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Abstract
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Based on a 2022 U.S. Supreme Court ruling, NYSRPA v. Bruen, the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas struck down a federal law prohibiting access to guns if those people are subject to domestic violence protection orders.
In this highly unusual ruling, the court reasoned that it was compelled to question the constitutionality of firearm regulation in the United States in a post-Bruen world. Whatever one's political perspective, one must revel in the written word of this memorandum opinion, United States of America v. Jose Gomez Quiroz, from the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas, Pecos Division, which begins, "This Court faces a predicament similar to Plato's allegory of the cave."
What do we learn from this allusion? Education serves the purpose of pulling students from the cave, by enlightening them in the real world with real objects. To talk about gun control is far different from the reality of facing a gun wielded by a person who has been convicted of a violent crime so grave as to warrant being placed on probation.
Is it also a condition which curtails a person's ability to be allowed to exercise their Second Amendment freedom to purchase a gun? When out of the cave, we learn that there is the opportunity to learn from real life and real objects. Prisoners are involved in the allegory, just as they are in the Quiroz opinion.
Once one has the opportunity to emerge from the cave and learn, the enlightened can return to the cave to assist others. However, with knowledge, reverting to the cave becomes impossible. In Quiroz, the court holds that: "The Second Amendment is not a 'second class right.' No longer can courts balance away a constitutional right. After Bruen, the Government must prove that laws regulating conduct covered by the Second Amendment's plain text align with this Nation's historical traditions. The Government does not meet its burden."...
https://www.law.com/texaslawyer/2022/12/27/do-convicted-felons-facing-new-indictments-retain-their-constitutional-right-to-receive-a-gun/
Language: en |