The gun control group 97 Percent is supposed to be different from Everytown for Gun Safety, Giffords, Brady, and other anti-gun outfits because it supports reducing gun deaths "while respecting Americans' Second Amendment rights." All too often, however, the group falls right in line alongside better-known gun control groups in supporting "universal" background checks, state-level gun licensing laws, "red flag" statutes... and now lifetime bans on gun ownership for anyone convicted of non-violent felony offenses. 

Fuud group @97Percentorg has apparently changed its stance and now come out in support of denying Second Amendment rights to non-violent felons: https://t.co/mbQPB2Pldp pic.twitter.com/BIcnpPOByE

— Rob Romano (@2Aupdates) July 19, 2024

As Rob reminded his followers on X (and if you're not following @2AUpdates you should be), less than a year ago 97 Percent was singing a very different tune. 

97Percent one year ago vs. 97Percent today https://t.co/GWS4uKBlUa pic.twitter.com/ayf0ZMOr2f

— Rob Romano (@2Aupdates) July 19, 2024

Now, to be fair, the "someone with a felony charge for insider trading probably isn't going to shoot someone, but someone who has beaten their wife over and over again might" statement didn't come from then-97 Percent executive director Mathew Littman, but from his podcast guest Leigh McGowan. On the other hand, I actually watched that particular podcast to get the context of McGowan's comment (which will be the last time I'll willingly watch anything involving her excruciatingly annoying delivery, I might add), and McGowan got no pushback at all from Littman. In fact, he nodded his head and said "right" during her spiel. 

So, even if 97 Percent hadn't officially come out in support of guys like Bryan Range, who's been prohibited from possessing a firearm after pleading guilty to a misdemeanor charge of falsifying his income on a food stamp application decades ago (a crime punishable by more than one year in prison in Pennsylvania, though Range received probation for his actions), I think it's fair to say that the group wasn't vocally opposed to Range having his Second Amendment rights restored. 

Now, however, 97 Percent has fully adopted the position taken by the Biden administration and the rest of the gun control lobby; any act of lawlessness, no matter how minor or non-violent in nature, is cause to strip someone of their Second Amendment rights. 

A federal appeals court agreed this week to reconsider the constitutionality of a 1968 federal law banning convicted felons from owning guns, setting aside a panel’s ruling that the law violated the right to bear arms, at least for those convicted of nonviolent felonies. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said a majority of its 29 judges had voted to refer the issue to an 11-judge panel for a new hearing, an order that reinstates the law in the nine Western states covered by the court. —San Francisco Chronicle

We say: We agree with Judge Milan Smith, who said the Supreme Court has held that “the Second Amendment right belongs only to law-abiding citizens.” Several other appeals courts have used that rationale to uphold the 1968 law, and the Supreme Court strengthened it in June with the Rahimi decision. We urge the panel to confirm the constitutionality of these important, life-saving laws.

Contrary to the position taken by Judge Smith (and 97 Percent), the Supreme Court has not held that the Second Amendment right belongs only to law-abiding citizens. In fact, in Rahimi the Court squarely rejected the DOJ's contention that Zachey Rahimi could be stripped of his right to keep and bear arms because he was not "responsible"; a phrase government attorneys conceded they were using interchangeably with "law-abiding." From Chief Justice John Roberts' majority opinion:

we reject the Government’s contention that Rahimi may be disarmed simply because he is not “responsible.” “Responsible” is a vague term. It is unclear whatsuch a rule would entail. Nor does such a line derive from our case law. In Heller and Bruen, we used the term “responsible” to describe the class of ordinary citizens who undoubtedly enjoy the Second Amendment right. But those decisions did not define the term and said nothing about the status of citizens who were not “responsible.” The question was simply not presented.

I don't expect this information will change 97 Percent's position. So long as the gun control lobby writ large is opposed to a path to restoring 2A rights for non-violent felons, I suspect that 97 Percent will be in 100% agreement with their friends at Everytown, Giffords, and the other groups pushing to regulate our Second Amendment rights into non-existence.