Bean

The Second Amendment Foundation has filed an amicus-curiae brief in the Bean case, which has been granted certiori before the United States Supreme Court.

The case involves a man who travelled to Mexico, accidentally had a small amount of ammunition in his vehicle, and was convicted of trying to smuggle said ammunition into Mexico in a Mexican court. He was imprisoned briefly in Mexico and then returned to the United States to serve the rest of his sentence.

Because his crime was considered a felony in Mexico, he was considered a prohibited person in the US (no firearms rights), even though his "crime" is perfectly legal in the US. Bean petitioned the BATF for restoration of his firearms rights on those grounds, and was denied, because Congress provides no funding.

So he filed a lawsuit, which has now made it to the Supreme Court. This is an opportunity for the SC to speak to the 2nd Amendment (which is not without risk!), but seems an excellent case on which to do so.

Four years ago in Laredo, Tex., firearms dealer Thomas Lamar Bean decided that a night out in Mexico would be the perfect way to cap off a day at a gun show. But by the time it was over, he had landed in jail and his livelihood had been destroyed.

When Bean reached the border that evening, Mexican authorities discovered 200 bullets in his car and charged him with smuggling ammunition. Sentenced without a trial to five years in a Mexican prison, Bean served four months before being sent to a U.S. jail under a U.S.-Mexico treaty. A federal judge in Texas promptly reduced his sentence to probation, and later eliminated that, too, but Bean was out of the gun business because U.S. law prohibits anyone with a felony conviction, even a foreign one, from obtaining a firearms license.

WASHINGTON, Oct. 15 /U.S. Newswire/ -- The nation's highest court will hear the Bean case on Wednesday, Oct. 16. This case will decide whether people federally disqualified from firearm possession can ever regain the right to own a firearm through federal means. The Second Amendment Foundation (SAF) filed an amicus brief in the case.

"This has all the makings of a blockbuster case," said Dave LaCourse, Second Amendment Foundation's (SAF's) Public Affairs Director who will attend the oral arguments tomorrow. "Mr. Bean is a good person caught in an unjust system who has quietly won his rights back before all four judges who have heard his case. Bean should force the high court into recognizing the need for second chances as the lower courts are divided."

Mexico detained two U.S. Border Patrol agents during a routine border check that uncovered a box filled with illegal ammunition in their car, the Mexican federal attorney general's office said Tuesday.

He said the agents were off-duty and driving a private vehicle when they were arrested. Hernandez did not know why they were carrying the ammunition, the same assigned to other border patrol agents for use while on-duty.

Most likely, they just forgot that the ammunition was there, or maybe figured their government status would protect them.  The facts of this case appear to be identical to the facts in US v Bean, except for the status of the individuals involved as government agents and an intervening Supreme Court precedent.  As we all know, some animals are more equal than others.  It will be interesting to see how the two governments involved handle this case.