The Firearms Policy Coalition (FPC) and the National Rifle Association (NRA) filed a joint brief with the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in United States v. Duarte.
In Duarte, the defendant was charged with violating a federal law prohibiting firearms possession by people convicted of crimes punishable by more than one year of imprisonment, regardless of the nature of that crime. The case is currently before the en banc Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco, after the court vacated a prior decision by a three-judge panel holding the ban unconstitutional as applied to Duarte.
“America’s historical tradition of firearm regulation allows for the disarmament of dangerous persons—disaffected persons posing a threat to the government and persons with a proven proclivity for violence,” argues the brief, filed on September 24, 2024. “But there is no historical tradition of disarming peaceable citizens. Rather, peaceable citizens—including nonviolent felons and other unvirtuous persons—were expressly permitted and often required to keep and bear arms.”
“It is unconstitutional and immoral for the government to forever disarm people like Mr. Duarte, who committed a non-violent crime, served his time, and successfully reentered society. We will continue to fight to eliminate gun control laws like the one at issue in this case and restore the right to keep and bear arms for all peaceable people,” said FPC President Brandon Combs.
An NRA news item explained, “The amicus brief provides an extensive historical analysis of firearm prohibitions from colonial America through the nineteenth century. It emphasizes that America’s historical tradition of firearm regulation allows for the disarmament of dangerous persons—disaffected persons posing a threat to the government and persons with a proven proclivity for violence. But there is no historical tradition of disarming peaceable citizens. Rather, historically, peaceable citizens—including nonviolent felons—were expressly permitted and often required to keep and bear arms.”
The brief was authored by Joseph G.S. Greenlee and Erin M. Erhardt of NRA’s Institute for Legislative Action.
Notably, the American Civil Liberties Union also filed an amicus brief in Duarte.
“This is a remarkable and refreshing approach by the ACLU,” said Second Amendment Foundation founder and Executive Vice President Alan M. Gottlieb. “The organization has produced a stunningly detailed amicus brief supporting the Second Amendment. While acknowledging its history of concerns regarding gun-related violent crime, in this case the ACLU properly criticizes federal law for permanently disarming people previously convicted of nonviolent offenses, including misdemeanors where a state legislature has imposed a sufficiently long possible prison sentence to result in a lifetime loss of Second Amendment rights.”
The ACLU’s 40-page brief, Gottlieb noted, is very critical about how the law has been used to punish people who had been previously convicted for the most innocuous offenses. The brief notes, for example, “The government cannot show that applying such sweeping criminal liability to people like Mr. Duarte is consistent with the principles underpinning our tradition of regulating firearms.”
