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EEllis wrote:I'm not going to look up the cases but it seems to me this case was in line with several other cases. Basically there has to be a way to challenge and get back your gun rights. There have been other cases in fed court where people have sued and received court orders forcing them to be allowed to purchase firearms. So this isn't new.

Actually, I would like you to look up those other cases, I would like to see them. There has not been a way to challenge and get back your gun rights for federal convictions other than seeking a presidential pardon for a number of years. Congress has refused to fund the statutory mechanism for a long time now. I suspect past "challenges" in court have focused more on how the law on prohibited persons was misapplied to an individual, not that the correct application of the law was unconstitutional. Would like to be wrong, so would like to see the cases.

One thing that was certainly new in this case, and of more import than focusing on a particular category of prohibited person, is the Circuit Court's strong statement that strict scrutiny should be the primary standard for assessing the constitutionality of gun laws. The opinion (and other commentaries) have pointed out that other circuits have favored using lesser standards to do this, and as a consequence no federal gun law has yet to be overturned for being unconstitutional since Heller. The Sixth's opinion pretty much states that the Heller established strict scrutiny as the bar, "presumptively legal" didn't mean that all existing federal gun laws are actually constitutional, but that Heller wasn't going to decide them, leaving their evaluation by the district and circuit courts until later using Heller as a guide. Unfortunately most other Circuits have subverted this by using intermediate scrutiny or strict scrutiny "lite" (or rational basis dressed up as something more).

Right now if a person is convicted of a state felony, but the state through some mechanism restores that person's 2A rights, then he no longer counts as a felon under federal law and that person can buy guns, get a concealed handgun license, etc, and not violate federal law. But not all states do that.

In the case above, the 6th ruled that because the relief or rehabilitation or what-have-you was available through a state mechanism in some states but not the one the man was living, and he couldn't go the federal route because it was unfunded, denying him a firearm because of his mental health commitment amounted to a violation of his 2A rights by the feds because of where he lives, and that's unconstitutional.

So if some felons can have their rights restored by state action, or simply by "operation of [state]law", are the feds violating the 2A rights of felons in states that do not have a mechanism for restoration of rights simply because of where they live?

I know the 6th cautioned that their decision applied only to those who had been involuntarily/temporarily committed in the past but were now OK, and didn't necessarily apply to other classes of "prohibited persons", but it still seems like similar situations are....similar. You were "not OK" in the past, but now (in some states) you are "OK."

cb1000rider wrote:Another sensational title that doesn't seem to have much to do with the actual ruling. Thanks, Fox. This isn't a mentally ill person. This is a person that had a mental health issue 30 years ago.

The Fox News article linked in the OP isn't titled like that, and doesn't say anything like what you are criticizing it for. In fact, the only mention of "mentally ill" in the article is in the quote from the judge who wrote the opinion, and he wasn't saying that Tyler was mentally ill either. Just the opposite. ??

It may be the one of the larger points of this decision is that the 6th Circuit is saying that the SCOTUS, in Heller, indicated that the standard for evaluating laws that appear to infringe on the 2A is "strict scrutiny," and "intermediate scrutiny" should only be used in exceptional cases. The 6th further says that most of the other Circuits have reversed this, they have rendered most of their 2A judgments since Heller using "intermediate scrutiny"...and this is wrong.

If there is a split in the circuits with how 2A cases are decided, maybe SCOTUS will pick up a case and use it to restate (and rebuke the other circuits) that strict scrutiny is THE standard to use?