Right to carry violated under color of law

It’s possible this could be a good case to take much further and set a good precedence:

The Second Amendment Foundation has filed a complaint in U.S. District Court in Arkansas on behalf of a legal resident alien, alleging that his right to keep and bear arms is being violated by a state law that prevents him from obtaining a concealed carry license.

The lawsuit, on behalf of Martin Pot (pronounced Poht), a citizen of the Netherlands, challenges the Arkansas statute because it “completely prohibits resident legal aliens from the concealed carry of guns, in public, for the purpose of self-defense.

SAF, “winning back firearms freedom one lawsuit at a time”.

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12 thoughts on “Right to carry violated under color of law

  1. Interesting.
    The amusing part is that he’d have no right to arms whatsoever in the old country. I hope he’ll draw the obvious conclusion and get himself naturalized, as I did almost 30 years ago.

  2. This is a landmine waiting to be tap-danced on….if he wins, that opens the door for all sorts of “undocumented workers” to demand their right to carry. I’m all for folks exercising their rights under our laws….I just think that if someone’s not a naturalized citizen, there should be some intense scrutiny directed at their backgrounds. Not that the criminal element is going to bother getting a valid and legal carry license, but there may be some history in another country that isn’t on our records here.

    Blah. I’m probably not putting down my concerns clearly….I don’t want to deny anyone, I just don’t want to open the floodgates to make it even easier for someone with a criminal record to get guns and/or get away after being caught with them. I can see this being abused if not pursued very carefully indeed.

    • Such a ruling should have no bearing on the ability of “undocumented” aliens to carry. The key difference is, this guy is not violating the law, illegal aliens are violating the law.

    • There are lots of ways to abuse a requirement to subject non-citizens to “intense scrutiny directed at their backgrounds”. Jail time in North Korea or commitment to a mental institution in the USSR does not carry the same weight with me as a similar brush with the law in Montana or Idaho.

      I say there should be no more intense scrutiny than that required to legal enter the country.

      • Well, to me, it all depends on the exact reason for jail-time. Guy cheated on his taxes or something, fine. Guy took a bus full of nuns and orphans hostage with a Makarov and two sticks of dynamite….different story.

        • That’s the thing — those sorts of things are SUPPOSED to be bars to legal entry to the US in the first place.

    • The Right of “The People”…

      Voting is a right-vilege premised on citizenship, you quite reasonably shouldn’t get a definitive say in a particular country’s politics unless you have committed to that country, but the right to self-defense and the arms to exercise it don’t (shouldn’t) disappear because you cross a line on a map.

      If you aren’t a prohibited person, and you aren’t violating someone else’s rights with your weapon, you should be able to do anything a citizen can do, arms-wise. My wookie-tendencies would push that to even if you -are- an illegal alien. (Though I haven’t thought through what should happen to the gun when you get deported…)

  3. Interesting response from RabidAlien, showing, in part, just how successful the push has been against gun owners.

    To my knowledge, the laws against the mere possession of firearms by felons are a recent thing – well, recent in historical terms. Were Jesse James or Billy the kid – KNOWN outlaws – ever prosecuted for the possession of firearms? What about Al Capone, or any of his “associates”?

    While it is easy to say that we don’t want criminals to have guns, I have to ask “Why not?”. We repeatedly push the line that guns are just tools, and that what you DO with them should be the ONLY basis to determine criminality. Why should that be any different just because a person has a “felony criminal record”? Heck, I could get that by simply differently telling things to two different FBI agents – just ask Martha Stewart.

    Giving an out to criminals “caught with guns” should be something that we WANT to happen – IF they were not committing a crime, why should we CARE if they have guns?

    • Maybe because I don’t want myself, much less my wife and kid, to encounter said criminal still in possession of his/her gun. Especially if they have a record of violent crimes. Sure, that greasy rag pile in your garage isn’t really blazing away or threatening anything, so why should I try to put it out or move that gas can and paint thinner away from it?

      • Oh, I understand the RISK element, but would you be worried by Martha Stewart with a gun? She is, as I understand it, a prohibited person due to a felony conviction for lying to an FBI agent.

        A LARGE number of US citizens convicted of felonious crimes don’t have a pre-disposition to violence – and I would, like you, feel uncomfortable around those that do, whether they had a gun or not.

        I guess I am just MORE uncomfortable with restricting a person’s rights based on what amounts to a demonstrably false indicator of their likelihood of violent behaviour.

        • And that’s why I ended up in the, “If they’re too dangerous to be TRUSTED, why the Hell are they breathing free air at all?” camp.

          Same goes for predatory sex offenders, arsonists, the mentally ill, etc. If you claim that a person cannot enjoy particular freedoms because they are “too dangerous” to be trusted with them, they should be incarcerated in a hospital or jail.

  4. It is Supreme Court precedent that very few legal discriminations between legal residents and citizens are constitutional. Should be easy win. Wasn’t there already a success in Montana or one of the Dakotas?

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