Let me duck down behind some cover here.  Yes!  I think that 
felons should be allowed to purchase - and carry - firearms.

I'm still down here.  Are you finished with the rotten eggs 
and tomatoes?  Okay, I'll stick my head back up.

Felons should be allowed to carry guns!

Before I continue, let me state clearly that I am no happier 
about armed robbers, murderers and rapists having firearms 
than you are.  

So why do I take this position?  It's really a no-brainer.  
Violent criminals do not go to the local gun store and fill 
out Brady paperwork to buy their firearms today, but they 
still buy them on the street and carry them.  They will always 
buy them on the street and carry them, no matter what Herculean 
efforts are made by law enforcement to stop this.  Yet a 
portion of my paycheck goes toward taxes to support enforcement 
of an unenforceable law.  Police officers who do not have the 
time to do one tenth of their jobs must waste time and effort 
trying to enforce said unenforceable law.  

The criminals the law was written for completely ignore every 
single law that inconveniences them, especially this one!

Laws against felons purchasing or owning firearms are a real 
hand job, folks.  It's all just another way your government 
has of bilking you out of money and convincing you - wrongly - 
that your government is actually doing something about crime, 
while it victimizes those who really do try to go straight 
after a mistake.

What a criminal waste!  

Is the cost of enforcement my only objection to the law against 
felons purchasing and/or carrying firearms?  I only wish it 
were!

My biggest objection is because our legal system is broken.  
It is no longer either fair or reasonable.  People are labeled 
as "felons" today who are in no way dangerous criminals.

You don't believe me?  Your privilege.  But I am going to tell 
you three stories here that are absolutely true.  My only 
deviation from hard fact is to change the names to protect the 
"felons" involved, all of whom happen to be personal friends of 
mine.  

Keep in mind that I am a law-abiding citizen - unusually so for 
this day and age.  I am nearly fifty years old.  My adult 
criminal record consists entirely of three minor speeding 
tickets.  Period.  I am a concealed handgun license holder, a 
concealed handgun instructor, and owner/manager of a licensed 
investigations firm in Texas.  So I've passed a bunch of FBI 
checks, and I am officially certified to be so clean I squeak.

Why, then, do I count three felons among my closest friends?

Well, let's take a close look at those "felonies."  

Case #1 concerns my oldest friend, Terry.  She and I grew up 
during the seventies.  We weren't particularly wild compared 
to the folks we hung out with, but way back in those days 
Terry did occasionally smoke a little grass.  Being a fairly 
sharp consumer even in her youth, Terry would usually go in 
with a couple of other folks and buy a quarter pound of grass 
about once a year.  This left her with an ounce or two for 
personal use and cost her very little money.

Do the math.  One quarter pound is four ounces.  Up to four 
ounces was a misdemeanor in Texas, even decades ago when this 
all took place.  Terry never, never bought more than a quarter 
pound for just that reason.  On the occasion in question, Terry 
had picked up her quarter pound and already delivered two ounces 
to her other partners.  When her house in San Angelo was raided, 
there was a grand total of two ounces in her freezer.

She was a real drug mastermind, folks.  She kept the stuff in 
her freezer because it would take her a year or more to smoke 
up an ounce, let alone two.

Why were there four and a half ounces when she went to trial?  
I'll leave the answer to your imagination, but I'll give you 
one big, ugly hint.  We are talking about the San Angelo, 
Texas police department here.

Terry did her four years probation and hasn't touched the stuff 
in the decades since.  She was a foster parent for years, and 
is now the adoptive parent of two beautiful little boys.  A 
criminal?  Don't make me laugh!

So why is she forever barred from purchasing, owning or carrying 
a firearm for self defense?  She does not even have the right to 
keep a firearm to defend her children!  Is this right or fair?

Case #2 involves a neighbor I have only known for about five 
years.  Iris is about my age, so she was seventeen about thirty 
years ago.  In any event, thirty long years ago, at the ripe 
old age of seventeen, she stupidly wrote some bad checks and 
got prosecuted for it.  Like Terry, she did her probation, 
went forth and sinned no more.  

Today she is an ordained minister, for crying out loud!  Yet, 
she is legally barred from defending her own life.  Does this 
make sense to you?

Both of the preceding cases were prosecuted in Texas, under 
Texas law.  My third and final case is much more complicated - 
and much, much more frightening.  This was a federal case, and 
it actually involved prison time.  

Brace yourself for a very ugly look at your federal government 
and the extremely unprofessional reasons behind many 
prosecutions!

First let me give you the cast of characters here: 

Seth was my first husband.  He was a police officer and just 
about the most violent and dangerously psychotic human being I 
have ever known.  As I have told a number of people over the 
years, Seth taught me what the wrong end of a Colt .45 tastes 
like.  I hope never to see him again.

Bill was my skydiving instructor and a parachute rigger / 
manufacturer.  He remains to this day one of my closest 
friends.

Karl was a former police officer and gun collector who owned 
(completely legally!) a number of Class III firearms.  He also 
remains a close friend.

KB was the full time admin sergeant for a nearby Texas National 
Guard armory, and was known quite well by my husband, Seth, to 
be an ATF snitch.  No friend of mine!

What tied us all together way back in those days was our common 
sport - skydiving.  We also did a lot of recreational shooting 
down at one end of the Seagoville airport, where there was a 
garbage dump with a nice rise of ground behind.  It was a good, 
legal, and safe place to plink at the empty beer cans already 
lying there, well away from any city limits.  The airport owner 
didn't mind at all, and it was free.

Seth, Bill and I were all in the Texas Army National Guard, and 
Bill and I went away to jump school at the same time in 1980.  
Seth was violently jealous and completely convinced that Bill 
and I were having an affair.  It happened to be untrue, but 
even if it had been completely true, anyone who has been 
through military jump school knows quite well that we wouldn't 
have had the strength for hanky panky while there.  But nothing 
could convince Seth of this.

Along about the same time, unknown to any of the rest of us, 
my other friend, Karl,  made an unfortunate enemy of an ATF 
officer.  He had one of his Class III weapons at a gun show 
in Dallas.  He was walking toward his car to go home, when 
the ATF agent actually tried to snatch the weapon off his 
shoulder.  Karl was a licensed peace officer who took his 
responsibility to maintain control of his Class III weapons 
very seriously.  Karl put the agent on the ground, with a 
pistol to the back of his head, until said agent produced 
satisfactory identification.  The humiliated agent was 
completely unable to find any justification for arresting 
Karl, as all of Karl's paperwork was 100% in order, transfer 
taxes paid, etc., but it was the start of a personal vendetta.

I graduated from jump school, wised up soon after and divorced 
Seth.  I think if I had stayed with him any longer, I would not 
be here to write this article today.  Seth was very bitter and 
very angry, but like most bullies of his type, he preferred 
back-biting to a straight up fight.  He came up with a plan and 
talked to his friend KB, as Bill frequently went to KB's armory 
to shoot at the range there.

Soon after, a new guy started shooting at the same armory and 
began to actively court Bill's friendship.  This went on for a 
number of weeks.  Finally, Bill's new friend admitted that he 
was shopping for a really good price on an Ingram Mac-10.  
Bill told him he thought that automatic weapons were a waste 
of good ammunition, so he didn't know of any, but he said that 
if he ever heard of one for sale, he'd pass the info on.

Knowing what I know now, I suspect that the undercover snot 
ball involved was losing his mind right about then.  

A couple of weeks later, Bill was out at Seagoville for some 
other reason, and he was doing a little shooting.  A car drove 
up with a guy and his family, including kids.  He said he'd 
heard the shooting from the road, and stopped in to talk to 
another gun enthusiast.  Would you care to hazard a guess as 
to what he pulled out of his car?

Yep.  An Ingram Mac-10.

He went on to give Bill a huge sob story about how he and his 
family were moving out of state (right then) and desperately 
needed money, and he - you guessed it - wanted and needed to 
sell the Ingram rather desperately.

Bill always was a pushover.  He bought the Ingram for cash, 
took it back to his office, and called his other friend to 
tell him gleefully that he'd found his gun for him.

Both buyer and seller showed up to arrest him.  Yes, they were 
both ATF agents.  

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe that's entrapment, when 
both sides of the transaction are undercover agents.  ATF is 
not concerned with minor details like  the law, however.

The feds offered to drop all charges if Bill would get them 
some prosecutable info on Karl.  Bill told them - quite 
honestly - that he couldn't do it even if he wanted to, as 
Karl never, never did anything illegal.

Bill was indeed guilty of failure to pay the transfer tax - 
a minor offense.  There was never any criminal intent.  But a 
senile federal judge (Sarah T. Hughes, just about two weeks 
before she fell off the bench from a massive stroke) prosecuted 
Bill to the fullest ridiculous extent of the law, and he spent 
the next two years in the federal penitentiary.  

When all was said and done, Bill lost:

   1. Two years of his life.
   2. His business, as most of his work was for military and 
      government agencies and required a security clearance.
   3. His right to vote.
   4. His right to ever hold any public office (he is well 
      respected in his community and often asked to run for 
      City Council, etc., but he cannot).
   5. His right to ever own another firearm - i.e., his right 
      to self defense.

Why did he lose all of this?  Because he dared to treat me 
civilly and thereby made my crazy ex-husband really angry!

Should he have lost his right to self-defense because my ex 
was a certifiable nut case?  Don't be absurd!

To make matters even more interesting, my wonderful ex-hubbie 
"Seth" can purchase any firearm he likes these days.  His record 
is absolutely clean.  And that's the scariest thought I've had 
all day.

So should felons keep the right to own firearms?

As long as the system remains broken this way, I say they should.

Got any rotten tomatoes to throw at me?