President-elect Donald Trump's sentence of "unconditional release" for violating a New York law that prohibits falsification of business records entails neither jail nor probation. But unless Trump successfully challenges his 34 felony convictions on appeal, he will suffer a lifelong penalty that should trouble civil libertarians across the political spectrum.
Because Trump's convictions involved crimes that were notionally punishable by more than a year of incarceration, they made him subject to a federal law that bars him from possessing firearms. That law is unfair, illogical, and constitutionally dubious because it deprives Americans of their Second Amendment rights even when they have no history of violence.
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg's case against Trump was based on a vague, convoluted, and highly questionable legal theory aimed at punishing conduct that was not inherently criminal: trying to conceal his 2016 nondisclosure agreement with porn star Stormy Daniels. But even if you think the prosecution was justified, the allegations underlying it provide no reason to believe Trump is prone to gun violence.
