The 08 case is Heller, ya'all.The gun case involved Barry Michaels, a Nevada Democrat who ran unsuccessfully for the U.S. Senate seat last year. Michaels, who describes his past as "checkered," pleaded guilty to several nonviolent federal crimes including mail fraud and securities fraud.
Michaels decided to get his act together during a stay in federal prison. Once released, he managed a variety of businesses, including a pizza parlor, and several unsuccessful bids for Congress.
Because of his rising star on the political scene, Michaels has said, he sought a gun for self-defense. But federal law prohibits the possession of firearms by felons. And in 2008, the Supreme Court held that "longstanding prohibitions on the possession of firearms by felons" are presumptively lawful.
Michaels argued that the 2008 decision also left open the possibility that felons are entitled to purchase weapons by cementing "the right of law-abiding, responsible citizens to use arms in defense of hearth and home."
Michaels has argued that he is both a felon and a law-abiding citizen. Therefore, he said, he is entitled to a gun.
Ah...the dreaded "prohibited person" fiction. Can't even hear that case.
"Several of the Circuit Courts and their inferior courts have reached the conclusion that felons as a class, can never be law-abiding and responsible," his attorney, Tom Goldstein, wrote in a brief asking the court to take up the case.
"It is the humble beginnings of the creation of 'second-class' citizenship in this country," he argued.
Gun rights activists and conservative legal scholars frequently argue that regulations on firearms seek to interpret the 2nd Amendment as a "second-class" right.