License to Own Firearms

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7^th Circuit Court of Appeals

Case Name: David Rhein v. John Coffman

Case No.: 15-2867

Officials: EASTERBROOK and WILLIAMS, Circuit Judges, and YANDLE, District Judge

Focus: License to Own Firearms

License to own firearms properly revoked for distressed individual threatening to shoot house of representative member. Respondent not guilty of any 2^nd amendment violations.

“Now a recommendation, even an emphatic one, is not a command. Rhein was free to ask the Director for an immediate hearing. Coffman’s letter did not block that path. But Rhein did not take it. Having repeatedly threatened a state legislator with violence, Rhein surely understood that he was not going to get his Card back just by promising to keep guns out of political disputes. Rhein told Coffman in February 2011 that his threats to kill DeLuca had been meant only “to get people’s attention.” 118 F. Supp. 3d at 1098. But neither the Second Amendment nor the Due Process Clause requires public officials to be credulous. Rhein does not deny that his statements were “true threats” within the meaning of Virginia v. Black, 538 U.S. 343, 359–60 (2003), and Watts v. United States, 394 U.S. 705, 707–08 (1969), so he could have been convicted for making them. A felony conviction would have established a long-term bar to gun ownership. See 18 U.S.C. §922(g)(1); United States v. Skoien, 614 F.3d 638 (7th Cir. 2010) (en banc). Rhein had every right to a prompt hearing, but if he had exercised that right without first assembling the sort of evidence Coffman had recommended, he was doomed to lose. Giving sound advice cannot be a source of constitutional liability.”

Affirmed

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Attorney Derek A. Hawkins is the managing partner at Hawkins Law Offices LLC, where he heads up the firm’s startup law practice. He specializes in business formation, corporate governance, intellectual property protection, private equity and venture capital funding and mergers & acquisitions. Check out the website at www.hawkins-lawoffices.com or contact them at 262-737-8825.