Here are two posts on the legality of illegal aliens owning guns here in the United States. In the first post, Olivia Murray, at the American Thinker is outraged. I can't say I blame her, for the government seems to be doing everything in its power to make it more difficult for citizens to own guns. But here they are practically giving illegal...note ILLEGAL...aliens gun rights. Murray's post can be found at Obama-appointed judge rules that the 2A applies to an illegal, and he has a right to keep his illegally-possessed firearm.
The lawless free-for-all created by the political establishment and an apathetic voting class has me seriously considering renouncing my American citizenship—just think about all the possibilities!
You don’t pay income tax. The government hands you prepaid debit cards loaded with thousands of dollars. You get “free” trips to swanky enclaves like Martha’s Vineyard, only to be treated like guests of honor. You’re provided with “free” room and board at high-end hotels, or you’re given the leeway to squat in an American’s home. And now, leftist judges tell you that you have Second Amendment rights which cannot be infringed upon, and you can keep your guns no problem, even if you were breaking the law with them—I mean, these are perks and privileges we second-class real citizens aren’t afforded.
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But for some reason, Judge Sharon Johnson Coleman, an Obama-appointed judge of the Northern Illinois District Court, decided that the text of the Second Amendment applied to Carbajal-Flores, ruling in favor of the illegal being able to retain his personal firearm(s).
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I think she got it a little backwards—this amendment was written so that citizens could arm themselves to repel an invasion… it was never meant for arming the invaders! Furthermore, how did an illegal even get a gun, since he’s not allowed to buy one, especially in Illinois? I thought the state had strict gun control measures in place to ensure that criminals (every illegal is automtically a felon) didn’t get their hands on firearms?
Perhaps I am reading Murray wrong here, if so I apologize. But I detect an undercurrent of belief that this Obama-appointed judge is simply trying to create ever more chaos in order to "tranform the United States" into a facsist system, with those who are superior to us rubes clinging to our guns and religion. What if it is true? Or, the judge may be applying Bruen hyper-exactly thinking to show up the Supreme Court.
The second post is at Bearing Arms by Tom Knighton entitled Gun Ban for Illegal Immigrants Ruled Unconstitutional takes a more face value approach to the ruling. Knighton notes that the founding documents were based on a theory of God given natural rights, possessed by every human being no matter where they were.
But that brings about the question of illegal immigrants. Do they forfeit their rights when they enter the United States illegally, or do they maintain their rights as they've not actually been convicted of a felony or anything else?
For a long time, the official line is that they don't get to have guns. Period.
Yet a federal court has decided something quite differently.
The Second Amendment protects people’s ability to own a gun even if they’ve entered the country illegally.
That’s the ruling handed down by US District Judge Sharon Johnson Coleman on Friday. She found the federal prohibition on illegal immigrants owning guns is unconstitutional, at least as applied to Heriberto Carbajal-Flores. She ruled the ban did not fit with America’s historical tradition of gun regulation as required under the Supreme Court’s landmark New York State Rifle and Pistol Association v. Bruen ruling.
“The noncitizen possession statute, 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(5), violates the Second Amendment as applied to Carbajal-Flores,” Judge Colman wrote in US v. Carbajal-Flores. “Thus, the Court grants Carbajal-Flores’ motion to dismiss.”
The ruling is the latest fallout from the new standard for Second Amendment cases set in Bruen. Since the landmark case was decided in 2022, a wide swath of state and federal gun restrictions have come under increased scrutiny in the courts. Among the most commonly recurring questions raised by the new standard is who can be barred from owning guns, and the Carbajal-Flores case is among the first to examine whether people who entered the country illegally are among them.
Judge Coleman, a Barack Obama appointee, initially found the gun ban for illegal immigrants was constitutional back in April 2022. However, she agreed to reconsider the case in light of rulings from the federal appeals courts in the Third and Seventh Circuit that questioned whether those convicted of non-violent crimes could be permanently disarmed after the High Court handed down Bruen in June 2022. She concluded breaking misdemeanor immigration laws alone is not enough justification to strip somebody of their gun rights under the new test.
“[C]arbajal-Flores has never been convicted of a felony, a violent crime, or a crime involving the use of a weapon. Even in the present case, Carbajal-Flores contends that he received and used the handgun solely for self-protection and protection of property during a time of documented civil unrest in the Spring of 2020,” Judge Coleman wrote. “Additionally, Pretrial Service has confirmed that Carbajal-Flores has consistently adhered to and fulfilled all the stipulated conditions of his release, is gainfully employed, and has no new arrests or outstanding warrants.”
Knighton comes down after some discussion to the notion that by coming across the border illegally, illegal immigrants have put themselves outside the political community, for whom the 2nd Amendment was written. I suspect that this ruling will eventually be overturned.
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