Bill description: This bill bans certain convicted felons from ever having the right to have firearms.

Rating: -1

Does it violate the spirit or the letter of either the US Constitution or the Idaho Constitution? Examples include restrictions on speech, public assembly, the press, privacy, private property, or firearms. Conversely, does it restore or uphold the protections guaranteed in US Constitution or the Idaho Constitution? 


The purpose of this bill is to expand the list of convicted felons to whom “the right to ship, transport, possess or receive a firearm shall not be restored,” upon final discharge from the Department of Corrections (Idaho Code 18-310(2)). Final discharge is the conclusion of imprisonment, probation, and parole. Added to such felony convictions as burglary or robbery would be crimes of terrorism, human trafficking, hijacking, and supplying firearms to a criminal gang.

This bill is a direct affront to the Second Amendment right to bear arms. The refusal to allow certain individuals this right contradicts the US Constitution. If individuals, after making their designated reparations to society (as are imprisonment, probation, and parole), can be denied this right permanently, what is to prevent the government from taking other rights guaranteed in the US Constitution? Do they forfeit the right to due process of the law? Or from cruel and unusual punishment? Must they be forced to quarter troops? Is the speech of individuals convicted of these crimes censored? (-1)