Should Felons be allowed to own guns?
 

I assume everyone here agrees that felons should be allowed to vote, but I was curious what your thoughts are on gun rights for felons?

I honestly believe if we could get rid of the 2nd amendment that'd be for the best but since we are where we are as a country then if it's a right to have a gun then felons skills have that right. Getting out of jail without your full basic rights restored seems like bull**** to me.

People will say it's dangerous but guess what... The same arguments that they make about legal gun owners not committing crime with their guns actually applies to felons if they have a legal gun. You don't use a legal gun in a gang killing etc because it will be traced. If they're going to go back to shooting people they will do it the illegal way anyway. All that stopping them from getting a legal gun does is strip them of their right to protecr themselves in a country that is filled with people who own guns.

What are your thoughts?

They should be granted the same rights as any other citizen in all senses, even if that includes the right to impractical modes of self defense.

Yup, I'm all for felons having their rights to bear firearms.

They should have at least the same access to weaponry as the government up to and including WMD.

Damn was hoping for some pushback. Fail thread. Unless maybe elph??

No opposition from me either. I'm against gun ownership, but giving felons less civil rights than other people is unethical and just causes more problems in society

If you're looking for pushback perhaps the better question is should people with mental illness(es) be allowed to own guns? Where would those lines be drawn?


Or you could borrow my favorite litmus test - if we eat meat and are able to do so because of the concept that the animals we eat lack sentience, shouldn't we be allowed to eat r-worded people?

I’m thinking more like if this world hasn’t made you crazy you shouldn’t have a gun.

You gotta be hella ****ed up not to be ****ed up.

Not all felons are violent criminals. They could be just like you ( ... plus a felony charge) and just want to protecr themselves with a "lefal weapon." Some commit white collar, and/or non-violent crimes. Some are not career criminals but have some isolated indecent in their past that prohibits them from legally purchasing a firearm. There are lawyers whose expertise is Restoration of Gun Rights that handle this kind of stuff all the time.

Another pertinent question: Should felons be able to own dogs to protecr themselves?

I don’t give a **** if you’re a junkie or a cop if you kick my door in.

Nea -I definitely think it’s more important to regulate who owns dogs than guns.

Hell no! We have to draw the line somewhere.

It’s not felons in particular but the wrong people have too many dogs.

I'd say the real problem is that the wrong people have too many kids.

I’d love to see a ten year world-wide no exceptions ban on breeding people.

Puppy mills, or people who don't take care of their pets?

Both.

Well, I'd def push back on the idea that felons should be allowed access to guns, even if it means going against two of my fave mods:-

My Case: it's not to be vindictive about people who have paid their debt to society, it's about the notion that a person has shown themselves capable of a felony.
Definition, my bold:

Plenty of people are released from prison with almost full rights, but plus some restrictions. I suspect that some aren't allowed passports; someone who constructed a bomb is prob barred from working in the chemicals industry. Pedafiles aren't allowed near schools and have to register address changes, some people have long-term restraining orders, etc, etc.

I'm in favour of giving felons a fair second chance, but losing the right to bear arms is not much of an impedement to leading a normal life imo.

We're all capable of felonies.

Restricting the rights of felons assigns them to a lifelong second class citizenry, and recidivism is a symptom of our flawed prison system used to blame felons for being "unfixable". The biggest criticism I see against it is part of a larger discussion about how valuable gun rights are.

nah cause I don't have a good argument for giving crazy people guns



the first part of your post seems unrelated to the second. There are plenty of non felons who are eager to play cowboy. Which crimes do you think would make one more inclined to over zealously kill home invaders?

If we were going crime by crime the only category of people who pose a significant risk with a gun are people with domestic violence charges. Those are the types to kill their wife with a legal gun and end up eating the charges.

So fundamentally you don't believe in the possibility of rehabilitation.



in the case of pedophiles and schools etc there's an obvious added risk involved - to a certain extent they are dealing with psychological issues and it's best to avoid triggering a relapse into bad behavior, the same way alcoholics avoid bars.

Felons with legal guns don't pose an obvious enough risk to strip them of a basic right guaranteed in the bill of rights. For reasons I explained above, gun crimes are much more likely to be committed with illegal guns because legal ones can be traced through ballistic forensics. And only a fraction of the felons are even gun crime offenders in the first place. Out of those... The gang killings are carried out almost exclusively with illegal guns. Domestic crimes sometimes involve legal guns but that group has a really low recitivism rate.

I think if you had experience with released felons in the United States, like working side by side with people on work release programs, or dealing with them as parents of the children you were teaching you really wouldn’t feel like a past conviction is true indicator of future behavior or maybe not even past behavior compared to the general public. The American penal system is wildly unfair and criminalizes both pigmentation and poverty. Leaving them in a permanent disenfranchised second class status is usually what causes people to lash out. I would support intentionally arming them over denying them the right to self defense. Hell, we need people who are willing to put a gun to the head of this capitalist power structure.

Woody Guthrie

Damn skippy.

it is only by the power of the gun that the working class and the labouring masses can defeat the armed bourgeoisie and landlords; in this sense we may say that only with guns can the whole world be transformed

-MAO

you didn't answer the question of which crimes make you unfit to own one and why

Or at least a single example of a crime that would.

Ain’t nobody wanna be looking at the business end of it I’ll tell you that.

Missed this alright I didn't proofread. Nice spectrumy fixation on minor details you sperg champion. Go build a model train set.

Lol I see you nea you racist bitch

Yep, that's true, and yet we don't all commit one.

The bold is surely over-stating the "deprivation" of the restrictions I've mentioned: the gun thing, pedofiles kept away from kids, etc.

I didn't say that at all. I believe in the possibility of rehabilitation, all I'm suggesting is that balancing out the overall safety of society, against the loss of gun rights for felons, I think it's worth doing. With many safety measures imposed by society, some freedoms are lost and innocent people are inconvenienced. In principal I subscribe to the notion that someone who has paid his debt to society is an innocent person; all that happens is that he carries around one extra inconvenience. Just like me he can't drink and drive or ride a motorbike without a helmet, it's just that when I go into the gun shop, he has to wait in the car.


Was the Bill of Rights carved in stone and handed down by God? If the times, the technology and the society of the US have changed in the last 200 years, perhaps a footnote could be added to the Bill of Rights too.

I didn't say that a past conviction is a true indicator of future behaviour. I respect your experience as you know, and am sure you're right about many or most ex-felons keeping out of trouble.

My bold bit: maybe it's a cultural thing, but again I feel that the loss of gun ownership rights is being overstated, in this case especially with the word "disenfranchised" which is normally used in connection with voting rights. Do you really become a second-class citizen in the US if you lose your gun rights?!

Nice touch with the Woody Guthrie quote, OH! Perhaps you guessed correctly that I would be reluctant to contradict him. Absolutely agree with his first verse about white-collar crime, but sadly this couplet isn't entirely true:

(* hastily checks the internet for cases of mafia protection-racketeers and drug cartels closing businesses, etc.*)

Until we need to or the law decides that we have.

You become a second class citizen in any country when one or more rights are limited in comparison to the general public, so yes. The value of gun rights is another question entirely, really.

I mean maybe maybe not. Having a special set of laws that inhibit your rights is pretty damn second classy but if you also had millions of dollars that would be enough to buy your way out of it.

Still it’s a part of a bigger issue. A person is out. Let them get on with their ****ing life. It shouldn’t be a question on job applications or rental terms and all that. You could accuse me of using the slippery slope fallacy but shrug i think it applies.

I’ll give an anecdotal one. I worked with a really nice guy who had served his time for murder. He grew up in Miami. Was forced into a gang. A series of events that were all very unfortunate befell on him. He killed someone but he still had a heart of gold.

I’m not really making my case here. I think I already did that. It’s just that this country is so unjust, right from birth, I don’t think having a record has much at all to do with your true disposition.

You didn't say it explicitly, but it was implicit in your logic.

They demonstrated themselves to be felons and thus incapable of ever fully retaining their rights and thus they are beyond rehabilitation in a certain regard. Correct me where I'm wrong.

A lot of the rest of what you said relies on the assumption that they pose a unique security risk if allowed to own weapons. I've already stated my case against this and am eagerly awaiting a rebuttal

that's an argument against the 2nd amendment which I agree with. But as long as the right exists it should be granted as widely as possible, and the fact that because it exists this is a country stock full of guns and armed criminals is all the more reason that denying a felon access to guns is an injustice that possibly prevents them from defending themselves.

this will make you more likely to kill a home invader? Or more likely to senselessly use your legal and traceable gun in a random killing? Or what?

no

Preventing someone from owning guns because they have a felony = 2nd amendment violated. Unless you can provide a coherent argument why they should be denied that right.

More likely to go commit a gun crime with the legally purchased gun that can be traced back to them if it is used in a serious crime? You sure about that?

There's such a thing as ballistic forensics. Cops can trace a bullet to a given gun based on the imprint it leaves. That's why the vast majority of random murders are carried out with illegal weapons with a scratched off serial number that has been scrubbed for prints and thrown in the river.

That typically happens with domestic it personal shootings, and those offenders have a low enough recitivism rate that the claim they are more likely to shoot someone else is pretty dubious. Is your only reasoning basically once a murderer always a murderer?

Christ you’re suburban sometimes

just saw this. I agree.

I grew up in ****ty neighborhoods and know people that were in the same place as me in life at 20 who won't get out for another 10 years. The program I am in takes in/helps people either on parole/probation or with pending court cases. I know someone right now who is looking at 2 years cause he's a felon and got in a fight with his brother.

Perhaps this doesn't rise to an actual rebuttal, jwb, so much as an alternative way of looking at the issue. Without any stats to back myself up, yes, I am assuming that a convicted felon is more likely to use a gun to commit a crime than someone without a felony conviction. Perhaps I should've researched that, but if it's true, then my argument is just a simple application of statistical probabilities:-
Motor cyclists statistically run a heightened risk of brain injury, therefore all of them wear helmets. It's not really saying to each individual cyclist, "I don't think you're capable of riding safely." In a similar way, I'm guessing that felons fall into a group that are statistically more likely to be involved in violent crime, so denying them access to guns should statistically lessen that risk to society.

And yes, there are cases of people who have been falsely convicted, and the people like the guy OH mentions who grew up in very tough circumstances. Those cases clearly support your position. Also, (again with no research) there are prob cases of felons who leave jail and subsequently shoot some innocent victim. Those victims would support my case by asking, " Why didn't the authorities do more to protect me if they knew the guy had a record of violent crime?"

Underlying my argument is also the assumption that you can lead a full and active life without owning a gun, that the lack of one doesn't make you a second-class citizen.

Helmet and traffic rules are applied universally, as opposed to rules applied exclusively to felons. If our laws were consistent with the idea that felony=violence, I'd be on board but that's not the case. I think it's more realistic to address gun laws and culture than to legislate restrictions against a specific class of citizens. The restrictive nature of the law and the social norms that it influences against ex convicts plays a big role in making them desperate enough to commit crimes again. It's a self fulfilling prophecy, especially if you're told that you can't be trusted to not be violent. When you're told that often enough, it makes violence seem like your true nature.

You can absolutely live a full life without owning a gun, but if you have a separate set of rights from the rest of the populace that inherently makes you an unequal citizen (aka a second class citizen). That applies to gun rights, however dysfunctional American gun culture is.