Fifth Circuit To Rehear Drug Trafficker's Second Amendment Challenge

Authored by Matthew Vadum via The Epoch Times,

A federal appeals court voted to rehear a constitutional challenge to a federal law that prevents felons from possessing guns, weeks after Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas said he hoped a lower court would consider the law's constitutionality.

The July 20 decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit came after a three-judge panel of the same circuit on June 2 denied convicted drug trafficker Curtis Squire's challenge to Section 922(g)(1) of Title 18 of the U.S. Code. The felon-in-possession provision is part of the federal Gun Control Act of 1968.

Federal gun laws have largely been justified under the Constitution's commerce clause. The legal theory is that guns move in interstate commerce, meaning they are manufactured, sold, and transported across state lines. This means Congress can regulate gun possession, even inside the home, because it supposedly has an impact on the national market for firearms.

A majority of the judges sitting on the Fifth Circuit voted to grant the petition of Squire for a so-called en banc hearing before the full court. The panel had unanimously READ MORE AT SOURCE »