Court says threats don't justify felon having gun

October 28, 9:23 AMGun Rights ExaminerDavid Codrea

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The gun possession conviction of a man prohibited by law from having one has been upheld. From The Salt Lake Tribune:

Danny Dutton, 24, contended that he began receiving threats the day after he shot and killed a violent intruder at his apartment.

Because of a 2004 felony conviction for cultivating marijuana, Dutton is prohibited from possessing firearms. He argued, though, that his only realistic option was to carry a gun to protect himself.

Being beaten with a metal pipe in your own apartment can change your outlook on likely threat levels. But the police, a U.S. District Court and the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals, all of which operate under protection of state-deployed arms, disagreed, and in their guarded wisdom concluded Mr. Dutton did not possess a life worthy of also possessing the means of self-defense.

In order to come to this conclusion, they must resort to nothing short of fortune telling, because there are no empirical standards by which they can otherwise reach it. If anything, Dutton would appear to live on the fringes of a higher-risk segment than most. A man--who had already been bludgeoned in his own home--felt he knew his own situation well enough to warrant storing his possessions and changing his appearance. But officials who are not at risk presume to know best how scared he should be.

It's the same mentality, really, that denies concealed carry permits in "may issue" states because of insufficient "cause."

Ah, but I'm forgetting something--Mr. Dutton is a prohibited person. We don't want criminals to have guns, do we?

Assuming nothing comes up that pushes it to a back burner, we'll examine that in tomorrow's column.