One of the great injustices of the Lautenberg amendment, that prohibited people convicted of domestic violence misdemeanors from possessing firearms, is that it applied retroactively to people who were completely unaware their convictions imposed a firearms disability on them when, in many cases, they plead guilty, because the charge was just a misdemeanor, rather than spending the money to fight it.
Apparently the Supreme Court is planning to hear a case on this. I think punishments applied to criminals applied retroactively does violate ex-post facto. Will the judges agree? I hope so, but I’m not going to hold my breath.
UPDATE: Dave Hardy has more details here. It seems the question at hand is a bit different than I thought. The question is whether the offense needs to have a domestic violence component to it, or whether it merely means that any violent offense against a domestic partner applies.
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