Convicted felons are not allowed maintain ownership of their guns—but can they give them away?
That’s the question now to be settled by the Supreme Court, in Henderson v United States.
The case revolves around Tony Henderson, a former U.S. Border Patrol agent convicted of selling marijuana.
Henderson surrounded 19 firearms to the FBI after pleading guilty, but later sued for the right to sell them or turn them over to his wife. Two courts have already rejected Henderson’s case.
Henderson is arguing that forbidding convicts to sell or give away their firearms would allow officers to “bypass formal forfeiture procedures” and “effectively strip gun owners of their entire ownership interest in significant, lawful household assets following a conviction for an unrelated offense.” Henderson’s guns were supposedly not related to his crime.
The government has countered that Henderson should have simply sold his guns prior to his conviction, and that it would be too dangerous to allow Henderson’s family or friends to accept the guns from him.
According to court filings, Henderson voluntarily surrendered his weapons before his conviction because the judge considered him a suicide risk. At the time, he was not aware they would be permanently taken from him. He says the government failed to give him notice that he was disqualified from owning them, as they were legally required to do.
