The right to keep and bear arms is a natural right, meaning all free men and women have that right, regardless of where they are on the planet. It's part of why so many of us find other nations' gun laws so insulting. It's a repression of people's right to have weapons to defend themselves and their nation.

A repression that goes out the window in the face of invasion, it should be noted.

But that brings about the question of illegal immigrants. Do they forfeit their rights when they enter the United States illegally, or do they maintain their rights as they've not actually been convicted of a felony or anything else?

For a long time, the official line is that they don't get to have guns. Period.

Yet a federal court has decided something quite differently.

The Second Amendment protects people’s ability to own a gun even if they’ve entered the country illegally.

That’s the ruling handed down by US District Judge Sharon Johnson Coleman on Friday. She found the federal prohibition on illegal immigrants owning guns is unconstitutional, at least as applied to Heriberto Carbajal-Flores. She ruled the ban did not fit with America’s historical tradition of gun regulation as required under the Supreme Court’s landmark New York State Rifle and Pistol Association v. Bruen ruling.

“The noncitizen possession statute, 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(5), violates the Second Amendment as applied to Carbajal-Flores,” Judge Colman wrote in US v. Carbajal-Flores. “Thus, the Court grants Carbajal-Flores’ motion to dismiss.”

The ruling is the latest fallout from the new standard for Second Amendment cases set in Bruen. Since the landmark case was decided in 2022, a wide swath of state and federal gun restrictions have come under increased scrutiny in the courts. Among the most commonly recurring questions raised by the new standard is who can be barred from owning guns, and the Carbajal-Flores case is among the first to examine whether people who entered the country illegally are among them.

Judge Coleman, a Barack Obama appointee, initially found the gun ban for illegal immigrants was constitutional back in April 2022. However, she agreed to reconsider the case in light of rulings from the federal appeals courts in the Third and Seventh Circuit that questioned whether those convicted of non-violent crimes could be permanently disarmed after the High Court handed down Bruen in June 2022. She concluded breaking misdemeanor immigration laws alone is not enough justification to strip somebody of their gun rights under the new test.

“[C]arbajal-Flores has never been convicted of a felony, a violent crime, or a crime involving the use of a weapon. Even in the present case, Carbajal-Flores contends that he received and used the handgun solely for self-protection and protection of property during a time of documented civil unrest in the Spring of 2020,” Judge Coleman wrote. “Additionally, Pretrial Service has confirmed that Carbajal-Flores has consistently adhered to and fulfilled all the stipulated conditions of his release, is gainfully employed, and has no new arrests or outstanding warrants.”

Now, illegal immigration is a major problem here and now--and no, I'm not going to back off from calling these people "illegal" since, well, they're here illegally, and any official who does lacks testicular fortitude--and since a number of these guys have turned out to be violent, I can understand some apprehension regarding this verdict. 

However, if we're going to assert that it's a natural right, then it would naturally apply to everyone, even those who broke the law in coming into this country--at least if they've not been stripped of that right under due process of law.

On the same token, we know this will blow up when some illegal does something truly horrible with a firearm. Then we'll be on the hook, defending our right to keep and bear arms, because some illegal immigrant who isn't even supposed to be in this country, got stupid and committed some atrocity.

Then there's the argument that "the people" only actually include those who are here lawfully and not those who crossed the border without permission. 

The United States has disarmed loyalists, insurrectionists, various groups for racist reasons, and native americans.

The common thread allowing that to happen is these were groups outside of the political community. Its not tied to merely the modern legal concept of…

— Kostas Moros (@MorosKostas) March 11, 2024

In other words, by coming in the country illegally, illegal immigrants have put themselves outside of the legal community and should thus be prohibited.

I suspect that we're going to see more on this case, and I suspect the argument Moros puts forward will survive under Bruen because, well, he's right about those exclusions.

Still, it's an interesting case, to say the least.