North Carolinians value their constitutional right to keep and bear arms. More than 40 percent of adult North Carolinians own guns. The right to keep and bear arms and to hunt are enshrined in the state constitution. North Carolina statutes that categorically disarm people convicted of felonies—no matter how minor, non-violent, or old the conviction—impose severe constraints and unequal burdens on far too many North Carolinians.
Just under four years ago, the US Supreme Court transformed how courts review the constitutionality of government restrictions on firearms. In New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen, the Court held that a government seeking to restrict an individual’s right to bear firearms bears the burden to show that the restriction is consistent with the Second Amendment’s text and history. Two years later, in United States v. Rahimi, the Court affirmed the power of government to bar dangerous persons from accessing firearms, but it also made it clear that determination of dangerousness—and the permissible scope of such restrictions—is not subject to generalizations and must be grounded in the facts of each case. These precedents require trial courts to evaluate, on a case-by-case basis, whether and to what extent individuals who, like appellee Eric Ducker, have a criminal history can be barred from firearm possession.
Cato joined an amicus brief filed by the ACLU of North Carolina Legal Foundation, arguing that the North Carolina Court of Appeals erred when it determined that the Second Amendment allows the state to bar all North Carolinians previously convicted of any felony from purchasing, owning, possessing, or having “in their custody, care, or control any firearm,” without regard to whether the felony was violent in nature, the individual’s overall history of violence, and the time elapsed since conviction.
The brief urges the North Carolina Supreme Court to remand Mr. Ducker’s case for the trial court to determine whether his conviction as a felon in possession of a firearm violates his rights under the Second Amendment and the state constitution.