Judging Freedom - Felony Indictment Can't Prevent Gun Purchase

Episode Date: September 21, 2022

People under felony indictment can't be barred from purchasing guns, judge rules https://www.texastribune.org/2022/09/... #felon #secondamendmentSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Hi everyone, Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom. Today is Wednesday, September 21st, 2022. It's about 2.45 in the afternoon here on the east to keep and bear arms. A federal judge in Texas has just declared unconstitutional a statute, a federal statute now, that makes it a crime to receive a gun, whether you go out and buy it or whether somebody hands it to you, while you're under indictment for another crime. So you could be indicted for bank fraud, nonviolent crime. But if you receive a gun while you're under indictment, then you could be prosecuted for receiving a gun while under an indictment. No longer, the judge has declared that statute unconstitutional.

Not because the receipt of the gun has nothing to do with the original charge but because under the Bruin opinion that's the right to carry opinion a brilliant treatise on gun rights authored by Justice Clarence Thomas a six to three decision by the Supreme Court just this past July it basically says that the the default position is you're entitled to carry a gun. And the only way you wouldn't be entitled to it is if there's a history throughout the United States of denying people in your situation the right to carry a gun. And because there is no history in the United States of denying people who are indicted, there is no basis for making that a crime. Now, an indictment is evidence of

nothing. It just means that a grand jury has gone along with the prosecutors and decided to charge you. But you can't suffer because of that indictment unless and until it becomes a conviction. So let's say you've been indicted for bank fraud, and then you go to buy a gun. They must sell you the gun. The feds cannot intercede because this statute doesn't exist anymore now that it's been declared unconstitutional. I scratch my head all the time about all these federal and state laws which seem to do everything they can to gnaw and wear away at the rights guaranteed by the Constitution. Remember what the right to keep and bear arms is. It is the modern extension of the ancient right to self-defense. That's not me. That's the late Justice Antonin Scalia in a famous decision called Heller

versus the District of Columbia, expanded upon by Justice Thomas in the Bruin decision of just three months ago, in which he said the right to keep and bear arms is not negotiable. It's the default position. The government must prove if it's going to deny you the right, why it's denying you the right. And if it says it's denying you the right because you've been accused of something, that's an insufficient basis for the denial. I think very few people will be in this category. In the case I'm discussing, the defendant went to buy a gun and answered the question, are you currently under indictment, by saying no. So he was charged with lying on a federal document as well as with receiving a gun while under indictment. Both charges against him were dismissed because once the statute that prohibits receiving a gun while you're under

indictment was found unconstitutional, the lying on the form was moot. So this is a very happy outcome for the right to keep and bear arms. It's also a happy outcome for human liberty in general. It reminds everybody that freedom comes from our humanity. The ancient right to self-defense comes from our humanity. The modern right to keep and bear arms comes from our humanity. It doesn't come from the Second Amendment. The Second Amendment just keeps the government from interfering with it. Judge Napolitano for judging freedom.