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A Columbus man filed a federal lawsuit in August claiming it violated the U.S. Bill of Rights and the Mississippi Constitution to deny him the right to own a firearm, even though he is a convicted felon.
But when can a person be denied the right to own or possess a firearm? Is that denial permanent? What have courts already ruled on these matters?
Who can be stripped of their gun rights?
The Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution gives citizens the right to keep and bear arms. But it was the Supreme Court’s landmark D.C. v. Heller ruling in 2008 that firmly established an individual’s right to own firearms for self-defense, according to Martin Edwards, an assistant law professor at Ole Miss whose research specialties include firearms law.
Even that decision recognized limits to gun ownership, Edwards said.
By federal law, a person convicted of a felony, misdemeanor domestic violence or someone under a domestic violence restraining order is prohibited from gun ownership. Depending on the state, the prohibition can be either temporary or indefinite.
“Most places are indefinite,” Edwards said.
Can felons have gun rights restored?
In Mississippi, someone with a felony or domestic violence prohibition to gun possession can apply for a certificate of rehabilitation. Edwards said the statute does not specify how long someone must wait after the end of their sentence before petitioning for the certificate.
But if you don’t seek that relief, the prohibition continues indefinitely.
On the state level, Edwards said, you can file a petition with circuit court to have your rights restored, which typically entails presenting letters supporting that you have been living as a law-abiding citizen and do not pose a danger to the public.
Others, including law enforcement, can submit evidence countering that claim, and the court has full discretion on whether to grant the certificate.
“There was a 2023 case in the Mississippi Supreme Court where the court looks into this process a little bit,” Edwards said.
“Somebody who had been convicted of a felony fleeing that resulted in the death of a law enforcement officer applied for rehabilitation. Lots of support from his side. Then of course the law enforcement community came in and said this is very dangerous, and the court denied it.”
The Mississippi Supreme Court upheld the lower court’s decision on appeal, Edwards said.
State law allows a person to file a petition for a certificate of rehabilitation in their county of residence, Edwards said, even if the charges are federal or from another state.
“I suppose if you move to Mississippi and you’re under the felon prohibitor (from another state) … it does appear the statute has an avenue for that,” he said.
Does it matter if the conviction was for a violent crime?
Neither Mississippi nor federal law delineates between violent and nonviolent felonies, as far as who would be eligible for a certificate of rehabilitation.
However, since a person’s danger to society is a standard for obtaining a certificate, Edwards said it is rare to see someone convicted of a violent felony have their gun rights restored. Rarer still, he imagined, if the crime involved a firearm.
“It appears at least the court is allowed to consider the nature of the crime in the process,” he said.
Is restricting gun rights even constitutional?
A number of gun rights prohibition challenges have woven their way through the legal system.
For example, in NYSRPA v. Bruen in 2022, the U.S. Supreme Court established a new test for gun rights restrictions, Edwards said, as the ruling established those restrictions must be consistent with the “history and tradition” of the nation’s laws.
“The idea is you have to go back to somewhere around the founding period … or some time even up to the era of Reconstruction and find laws that had been passed by somebody that are expansive enough or there’s enough of them that you can say there’s a history or tradition of regulating firearms in that way,” Edwards said.
In the U.S. v. Rahimi case two years later, the court applied this test in upholding the legality of prohibiting someone under a domestic violence restraining order from possessing a firearm.
According to antiquated laws cited in the case, someone could go to a justice of the peace if they believed a specific person might hurt them. The JP could then require the potential threat to post a surety bond that would carry financial consequences if they breached the peace.
In Rahimi, the court found the modern domestic violence prohibition for gun possession was analogous to that historic law.
Likewise, a court could conceivably find the felony prohibitor consistent with the history and tradition of disarming people who are violent or may be violent in the future, Edwards said. But the Rahimi ruling opens up questions on whether the prohibitor should be applied to nonviolent offenders.
He used the example of a case in Iowa where a woman was convicted of passing a $500 fraudulent check.
“That was a felony, but then somebody who writes a bogus check is no more likely to commit an act of violence with a firearm than just anyone else who is not a felon,” he said.
Zack Plair is the managing editor for The Dispatch.
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