Prosecutors Say Yes to Restoring Gun Rights, Then Realize They Meant No

It's not easy for a convicted felon to regain his or her right to keep and bear arms in Virginia. First, that individual has to have the rest of their rights restored by the governor. Then, and only then, can someone petition the circuit court in the jurisdiction where they live and ask to have their Second Amendment rights restored. 

A person applying to have their right to keep and bear arms restored must show "good cause" (which seems constitutionally questionable to me), and the local prosecutor must be informed as well. A hearing is held, and prosecutors can object if they want. Then it's up to a judge to decide whether or not the individual can once again regain their rights. 

This convoluted system is getting some scrutiny in the southeastern part of the state after a former police officer who was convicted of voluntary manslaughter in the shooting of an 18-year-old in 2015 is now able to legally purchase and possess a firearm, thanks in part to a mistake by the Portsmouth Commonwealth’s Attorney's office. 

The attorney for Stephen Rankin, Tim Anderson, sent the former officer’s petition to have his firearm rights restored to the Portsmouth Commonwealth’s Attorney in late July, more than eight years after Rankin was released from prison.

... Thursday’s ruling by a substitute judge was virtually a given, because an assistant commonwealth’s attorney mistakenly agreed to support Rankin’s petition. At a Sept. 4 hearing on the matter, Assistant Commonwealth’s Attorney Mawiyah Mason signed her name on Rankin’s gun rights restoration.

Within hours, a more senior attorney of the office, Deputy Commonwealth’s Attorney Hallie Hogfeldt, filed a motion asking the judge reopen Rankin’s petition and deny it. Restoring Rankin’s right to possess a firearm, she argued, “does not serve the ends of justice or public safety.”

The ex-officer wrote that he needed a gun to protect himself and his family. That cause, Hogfeldt argued, “is insufficient to outweigh the substantial danger to public safety that his possession of a firearm poses.”

... Hogfeldt also wrote her office had not received Rankin’s petition in July and did not have sufficient time to prepare for the hearing and present its opposition to the judge, a claim that is inconsistent with proof of service documentation.

Portsmouth prosecutors conceded that their new attorney had made a mistake signing off on Rankin’s petition. 

The mistake is one thing, but claiming afterward that the office had never received Rankin's petition and didn't have time to prepare for the hearing sounds like an intentional misstatement of the facts, and Hogfeldt is lucky that the judge didn't challenge her account or threaten her with sanctions. 

As for Rankin, he served his 2 1/2 year sentence and has apparently lived a law-abiding life since he was released almost a decade ago. If his other rights have been restored, his right to keep and bear arms should be as well. I'd like to see Virginia adopt a law that automatically restores Second Amendment rights when other civil rights are restored, but there's no way that's going to happen with anti-gun Democrats in charge of the legislature and occupying the governor's office. 

Rankin's attorney also pointed out that Portsmouth prosecutors have offered no objections to others convicted of violent felonies who are seeking to have their Second Amendment rights restored, including someone convicted of murder in 2000 who had the support of prosecutors when they petitioned the court in March of this year. 

Anderson says based on that case and others, the Commonwealth's Attorney “cannot plausibly maintain that violent-felony history and firearm involvement are categorically disqualifying," and he makes a good point. 

I can't help but wonder if the fact that Rankin was a police officer when he fatally shot an 18-year-old played a role in the Commonwealth's Attorney's belated objection. Whatever the rationale, Rankin has completed his sentence and has apparently posed no threat to the community in the years since he was released. 

Restoring his rights was the correct decision, not because I'm sympathetic to a convicted killer, but because the Second Amendment is not a second-class right. If the Commonwealth of Virginia believes that Rankin's other civil rights should be restored, there's no reason for his right to keep and bear arms should remain forfeited.

Editor’s Note: The radical Left will stop at nothing to enact their extreme gun control agenda and strip us of our Second Amendment rights.

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