Hatfield v. Sessions

By Ilya Shapiro, Trevor Burrus, Matthew Larosiere Ilya Shapiro, Trevor Burrus, Matthew Larosiere

In 1989, Larry Hatfield fudged his employment records to get
some extra money from the Railroad Retirement Board. He was caught
and pled guilty to the federal crime of making a false statement,
and was sentenced to a fine and (at the government’s
recommendation) no prison time. Since then, Hatfield has lived his
life without incident, incurring nary as much as a parking ticket.
He doesn’t fight, do drugs, or cause problems. Hatfield has
lived as a completely law-abiding citizen for decades.

Hatfield’s neighborhood, however, has changed for the
worst, so he wants to own a firearm to defend himself in his home.
But the intersection of an odd federal law—18 U.S.C. §
922(g)(1)—and the ever-expanding idea of what a
“felony” is has seen his right to keep and bear arms
stripped away. That old conviction for lying to the Retirement
Board now restricts his right to armed self-defense. While his
conduct in 1989 was not upstanding, permanently stripping Hatfield
of his core Second Amendment right seems an excessive
punishment—one that puts the government in the interesting
position of having argued that Hatfield is both so non-dangerous so
as to have been recommended zero days in prison, but so dangerous
that he can never be trusted with a gun.

Hatfield sued in federal court and won. …Read the Rest

Source:: Cato Institute