Today, the National Rifle Association, along with the Firearms Policy Coalition and FPC Action Foundation, filed an amicus brief in Atkinson v. Blanche, a challenge to the federal lifetime prohibition on firearms possession by nonviolent felons.
In 1998, Patrick Atkinson pleaded guilty to one count of mail fraud, a Class C felony. He was not incarcerated, but sentenced to two years’ probation, which was ultimately terminated one year early. He has lived a peaceful and law-abiding life ever since.
Under the Supreme Court’s text-and-history test for Second Amendment challenges, a firearm regulation is constitutional only if it is consistent with America’s historical tradition of firearm regulation.
Our amicus brief provides an extensive historical analysis of firearm prohibitions from colonial America through the nineteenth century. It emphasizes that America’s historical tradition of firearm regulation allows for the disarmament of dangerous persons—disaffected persons posing a threat to the government and individuals with a proven proclivity for violence—but that there is no historical tradition of disarming peaceable citizens. To the contrary, peaceable citizens—including those convicted of nonviolent felonies—were expressly permitted, and often required, to keep and bear arms.
The brief was filed in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit.
Please stay tuned to www.nraila.org for future updates on NRA-ILA’s ongoing efforts to defend your constitutional rights, and please visit www.nraila.org/litigation to keep up to date on NRA-ILA’s ongoing litigation efforts.
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