A restoration of rights for nonviolent felons in Wyoming took effect July 1 and includes the right to “use or knowingly possess” a firearm.But it remains unclear for some whether that means nonviolent felons can buy firearms from licensed gun dealers. Having and using a gun is one thing, but legally being able to buy a gun, which still requires a federal background check, isn't as clear....Dennis Mazet, who owns High Country Sporting Goods in Riverton, told Cowboy State Daily that he was also OK with selling firearms to nonviolent felons who meet all the same qualifications as anybody else legally eligible to buy them.However, he also wondered if somebody with any sort of felony on their record could pass a federal background check. Dealers must refuse any sales to people who don’t pass.“I would have no problem with it, but I don’t know if they could pass the federal background check,” he said. “That’s done through the FBI.”
The rest of the piece includes an interesting perspective from GOA, whose opinion is that the right to keep and bear arms was never barred to nonviolent felons under Wyoming law anyway. They opposed the section restoring the right to bear arms -- along with the rights to vote, hold office, and several others -- on the grounds that it gave the impression that the right had been 'restored' when it was never removed.
This is, of course, exactly what is meant when you hear people talk about 'closing the gun-show loophole.' Only gun dealers have to go through the FBI before they can sell you a gun; private citizens do not. You could buy a gun from me if I had one I wanted to sell you at a price we agreed upon, just as with any other piece of property I own that I wish to sell. The FBI has no part in our private business. Dealers at gun shows still have to run the FBI checks, but private citizens who happen to meet there and want to trade, buy, or sell their private property can do so lawfully. These restored Wyoming citizens therefore have an option to lawfully purchase the arms they may lawfully carry.
That's what the advocates of control would like to change. Then it wouldn't matter what your state legislature said, as long as they could trust the Federal agents at the FBI to say "no."
4 comments:
It's not a loophole, it's a right. They are trying to influence opinion by renaming it falsely.
I've heard about "non-owner" non-violent felons being cleared as a way to protect people if a relative or friend has firearms in the house, and the individual needs to move a shotgun out of the reach of a child, defend the house from an intruder, or something like that. Not necessarily own, but not be in trouble for briefly holding or using the firearm.
YMMV, and it's something I've not looked into in any detail.
LittleRed1
I don't see the point in barring non-violent felons from keeping and bearing arms, including firearms. I want them to have served their complete sentences, though, parole and all, and have some period of "contributing to the community" afterward first.
I'm inclined to extend the same to a violent felon, depending on the felony, and after a demonstration of rehabilitation.
I don't know how to measure either criterion, though. And, of course--especially in the latter case--the sanction process needs to include a real chance at, and program for, rehabilitation, which our present prison system doesn't do very well.
Eric Hines
The prison system is based on the concept that rehabilitation is almost scientifically achievable, when in fact it is impossible without the consent of the individual. The theory dates to Jeremy Bentham's "Panopticon," which was only ever theoretical and which definitely would not work in practice.
It was meant to be a scientific endeavor, but in fact it's not even empirical. A good empiricist would have given up on the concept of reform-through-prison long ago. If anything, the empirical evidence runs the other way. Prisons deform the character of the guards at the same time that they fail to improve the prisoner, while exposing him (or, rarely, her) to criminal contacts who can help them further their enterprise. Then it releases them into a society that will no longer make use of them, though the criminals they now know certainly will.
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