Disregarding the fact that there is no constitutional premise on which he should have lost his rights in the first place, the Third Circuit, deciding a case vacated and remanded to them by the US Supreme Court, ruled in a 13-2 decision that “Bryan Range, a Pennsylvania man convicted of food stamp fraud nearly three decades ago, cannot be barred from firearm ownership under federal law.”
“We agree with Range that, despite his false statement conviction, he remains among ’the people’ protected by the Second Amendment,” the Third Circuit’s majority opinion states. “And because the government did not carry its burden of showing that the principles underlying our Nation’s history and tradition of firearm regulation support disarming Range, we will reverse and remand.”
The Third Circuit emphasized that its ruling is narrow in scope because it is limited to Range’s individual circumstances. Range had challenged the constitutionality of the felon-in-possession ban only as it applied to him in light of his violation of a Pennsylvania statute that makes it a felony to wilfully provide a false statement or misrepresentation when applying for federal assistance such as food stamps.
While the Third Circuit found that the Supreme Court’s decision in Rahimi “did bless disarming (at least temporarily) physically dangerous people,” it noted that the law upheld by the high court required a finding that the individual being disarmed represents a credible threat to someone else’s physical safety.
The decision only applies to Range, but it is a move in the proper direction.
The Range victory comes after the ATF denied him his rights. Don’t we love it when ATF loses?
Merry Christmas Bryan.
