Gun legislation caught in crossfireJOE KAFKA
Associated Press
PIERRE, S.D. - Two groups that champion gun rights split sharply Friday on a legislative solution seeking to restore gun ownership and the ability of some South Dakotans to hunt again.
A 1996 federal law contains a lifetime gun ban for people convicted of domestic violence, whether felonies or misdemeanors. But officials say the federal government will allow exceptions if states have their own laws providing gun penalties for harming family members.
South Dakota has no such law, but SB43 is the vehicle legislators hope will allow the state to circumvent the federal lifetime ban on guns.
A proposed amendment to the bill, which was initially reviewed Friday, would establish a one-year state ban on gun ownership for South Dakotans convicted of domestic violence. It would restore any lost civil rights one year after convictions, and those earlier convicted of domestic violence will regain their guns rights one year after the measure becomes law.
If the amendment works as intended, it should allow South Dakotans to get out from under the federal lifetime gun ban, said Sen. Lee Schoenbeck, R-Watertown.
He said it is absurd that federal law prevents South Dakotans convicted of misdemeanor domestic violence from ever owning guns again, but others who commit serious felonies can get their gun rights back if they complete their sentences and their civil rights are restored.
"That's just not rational," Schoenbeck said.
People found guilty of family violence in South Dakota and later caught with firearms face up to 10 years in prison and $250,000 fines, said David Conway, legislative affairs director for the South Dakota Shooting Sports Association. The group is an affiliate of the National Rifle Association.
It makes no sense that South Dakotans who were convicted decades ago for domestic violence may not hunt or have guns, Conway said. He endorsed the proposed one-year state ban as a means of pre-empting the federal law.
"People in the state who fell victim to the (lifetime ban) deserve this," Conway said. "They deserve to have their firearms' rights back."
Plunking down petitions containing 600 names in opposition to the proposed state solution to the lifetime federal gun ban, Ray Lautenschlager of Rapid City, executive director of South Dakota Gun Owners, said it will not work.
The amendment to SB43 would violate the Constitution by trying to retroactively restore gun rights to people who have already lost them, Lautenschlager said. Retroactive laws are not allowed, he told the state Senate Judiciary Committee.
The measure also would fail a court test because it interferes with the constitutional right to bear arms, he added.
"Gun owners have no rights under a ban, whether it's for one year or a lifetime," Lautenschlager said. "To deprive someone of the ability to defend their own lives and the lives of their loves one is to deny them the right to life itself," he said.
Lautenschlager said SB43 will not alter the federal lifetime ban on gun ownership in South Dakota, but it will create a new state ban "giving legitimacy to the existence of the federal ban."
The federal ban is unconstitutional and should be repealed, he said.
The proposed state alternative to the federal gun ownership ban is contained in a bill that will update the criminal code in South Dakota. Legislators took no immediate action on the measure Friday.
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