There are a lot of people who cave the moment it looks like there's opposition from people they might think of as allies. Some of that is understandable, especially if you pop off half-cocked and your friends convince you that you're wrong. But what about when you did some soul-searching and know you're right?
Well, for Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier, it seems that standing firm is the order of the day.
See, Uthmeier was, like many prosecutors, a big fan of keeping all felons from having their Second Amendment rights. He favored that prohibition and previously defended it.
Then, he says he did some study and reflection and realized that was wrong, so now he favors gun rights restoration for non-violent felons. That's a reasonable position, at least from my point of view, and I was glad to see it.
Not everyone was, though, as my friend Jeff Charles notes over at our sister site, Townhall.
Some Florida state prosecutors are challenging Uthmeier over the effort. The Florida Prosecuting Attorneys Association says he is stretching the law to undo “a long-standing state law that denies gun ownership to anyone convicted of a felony” and that “prohibitions on the possession of firearms by convicted felons are consistent with the historical tradition.”
The argument about America’s historical tradition appears to be aimed at suggesting that the Supreme Court’s ruling in New York Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen would not apply to these laws. The ruling mandates that current gun restrictions must be similar to laws passed during the Founding era or the early 1800s.
The prosecutors argue that altering Florida’s law would create “needless uncertainty, confusion, and inconsistent application of the law” and that, “from a constitutional perspective, all felons are dangerous felons,” so attempting to separate “dangerous” from “non-dangerous felons” is “contrived and forced.”
However, Uthmeier argues that felons who do not threaten public safety still deserve to have their Second Amendment rights protected.
I'm not sure that it's that contrived or forced, since it's not that hard to tell the difference between a violent felony and a non-violent one. Bouncing a check above a certain amount isn't violent, and I don't see how there's any constitutional perspective that makes any sense that would say otherwise.
The banning of felons from owning guns didn't start until 1938, so far as I can tell, and even then, it was for violent felons. It seems our ancestors of a century prior could tell the difference between the two. This was overridden by the Gun Control Act of 1968, which broadened the prohibition to include all felons.
But while a tradition can most definitely take hold in less than 100 years, the Bruen standard sets a particular timeframe for when gun laws must have analogs. I haven't managed to find such an analog, though it's possible I missed something. Still, simply saying there's a historic tradition doesn't mean that the prohibition is constitutional under the Bruen standard.
Uthmeier hasn't buckled, and I hope that continues. This is something I can respect.
Let's keep in mind that if a person is likely to be a violent felon, no gun control law on the planet is going to stop them from doing so. We've seen way too much crime since 1938 to think otherwise.
Meanwhile, the people who haven't hurt anyone shouldn't be simply assumed to be inclined to hurt anyone. That's not supposed to be how our system works. If someone is dangerous, keep them behind bars for longer. Stop pretending everyone who screws up is the same kind of villain. They're not, and you're doing a disservice to society when you do that.
Uthmeier is in the right here. The prosecutors need to accept that.
