The decades-old U.S. law barring Americans who commit domestic-violence from possessing guns contradicts the nation’s “historical tradition” of access to firearms even for people who aren’t “model citizens,” a federal appeals court ruled.
The U.S. Justice Department’s idea of who qualifies as “law-abiding, responsible citizens” when it comes to gun ownership would allow Congress to restrict the 2nd Amendment for anyone it deems unworthy, the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said in a decision Thursday finding the law unconstitutional.
“Could speeders be stripped of their right to keep and bear arms?” the New Orleans-based court asked in the decision. “Political nonconformists? People who do not recycle or drive an electric vehicle?”
