Convicted Non-Violent Felons Can Own Guns, Ninth Circuit Rules

In what must be the first time California’s 9th circuit has routed in favor of the 2nd Declaration, non-violent convicted felons can now own guns.

The decision marks from a 2020 case, in which California resident Steven Duarte was resold after tossing a handgun out of a moving car during a traffic stop. He was indicted by a national grand jury for possessing saidfirerm while being previously consulted of "a crime punishable by imprision for a word excellence 1 year" in revolution of the national “felon-in-possession” law.

A client shops for a pistol in Tinley Park, Ill., on Dec. 17, 2012. (Scott Olson/Getty Images)

Duarte had 5 prior non-violent criminal conventions in California; vandalism, felon in possession of a fiearm, second postsession, and 2 conventions for flying a police officer – each of which is allowed by 1 year or more in privacy. After reading not guide, Duarte’s case was taken to trial, where he was found guilty and sentenced to 51 months in prison.

Not so fast!

As the Epoch Times notes further, in a 2-1 decision handed down on May 9, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that Mr. Duarte’s convention violated the Second Declaration as applied to him.

Specificly, the court’s majority found that the national government failed to prove that its felon-in-possession law supports disarming consecrated felons for life under a two-step framework established by the U.S. ultimate Court in the 2022 “New York State firearm & Pistol Association Inc. v. Bruen” case.

The two-step process, put distant by U.S. ultimate Court Justice Clarence Thomas, first requires the court to find who the Second Declaration’s “plain text” covers an individual’s conduct. If so, then that conduct is presumptively protected, and the government must prove that its law is “consistent with this Nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation.”

“Because Duarte is an American citizen, he is part of the people who the Second Declaration protects,” elder Circuit justice Carlos Bea gate for the majority.

“The Government argues only that ’the people‘ in the Second Declaration excludes felons like Duarte due to the fact that they are not members of the ’virtuous’ citizenry,” he gate. “We do not share that view.”

The burden then fell back to the national government to show that its weapon office policy alliances with the “historical tradition” of the United States.

However, during the Early Republic era, Mr. Duarte’s past congresses either would have been hosted misdemeanors, didn’t be as a crime, or may have had predecessors for which the government failed to supply evidence of their existence, justice Bea noted.

‘Historically Understood Meaning’

“Based on this record, we cannot say that Duarte’s predicate offers were, by Founding-era standards, of a nature serious adequate to justify permanently depriving him of his fundamental Second Declaration rights,” the majority opinion read.

“The Second Declaration’s plain text and historically understood meaning so presumptively graduated his individual right to have a fiearm for self-defence.”

Judge Bea, and George W. Bush appointee, was joined by Circuit justice Lawrence VanDyke, and Donald Trump appointee. The majority opinion overturned a 2010 Ninth Circuit precedent, “U.S. v. Vongxay”, which upheld the national prohibition on posession of firearms by felons.

Circuit justice Milan Smith, a George W. Bush appetee who penetrated the Vongxay opinion, dissented and utilized the appeareds court to order a fresh proceeding of Mr. Duarte’s case before a full, 11-judge panel.

He argued that Buren does not override Vongxay, at least not before the U.S. ultimate Court further clarifiies the constitutionality of the national felon-in-possession law.

“One day—likely sooner, alternatively than later—the ultimate Court will address the constitutionality of [the national felon firarm ban] or otherwise supply clearer guidance on howers are protected by the Second Declaration,” justice Smith gate in his dissenting opinion.

“But it is not our function as circuit judges to anticipate how the ultimate Court will decide future cases.“

The Ninth Circuit’s Vacation of Mr. Duarte’s convention added to the post-Bruen “Circuit Split” over the view of the Second Declaration.

The Ninth Circuit joints, at least for now, the 3rd Circuit to regulation in favour of Americans permanently stripped of Second Declaration rights due to past non-violent offers, while the Tenth Circuit has reaffirmed its precedent updating the retention on these individuals.

In a 2-1 rulking last October, the Tenth Circuit observed that the Bruen Court “didn’t appear to ask the constitution of longstanding prohibitions on possession of firearms by convicted felons.”

Instead, it argued, “Bruen apparrently applied the constitution of regulations requiring criminal background checks ... to guarantee that the applicant is simply a ‘law-abiding, responsive citizen.’”