Second Amendment Roundup: Attorney General to resume removal of disabilities

ATF is prohibited by appropriations riders from considering petitions.

The Gun Control Act (GCA) prohibits persons with certain legal disabilities from possession of firearms.  It also provides a procedure to petition to remove those disabilities on a finding that the person will not be likely to act in a manner dangerous to public safety.  Since 1992, appropriations riders have been enacted to prohibit the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives from considering such petitions.  Attorney General Pam Bondi has announced an interim final rule that will allow her office to process the petitions directly.

Persons with felony convictions and other legal disabilities are prohibited from having guns by 18 U.S.C. § 922(g).  However, § 925(c) provides that such persons may apply to the Attorney General for relief from such disabilities if the circumstances and the person's record and reputation are such that "the applicant will not be likely to act in a manner dangerous to public safety and that the granting of the relief would not be contrary to the public interest."  A denial may be reviewed by a federal court.

Annual appropriations riders since 1992 have prohibited ATF from using funds to consider petitions to remove disabilities.  The Attorney General had previously delegated authority to ATF to exercise its powers under 18 U.S.C. chapter "44 (related to firearms)," which is the GCA.  28 C.F.R. § 0.130(a)(1).  The interim final rule changes that to refer to chapter "44 (related to firearms), except for 18 U.S.C. 925(c)."  The Attorney General thus resumes administration of the disability removal function.

The rule also removes 27 C.F.R. § 478.144, which was the long moribund ATF regulation about processing disability removal petitions.  That regulation reflected its origin in 1968 by requiring that applications be submitted "in triplicate."

The regulation had one provision that the Attorney General should not replicate in how her office administers the program: "Relief will not be granted to an applicant who is prohibited from possessing all types of firearms by the law of the State where such applicant resides."  That is improper because § 925(c) is designed to remove the federal disability and shield one from federal prosecution.  Further, depending on state law, a state court or other entity that removes state disabilities may be unlikely to do so as long as the federal disability stands.

As reasons for the interim final rule, General Bondi explains that the issue "has taken on greater significance given developments in Second Amendment jurisprudence since 1992."  President Trump's Executive Order of February 7 directed the Attorney General to examine all regulations "to assess any ongoing infringements of the Second Amendment rights of our citizens."  The commentary to the interim final rule explains: "Consistent with this Order and with the Department's own strong support for all constitutional rights, including 'the right of the people to keep and bear arms' enshrined in the Second Amendment, the Department has begun that review process in earnest…."  Accordingly:

From the Department's perspective, regardless of whether the Second Amendment requires an individualized restoration process for persons subject to 18 U.S.C. 922(g), 18 U.S.C. 925(c) reflects an appropriate avenue to restore firearm rights to certain individuals who no longer warrant such disability based on a combination of the nature of their past criminal activity and their subsequent and current law-abiding behavior while screening out others for whom full restoration of firearm rights would not be appropriate.

However, it continues, the Department "also supports existing laws that ensure, for example, that violent and dangerous persons remain disabled from lawfully acquiring firearms."  That's exactly the direction in which some courts have been moving when they decide that, under the Second Amendment, categorical bans cannot be applied to persons who are not violent or dangerous.  Other courts have upheld categorical bans and rejected as-applied challenges.  As explained in my recent post, there is a clear circuit conflict on the issue that warrants resolution by the Supreme Court.

But maybe the interim final rule, depending on the nature of the case, will get the Supreme Court off the hook.  If persons with legal disabilities may now apply to the Attorney General for relief, the issue may become moot in many cases, as it did in BATF v. Galioto (1986), in which the Court ruled that an equal protection challenge to § 925(c) became moot when the Firearm Owners' Protection Act of 1986 extended the statute to include all § 922(g) disabilities, including mental commitments.

However, there are some circumstances where an administrative process may not necessarily moot a Second Amendment claim.  In Range v. Attorney General (3rd Cir. 2024), which I previously discussed here, Bryan Range should never have been disarmed in the first place.  As the court explained, "today, felonies include a wide swath of crimes, some of which seem minor."  For instance, "returning out-of-state bottles or cans" in Michigan is a felony, as is uttering "profane language by means of radio communication" under federal law.  Unqualified deference "gives legislatures unreviewable power to manipulate the Second Amendment by choosing a label."  While the Supreme Court's Rahimi holding "did bless disarming (at least temporarily) physically dangerous people," the government had no evidence that Range "poses a physical danger to others or that food-stamp fraud is closely associated with physical danger."

By ruling in a case like Range, the Supreme Court will give general guidance regarding the types of convictions that should or should not result in disarming a person.  The line will undoubtedly be drawn in terms of whether the type of crime would pose a threat of danger and violence to others.  Guidance from the Court will also assist the Attorney General in deciding which applicants deserve to have disabilities removed and which do not.  It should also encourage legislatures to be more cautious in labeling offenses that don't deserve the appellation as felonies.

The interim final rule will lessen the burden of district courts having to decide as-applied challenges to the undoubtedly large numbers of plaintiffs who will otherwise mount challenges. Challengers who obtain relief administratively will not need to file Second Amendment claims.  The rule regenerates an administrative procedure that will be far less expensive for applicants and simultaneously checks abuse of discretion by allowing review by the district courts.

As the commentary explains, the rule is exempt from the usual APA requirements of notice and comment and a 30-day delay in effective date because it relates to a matter of agency organization, procedure, or practice.  However, comments are welcome by June 18, 2025, before a final rule is issued.

* * *

The ATF website shows that its leadership now includes Kash Patel as the new Acting Director while Marvin Richardson continues as the Deputy Director.  Scroll down and you'll see Robert Leider as Assistant Director/Chief Counsel.  An Associate Professor of Law from George Mason University, Robert is a well-respected scholar on both the Second Amendment and firearm law issues.  You can hear an interview here on Robert's plans to reform ATF.  Congratulations to Chief Counsel Leider.

Comments

[Dan Schiavetta]

The important thing, as always, is to increase gun sales.

[Noscitur a sociis]

As always, if all you have is an anti-capitalist hammer, everything you dislike starts to look like a corporate-conspiracy nail.

[Grifhunter]

Gun sales to who? The maybe 100 people a year who get relief from a disability after an AG review? Wow, that'l pump up those gun manufacturer stocks!!

[Brett Bellmore]

Remember, it's an article of faith among gun controllers that the whole pro-gun movement is astroturfed by the firearms industry.

It has to be! Nobody could really value this right, after all.

[Swede425]

That's not true.
Also, Glock paid me to say that.

[Sarcastr0]

No, Brett.

Yet again you take a minority view and generalize so you can make things black and white.

[Brett Bellmore]

Well, of course it's a minority view: Gun controllers ARE a minority in this country, after all.

But it pretty clearly IS Dan's view: That the only reason for opposing gun control is to maximize firearms industry profits, and why would that be, if not that the gun rights movement was astroturf?

In fact, that the NRA and other gun rights groups are just gun industry astroturf, as stupid as it is, IS a common slander leveled by the gun control movement. It's projection, of course; There isn't an anti-gun organization in the country that is funded by membership dues, they're all creatures of foundations and grants.

Mainstream Media Downplay NRA's Close Ties to Gun Industry

"The NRA is primarily a front group for the nation's gun manufacturers. But you wouldn't know it from reading the major media outlets."

The NRA vs. America

"Billing itself as the nation’s “oldest civil rights organization,” the NRA still claims to represent the interests of marksmen, hunters and responsible gun owners. But over the past decade and a half, the NRA has morphed into a front group for the firearms industry, whose profits are increasingly dependent on the sale of military-bred weapons like the assault rifles used in the massacres at Newtown and Aurora, Colorado."

[Sarcastr0]

Again, you generalize.

There are lots of beliefs among those for gun regulation.
And lots of levels of gun regulation they might think are constitutional and called for.
And lot of motives.

You lump them altogether, and add a dollop of confirmation bias. It makes things simple, but it does not make you correct.

That would be like if I said gun rights people were all jonesing for the big race war.
Sure, I can find quotes. In the media and even on the Conspiracy. But that'd be reductive and wrong.

[Michael Ejercito]

So what different motives do they have?

[Sarcastr0]

This is hardly exhaustive, and not my personal take.

Most folks I talk to who want more gun restrictions think that will address the high US gun death rate, though some are specifically motivated by mass shootings.

Some think the self-defense idea is just a hero fantasy (I don't think that matters for rights analysis by apparently YMMV)

Some seem just oppositional to gun rights folks.

Some think policy should be left up to the states whenever possible.

And that doesn't address the varying boundaries people set for what can be regulated!

[Brett Bellmore]

Again, you don't care about evidence. Dan is right here, leveling the accusation. I've demonstrated that it's a routine slander, has been leveled over and over for decades.

***

Sure, there are gun regulations that might be constitutional. They're not gun control.

Not any more than the existence of health and safety regulations made laws segregating restaurants not Jim Crow, just because they were justifiable regulations of restaurants.

You have to distinguish between gun "laws" and gun "control"; The gun control movement is a movement opposed to the very existence of the right to keep and bear arms. You've got Dan, among others in these comments, demonstrating that quite clearly: They don't want guns to be safe, they want them GONE.

I mean, look at the damned law we're discussing here! There's a legal process for somebody to prove they're no threat at all, and get their 2nd amendment rights restored, and Congress prohibited spending money to do it!

The goal of that prohibition, quite directly, was to make sure nobody got their rights back just because there wasn't any reason they shouldn't get them back. It was motivated by hostility to the right, of the sort several posters here, such as Dan, regularly demonstrate.

And that's what the gun control movement is all about: Hostility to the right, the determination to abolish it. Not safety.

[Sarcastr0]

You're confused between:

Some people have this position
and
All people have this position.

It's a really easy distinction to make; but you're like the worst person I've ever seen at making it.

You have to distinguish between gun "laws" and gun "control"
Now we're into protean nonsense. Just like the 'far left' is whatever the accuser wants it to be, this distinction has no defined difference; it just lets you shuttle people around to fit whatever story you're telling today.

[Brett Bellmore]

I'm not confused, I clearly stated above that gun controllers are a minority in this country. So, how could all people have that position?

You LIKE gun control, and it's very useful to gun controllers to pretend to just be interested in safety, so you like to pretend that's all the gun controllers want.

But they don't want safety, they want people disarmed, and they're not shy about saying it.

And the law we are discussing is an example of that: It forbids restoring the right to people even if they can establish that they aren't a risk. So, why would anyone who just wanted safety support this law?

Because they just want to deny the right to as many people as they can, obviously.

[Sarcastr0]

I think gun regulations are reasonable but disagree with many of them.
That is not the same as liking it.

This is not a position you could ever understand.

Instead, you use generalization and telepathy so there is zero gap between people you disagree with and purely evil villains.

[Kazinski]

Do you feel the same way about restoring voting rights for felons?

Or maybe that's changed now that turnout models show an advantage for the GOP with higher turnout?

[Michael Ejercito]

Do you hacve a problem with that?

[Frank Drackman]

It's called Freedom, Baby, you want to live in some Nazi Confiscation Society go to Canada (not as easy as it sounds, according to their Website (Canada has a Website? probably on Compuserve) you need a valid Passport)
What happened to your side? (Dr) Hunter S. Thompson was one of the biggest "Gun Nuts" out there (if my Med School won't take my beautiful body plan #2 is to fire my ashes from a Cannon, like HST did

[TaioF920]

Do you realize how insignificant gun sales are as a component of the economy?

[ReaderY]

It’s constitutional. But I personally don’t like it when Congress puts a law on the books, then denies funding to enforce it. I’d prefer they either repeal the law or fund enforcement.

But I think the Administration was entitled to do this. The Attorney General delegated the decision process to ATF. So if Congress refuses to fund the ATF, it can simply undelegate.

I am in general not opposed to clemency procedures, fairly and properly used.

[Dr. Ed 2]

What about psych disqualifications?

The one that I thought was quite unjust was vets who needed someone to manage their finances being disqualified when ability to balance a checkbook has nothing to do with being a safe and responsible gun owner.

[Michael Ejercito]

Which state had such a law?

[Carl_N_Brown]

It was not a state law. The subject is federal gun rights restoration under the federal 1968 GCA as amended.
Obama Democrats wanted the VA to flag veterans who had a fiduciary handle their money affairs as "prohibited persons" in the National Instant Check System data base for gun sales background checks.

[Noscitur a sociis]

Apologies if I’m missing something obvious, but… how is this legal?

[TwelveInchPianist]

Because it’s not the ATF processing the applications?

[TwelveInchPianist]

I mean, maybe the obvious thing you’re missing is the first four sentences of the post.

[Noscitur a sociis]

The appropriations riders also prohibit using any appropriated funds to transfer the responsibility for processing the requests to a different entity. Hence my question.

[Kazinski]

The House should probably impeach her then.

No one should be able to get the legal relief they are entitled to if it entails the deminimis expenditure of public funds.

[Noscitur a sociis]

If your position is that the executive should ignore the limits on its authority to something good, that’s fine.

AG Bondi appears to feel differently, or she could have just told ATF to start processing these things again. But I’m not sure why this fixes things.

[Carl_N_Brown]

It would take an Act of Congress to restore funding to the ATF office to process petitions for restoration of gun rights. Funding was removed by an Act of Congress.

[Kazinski]

"However, § 925(c) provides that such persons may apply to the Attorney General for relief from such disabilities if the circumstances and the person's record and reputation are such that "the applicant will not be likely to act in a manner dangerous to public safety and that the granting of the relief would not be contrary to the public interest."

The appropriations rider doesn't allow transferring responsibility from the ATF to another agency, this is not a transfer, of responsibility, its exercising the power the AG has always had.

Lets say AG Bondi herself directed the applications be sent to her desk, and personally signed the order restoring the gun rights to those applicants.

Is it your position that her pay should be docked for the time she used to restore the rights?

[Absaroka]

Well, my position is I don't like guardhouse lawyering. Congress pretty explicitly wanted/wants to not have restorations done. I think they were dead wrong to stop them, but doing so is withing their power. All is would take is one little bill fast tracked through congress saying 'it's OK to do rights restoration again'.

As I said elsewhere as well, doing it this way means it can/will be reversed by the next dem president. The R's have all the presidency, both houses of congress, and a sympathetic court. Why not just do it the way that's hardest to reverse?

[Noscitur a sociis]

No, my position is that because she’s being paid whenever she’s working on official business, she can’t do it at all.

[Kazinski]

Well its my position that the Congress can't micromanage the AG that way.

The Executive Branch shall faithfully execute the laws, the AG is a fully funded executive Branch position, the law authorizes the AG to restore gun rights.

The Congress can repeal the law that authorizes the restoration of gun rights, but it hasn't.

But what it can't do. Is come up with a list of on the clock, off the clock schedule of lawful duties of the AG.

[Squirrelloid]

The responsibility is not being transferred to a different entity. Rather, the original responsibility lies with the AG, and they transferred it to the ATF. They're revoking a transfer of responsibility and resuming their original role.

That was all pretty obvious from the OP.

[Noscitur a sociis]

And Congress said they can’t spend money to do that. So again… how is this legal?

[Ken Arromdee]

If someone revokes your authority, you don't get to keep the authority by refusing to spend funds on having your own authority revoked.

[Brett Bellmore]

Congress said the BATF couldn't spend money to do that. Not that nobody in the entire government could. So the AG is doing it directly, instead of delegating to the BATF.

[Noscitur a sociis]

Congress also said that the entire government couldn’t spend any money to reassign that function from the ATF to someone else.

[Brett Bellmore]

And they didn't. The AG is just going to resume doing what the AG had the authority to do all along.

I will say that, if the GOP can't be bothered to repeal that rider, they're soon going to have to start looking for some new constituents; Gun owners are rather tired of being the lowest priority interest group when it comes to favorable legislation.

[Toranth]

Here is the announcement with the reasoning and citations they claim to be using.

My TL;DR: From what the announcement says, the authority is explicitly given to the Attorney General, who then delegated to the BATF. The BATF's funding declares that none of those funds can be used to remove the disability for individuals (but can be for corporations? Weird). The AG is withdrawing the delegation and will use different DOJ funds to process individual applications. Because the AG always had the authority, this isn't a delegation or transfer, the statement says.

I think I've summarized correctly. I may be missing something, but the claim presented by the government here seems to be straightforward - valid or not. Someone that feels like looking at the cited sections can give a better appraisal for whether or not this is a good argument, or BS.

[Noscitur a sociis]

The rider says;

Provided, That none of the funds appropriated herein [i.e. to the ATF] shall be available to investigate or act upon applications for relief from Federal firearms disabilities under section 925(c) of title 18, United States Code: Provided further, That such funds shall be available to investigate and act upon applications filed by corporations for relief from Federal firearms disabilities under section 925(c) of title 18, United States Code: Provided further, That no funds made available by this or any other Act may be used to transfer the functions, missions, or activities of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives to other agencies or Departments.

[Kazinski]

"That no funds made available by this or any other Act may be used to transfer the functions, missions, or activities of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives to other agencies or Departments."

And the claim is that DOJ always had the functions, missions, and activities, to be able to process, and the fact DOK had delegated authority to ATF never removed their own authority.

[ReaderY]

Aha.

When Congress prohibits ATF from doing something, it seems a bit of a stretch to continue to claim that the something is still part of ATF’s functions.

[Brett Bellmore]

That last bit was to protect the BATF from being shut down and its responsibilities parceled out to other agencies. It really isn't about this particular issue.

[Sarcastr0]

The text is the text, Brett.

You, of all people...never mind. That's the Brett from before Trump.

[Brett Bellmore]

Sarcastr0, despite the fact that the AG had delegated this activity to the BATF, the AG never gave up the power to do it personally. So there's no transfer going on here, and no spending on such a transfer.

So it's all legal.

[Toranth]

This in no way contradicts what the announcement says?
The announcement says the BATF isn't doing anything here. The DOJ, under the authority explicitly granted to the AG, is doing it.

So what is your argument? Did you read the announcement?

[ReaderY]

[Absaroka]

"Apologies if I’m missing something obvious, but… how is this legal?"

I'm with you. I'm not a fan of guardhouse lawyering. When Mom told me to keep my hands out of the cookie jar, it wasn't OK for me to use tongs to pull cookies out.

Congress had a pretty clear intent to stop restorations[1]. I criticized Biden for his multiple attempts to cancel student loans, and the same criticism applies here. All Trump has to do is put a bill through congress. Inter alia, that would be harder for the next Dem president to reverse.

[1]And just FWIW, I have long criticized congress for that, and the SC for allowing it in US v Bean.

[Ken Arromdee]

Different parts of the government get to do governmental things. It isn't Congress ruling over all. Your mother, and not you, gets to decide what you can eat. That's the difference.

And the whole situation is already "I used tongs". The reason that Congress decided to ban this by not permitting funds to be spent is that Congress doesn't have the authority to just say "you can't do it". Denying funds is *already* using a loophole to effectively ban something they are not permitted to ban directly. If you complain about the AG using a loophole, yoiu are starting at the wrong point.

[Absaroka]

" Denying funds is *already* using a loophole to effectively ban something they are not permitted to ban directly."

I might agree if the SC hadn't expressly approved the practice in US v Bean.

TBC, I think the SC called that one wrong, and hope they would overrule it, or congress would drop the ban, but 'congress gets to control the purse strings' seems pretty basic.

Play it forward: it's 2029 and we have president AOC and a republican congress. AOC announces she is ordering the ATF to do door to door inspections to make sure no one has a 15.9 inch barrel on any of their rifles. Congress 'no funds may be expended on door to door barrel checks'. The SC agrees congress has that power. AOC says 'screw you SC and congress, the ATF works for me'. Does your logic change?

[Harvey Mosley]

If Congress says "no funds may be expended..." then she would be violating the law. If Congress says "no funds for the ATF may be expended..." then she still couldn't have the ATF do it. But she could have the FBI do it. (Assuming that the law was otherwise constitutional.)

[wnoise]

Congress writes laws. The ban on felons possessing guns is federal law. The exception allowing a petition is federal law. Of course Congress can just change it to not allow that exception.

[Ken Arromdee]

Then why did they do it by banning the use of funds instead of just banning it, period? It is obviously more difficult for Congress to do a direct ban or they *would* have done a direct ban.

[TaioF920]

Normally, I wouldn't like something like this. However, leftists have used before Democrat Party judges the argument that the felon prohibition doesn't violate the 2nd Amendment because there is a process to get the removal of disabilities in place. If you are going to rely on that to support infringement, then the process has to be more than illusory.

[Bubba Jones]

How is it legal to bar the seeking of redress from the government?

If congress isn't going to fund the individual review of petitions, they should provide blanket relief in the name of cost effectiveness.

[Noscitur a sociis]

How is it legal to bar the seeking of redress from the government?

The appropriations riders don’t bar anyone from seeking redress. They bar the government from granting one form of it.

[Swede425]

The Bureau of Assholes Taking Freedoms needs to be disbanded entirely or reduced to the absolute minimum number of clerks needed to file paperwork with no ability to make, interpret or enforce laws. And once they've perfected that, they should be fired, too.

[Brett Bellmore]

Indeed, it's convenient that Congress collected a long list of unconstitutional activities in one agency. Which should be abolished and never replaced.

[Carl_N_Brown]

BATF originated as the Bureau of Prohibition established to enforce the Volstead Act which implemented the 1919 Eighteenth Amendment. They have a long and storied history.

[Frank Drackman]

It's "BATFE" (they added explosives to the Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (what party's complete without all 3?) in 2003, and they should be stored, on one of those British Channel Islands that's still contaminated with Anthrax.

[Brett Bellmore]

Long and sordid, if you ask me.

[darkknight9]

"...returning out-of-state bottles or cans" in Michigan is a felony..."

If Michigan didn't also consist of yoopers, I'd say this was crazy.

[Carl_N_Brown]

If this goes through, persons convicted of non-violent felonies and/or of non-violent misdemeanors punishable by more than two years sentence, will be able to petition the federal government for restoration of federal gun tights.

In the 1960s debates on what became the 1968 Gun Control Act, we were given the false impression that the intent of Congress was to revoke gun rights for persons convicted of violent felonies. But no distinction is made between violent felons (who are a threat to the general public) and non-violent felons (who are not a threat to the general public).

Congress defunded the ATF office that would process petitions for restoration of rights in 1992. Which means nonviolent convicted felons cannot get federal gun rights restored.
Like Martha Stewart, found guilty on charges of lying and obstruction after a shady stock trade.
Like a lobsterman who had the wrong size of lobsters in the wrong color-coded lobster bin (who claimed it was just temporary and he had no intent of sending them to market).

[Brett Bellmore]

Despite what Sarcastr0 will claim, the fact is that the gun controllers are just flat out opposed to the existence of this right, and will do anything they can get away with to strip as many people of it as possible, and to keep them from getting it back.

It's not about safety, it's about them hating that this right exists. Safety is just an excuse to attack it, they're opposed to the existence of the RKBA on a philosophical level.

[TaioF920]

They've admitted that! Nobody can reasonably argue otherwise.

[Brett Bellmore]

Possibly the most irritating thing about this whole debate, that I've been involved in since the late 70's, is the way gun control advocates insist that we have to pretend they haven't told us what they're trying to do.

[TaioF920]

Yes. They have admitted that the purpose of the "good and substantial" regime that existed prior to Bruen was to limit the number of people carrying. So, the purpose of the law is to improve safety by limiting who can exercise the right.

Then they pretend that they only want "common sense" restrictions.

[Carl_N_Brown]

My reading on the subject of gun control started with Carl Bakal's "This Very Day A Gun May Kill You!" (1959) and the expanded paperbook version "NO Right to Bear Arms" (1968).

From about 1963 to 1968 I sat down a few evenings every summer at the public library with the Reader's Guide to Periodical Literature, subject firearms legislation, and tracked down in the library's magazine archives articles promoting gun control, making notes.

What I read about gun control from gun control advocates reminded me of the rhetoric of the Drys who promoted and defended our local option prohibition of alcohol, 1953-1968 and the Kefauver Commission attacks on comic books for seducing the innocents of America into juvenile delinquency. The way gun control advocates typified "gun nuts" and NRA did not match the NRA members and the majority of gun owners I knew.

In 1977 the Carter Administration hired James D. Wright and Peter Rossi, two liberal sociologists from Amherst, to study guns, crime and violence in America. At Kingsport Press I helped typeset the Aldine Press 1983 edition of their book "Under the Gun". I paid attention. They admitted they started their research accepting the "conventional wisdom" about guns, crime, and gun control (as John Lott later said he did initially) but their research called into question many aspects of that "convention wisdom" (as Lott says his research did).

All this indicates to me that, while there are strident Carrie Nations in the gun control movement wanting to take their axes and give the gun shops forty whackes, there are a lot of gun control supporters who are merely ignorant and mistaken, and who would benefit from being informed and corrected, rather than lumped in with the fanatics.

[The Margrave of Azilia]

Hypothetically, assume the president demands the opinion of the Attorney General, in writing, on the question of whether A. B. should get his gun rights back. Legal and Constitutional implications?

[Krenn]

"Relief will not be granted to an applicant who is prohibited from possessing all types of firearms by the law of the State where such applicant resides."

Does that mean the Federal A.G. can't restore federal gun rights if an individual state has taken them away from the felon in question, or that even if a Federal A.G. DOES restore federal gun rights, the felon hasn't received 'relief' yet, because he still has to go through the state process, too?

I would have thought it meant the second scenario...

[Noscitur a sociis]

It means that the federal government won’t grant an application from a person if they are banned from possessing firearms by the law of the state where they live.

[wvattorney13]

But my state has a restoration process that says you don't qualify so long as you are barred federally. It seems that those two laws would be in perpetual deadlock with each other preventing someone from getting relief in either place.

[Noscitur a sociis]

That would appear to be true.

[Noscitur a sociis]

For instance, "returning out-of-state bottles or cans" in Michigan is a felony,

I believe this is true only if you do it 10,000 times, so outside of Newman and Kramer I don’t think this comes up very often.

[TaioF920]

The problem with the federal prohibition is it gives states the power to decide who is federally prohibited from owning guns. That should never be the case.

[ReaderY]

Federal law frequently incorporates state law. Why should this be any different?

[TaioF920]

Are you referring to bankruptcy proceedings? Or travel to another state to commit a crime?

[wvattorney13]

I don't see how this will moot the Range case or cause any relief on the courts in hearing these types of petitions.

The Plaintiff's argument is that he is entitled to own a gun, not entitled to the privilege of petitioning the AG to own a gun. What if the plaintiff things the AG's criteria is too stringent? (Which will be every plaintiff who is denied)

Won't the court have to decide that?

[ReaderY]

One often has to exhaust administrative remedies before one can go to court. If the Attorney General agrees with the plaintiff, then there is no dispute and the courts’ time isn’t wasted.

[ReaderY]

A legislature, as I’ve said before, can always compromise between two directly opposing policy positions, even if the compromise it chooses may seem a little odd. But when it does, I think arguments based on intent or what “makes sense” lose some of their force.

Congress here essentially directed ATF not to enforce the law, but left the law on the books. I think the fact it left the law on the books means it intended the law to be enforced, just not by ATF. I also think the fact it essentially directed ATF not to enforce the law (but left the law on the books) means Congress does not regard enforcement of the law as one of the ATF’s functions, i.e. it thinks it is not a function ATF should perform. This in turn means that in having the Attorney General’s office itself enforce the law, the Attorney General has not transferred any of the ATF’s functions elsewhere.