Felons ape on to Supreme Court gun case ruling. Democrat hypocrisy exposed again.

Well that didn't take long. According to this article in the Las Vegas Sun, we now have convicted felons--the literal scum of the earth and a cancer on our nation--suing to overturn the prohibitions that prevent them from possessing guns.

Twice convicted of felonies, James Francis Barton Jr. faces charges of violating a federal law barring felons from owning guns after police found seven pistols, three shotguns and five rifles at his home south of Pittsburgh.

As a defense, Barton and several other defendants in federal gun cases argue that last month's Supreme Court ruling allows them to keep loaded handguns at home for self-defense.

"Felons, such as Barton, have the need and the right to protect themselves and their families by keeping firearms in their home," says David Chontos, Barton's court-appointed lawyer.

Sorry, but I'm not going to worry because murderers, rapists, burglars, carjackers, armed robbers, child molesters and drug dealers aren't allowed to own guns. I don't mind that they go to prison for possessing one because the rest of us are better off every time someone with that sort of moral defect gets taken off the streets for any reason, and I suspect that bans on them possessing guns keeps at least some of them from being able to shoot or threaten other citizens and putting our police officers at risk. It's long been known that when you embark on a course of action that entails victimizing other people or society, you give up many things, including the right to own guns and the right to vote.

Now Democrats, predictably, have fought to restore voting rights to felons because they know that lazy people with no ethical code or functioning moral compass are almost guaranteed to prefer the Democrats' platform of wealth redistribution over one of self-reliance and personal responsibility. I've long said that an armed robber is just a Democrat in a hurry, and if it weren't for felons voting, we'd never see the likes of Marion Barry voted back into office. Felons vote Dem over 90% of the time, per surveys of felons, and Dems fight to give them the vote, figuring that it's better to be elected by scum than to be defeated because the majority of honest, hard-working people wanted someone else.

But what I'm noticing here is that as much as Dems want to see felons' right to vote restored, they're suddenly silent as church mice when it comes to restoring felons' gun rights. Granted many Dems want us all disarmed--it's easier to control us that way--but I have to ask any felon who might be reading this how he or she feels about a party that claims to support you and wants your vote, but won't stand up for you on the gun issue?

Now if the Dems did support guns for felons, I'd slam them for that too, but I'm not the one pandering to the felons for votes and then leaving them hanging on every other issue. Of course as long as the criminal class has publicity-seeking, law-and-order-hating defense attornies, they'll always have paid advocates...at least as long as there's money in the public defender pot.

Chontos and other criminal defense lawyers say the high court's decision means federal laws designed to keep guns out of the hands of people convicted of felonies and crimes of domestic violence are unconstitutional as long as the weapons are needed for self-defense.

"The line I'm proposing, at the home, is entirely consistent" with the Supreme Court ruling, said Chontos, a lawyer in Turtle Creek, Pa.

Doesn't it figure?

People on both sides of the gun control issue say they expect numerous attacks against local, state and federal laws based on the high court's 5-4 ruling that struck down the District of Columbia's ban on handguns. The opinion by Justice Antonin Scalia also suggested, however, that many gun control measures could remain in place.

Denis Henigan, vice president for law and policy at the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence, said Scalia essentially was reassuring people that the laws keeping guns from felons and people with mental illness and out of government buildings and schools would withstand challenges. But Henigan said he is not surprised by felons pressing for gun-ownership rights.

"The court has cast us into uncharted waters here. There is no question about that," Henigan said.

"There is now uncertainty where there was none before," he said. "Gun laws were routinely upheld and they were considered policy issues to be decided by legislatures."

Cities' outright bans on handguns probably are the most vulnerable laws following the Supreme Court ruling.

"I think there's a very substantial chance that these kinds of ordinances will be struck down because they are aimed at people who have shown no reason to be viewed as untrustworthy," said Eugene Volokh, a law professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, who has written about gun rights.

And this I'm ecstatic about. Laws that bar all people from owning guns--or at least laws which bar decent, law-abiding people who have no criminal records or history of mental illness, are abhorrent to our Constitution and the American way of life. All men and women in this country are free and unless they voluntarily give that freedom up by engaging in criminal activity against the rest of us and declaring themselves unfit, then they should be able to own and use firearms for their own needs, just as our founding fathers had intended and as the Supreme Court just affirmed that they have a right to to.

But that stops when it comes to criminals, as far as I'm concerned. And I'm far from the only one to share that opinion.

Eugene Volokh and some gun rights proponents said people convicted of crimes are less likely to succeed in their challenges.

"Many felons may need self defense more than you and I, but the government has extra justification for limiting that right because they have proven themselves to be untrustworthy," Volokh said.

And that I agree with. I don't want the convicted meth cook or pot distributor living down the street to have guns. Their alleged need for self-defense (against who? subsequent police raids?) is secondary to mine and that of my fellow law-abiding neighbors. But the fight's far from over now that the Supreme Court has ruled in Heller. In fact, it looks to be just starting.

The Supreme Court has a case on its calendar for the fall that could indicate whether the justices are inclined to expand their ruling.

In United States v. Hayes, the government is asking the court to reinstate a conviction for possession of a gun for someone previously convicted of a domestic violence crime. In 1994, Randy Hayes received a year of probation after pleading guilty to beating his wife.

The 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals overturned the conviction because the West Virginia law Hayes violated does not specifically deal with domestic violence crimes. The question for the high court, then, is a technical one: whether the law has to include domestic violence to be used in the future to prevent someone from owning guns?

Advocates on both sides of the gun control debate will be watching closely to see whether the court's D.C. decision is relevant to the Hayes case and, if so, how.

Well Randy Hayes can go to hell in flames, too. I'll never side with or support a woman-hitting loser and I have no problem with keeping guns out of hands like that. Now I know that this is where a bunch of rabid gun nutters and disgruntled divorced guys will start screaming that women fake these charges just to screw guys over and get their guns taken away, but we're not seeing proof of that in Hayes' case, and in fact he pled guilty. He admitted beating a woman. So I don't want to hear jack about that punk and his inability to own a gun. Guns are for real men, real men are defined by integrity and honor, and Randy Hayes and the vast majority of convicted felons are forever excluded from that group by their own actions.

And damn Barton and Hayes and their scumbag lawyers for actually putting me on the same side of a gun-rights debate as those un-American gun grabbers in Sarah Brady's organization.