The Fifth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans ruled that illegal immigrants have no right to bear arms.
The case surrounded a man who illegally possessed a handgun. previously-deported Jose Paz Medina-Cantu was arrested in 2022 for possessing a handgun and illegal re-entry, Fox News reported.
Despite pleading guilty and receiving 15 months in prison, Medina-Cantu argued on appeal that the gun charge violated his Second Amendment right. His attorneys claimed that the 2022 Supreme Court ruling in New York State Rifle and Pistol Association v. Bruen did not “unequivocally abrogate our precedent that the plain text of the Second Amendment does not encompass illegal aliens.”
U.S. Circuit Judge James Ho wrote in the opinion that the Second Amendment “protects the right of ‘the people’ to keep and bear arms. Our court has held that the term ‘the people’ under the Second Amendment does not include illegal aliens.”
“As to common sense, an illegal alien does not become ‘part of a national community’ by unlawfully entering it, any more than a thief becomes an owner of property by stealing it,” Ho noted.
He emphasized that “illegal aliens are not part of ‘the people’ entitled to the protections of the Second Amendment.’”
