"ATF Form 4473 is required for any gun purchase and it has an entire section regarding things that disqualify a purchaser from owning a gun, notably line 21, items c and d:
“c. Are you under indictment or information in any court for a felony, or any other crime for which the judge could imprison you for more than one year, or are you a current member of the military who has been charged with violation(s) of the Uniform Code of Military Justice and whose charge(s) have been referred to a general court-martial?
d. Have you ever been convicted in any court, including a military court, of a felony, or any other crime for which the judge could have imprisoned you for more than one year, even if you received a shorter sentence including probation?”
Currently, we have, running for President, a person who has just been convicted, qualifying them under line d, and, who is facing 3 other indictments, qualifying them under line c.
If they aren’t qualified to own a gun, and, in fact could be arrested for “felon in possession” should he obtain a gun, how on earth does that allow him to be qualified to lead the armed forces as “Commander in Chief”? Why would he be allowed access to the “nuclear football” which is, really, the ultimate gun?
Can we please get some kind of legislation dealing with this? Either barring convicted felons from the office of the President, or, alternately, highly restricting felonious Presidential access to the military and high order weapons?"
I'm opposed to the idea that being charged with a crime should disqualify someone from office. Simply put, it incentivises putting people in jail for political reasons.
No, Trump should be disqualified for treason and insurrection. Of course, that's not happening either.
Yes, we do have a more serious problem. Numerous federal judges have been appointed by a treasonous insurrectionist who committed election fraud to take office. The jury of peers will be less effective if there is an obviously biased judge like Cannon.
Judges can't put you in jail if DA doesn't bring charges and a jury won't convict.
Canon is trying to do the reverse, using anything she has at her disposal for the trial to not happen as she knows that this case is pretty much an open shut case.
FL defers to the law in the state where the conviction happened, and NY allows felons to vote as long as they are not incarcerated when they need to vote.
Some commentators have solid arguments for why he will get incarceration. More believe he won't. Nobody believes he will actually spend any time behind bars, because even if he does get prison time, it will be suspended pending appeal. The appeals process will take so long that he'll be dead before it's over.
Generally, because of his criminal conviction and his intention to run for office, there's a lot of interesting legal questions that will make for new law when we litigate them.
I do like your argument, unfortunately I'm pretty sure most courts will disagree. It's two fold: first of all if you make felons unable to run, you incentivize people to prosecute someone when they wanna run for office. Secondly, this form is pretty straightforward with what possession or acquisition of firearms means. There is not enough wiggle room to stretch that definition to fit the a guy in his role as president being commander in chief over the military. I think no reasonable court would greenlight that argument.
But in general there's gonna be very interesting implications.
Republican congressmen and women and Republican Senators will just say it's a hoax trial and a corrupt justice system. It's not a sane world right now.
No, the 2nd Amendment clearly says that the right to own guns is for the purpose of a well-regulated militia. The courts are the ones who interpreted that to mean every citizen [1, Heller]. And the courts also are the ones who have afforded such State restriction legislation as being Constitutional [1, Cruikshank].
In any case, it would likely require an amendment to the Constitution to directly change the qualifications for being President.