This is ridiculous.
The decision states: (click here) Bottom paragraph page 46,
...The government’s interest in keeping firearms out of the hands of the mentally ill is not sufficiently related to depriving the mentally healthy, who had a distant episode of commitment, of their constitutional rights....
The challenge to the law is CHOOSING to state the government is not the people with a vested interest in who is allowed to possess a gun legally and who is not. The fact of the matter is the "government" in the law legislated has a very direct interest in the safety of society with innumerable examples especially in recent years. The law has a right to exist in the face of an obvious danger to society.
This is typical of right wing impressions that the US Constitution stands alone outside the dynamics of the society that lives under it. It's ridiculous. It is like saying in 1776 there were five people living in Michigan and therefore there was no reason for law. That might have also been the case with Kentucky and Daniel Boon's ancestors. But, as time passes and populations increase, the political demographics and geography of the country changes the 'definition' of safety changes. The subsequent laws of the USA since the adoption of the USA Constitution matters.
This is where any argument by strict constructionists fails. They won't admit that it fails, but, it does. Strict constructionists of the practice of USA Constitutional law don't provide for the social dynamics that impact citizens and the very real need to pass laws upholding a standard of safety. This lawsuit is extreme and never should have existed in the first place. Someone decided to make a mess of the law again.
The burden lies with the individual to present evidence to mental competency and not the government. The government can offer a vehicle for the individual to return a finding of competency such as a form from a qualified psychiatrist, but, it is not the government's place to allow those found incompetent to have guns no matter how many years have passed since the initial finding.
