Interesting Justification on DV Prohibitions

A court used this reasoning in upholding Lautenberg:

A useful approach is to ask whether a statutory prohibition against the possession of firearms by felons and the mentally ill is similar enough to the statutory prohibition against the possession of firearms by persons convicted of the misdemeanor crime of domestic violence to justify its inclusion in the list of “longstanding prohibitions” that survive Second Amendment scrutiny.

The Court concludes it does. To reach this conclusion, the Court starts by comparing the constitutionally-sanctioned prohibition against firearm possession by felons with the prohibition against persons convicted of misdemeanor crimes of domestic violence. A person can, of course, be convicted of a felony which had nothing to do with physical violence and which would not necessarily predict future misuse of a firearm. Nevertheless, the law forbids any convicted felon, regardless of the nature of the felony, from possessing firearms and Heller constitutionally sanctioned this broad prohibition.

Whether you like the result or not, it’s a powerful argument.  But where does it end?  May Congress bar any misdemeanant from their second amendment rights?   Must their be some finding that the misdemeanor in question was violent in nature?  If that test is required for misdemeanors, why is it not for felonies?

I think these are useful questions, but I would argue that we’re probably going to be stuck arguing these things out in the legislatures rather than the courts.  I believe the courts will tend to defer to the legislature when it comes to stripping second amendment rights of people convicted of crimes.