US Supreme Court and international shooters

[F. Paul in Denver]

The following information may be of interest to those in the international shooting community.

On April 26th, 2005 the U.S. Supreme court decided that a conviction occurring in a foreign country could not be used to bar the subsequent possession of a firearm in the United States by that same individual.

The facts of the case were fairly simple. The defendant was a Japanese citizen who had been previously convicted in Japan for a firearms offense. The crime which the defendant had been convicted of carried a penalty of greater than one year imprisonment under Japanese law.

Some years later and while living in the US, the defendant was arrested while in possession of a firearm and charged under US federal law (18 U.S.C. sect. 922(g)(1),) which prohibits the possession of firearms by any person who had been previously convicted in “any court of a
crime punishable by imprisonment for a term exceeding one year ...”

The supreme court today held that US federal law encompasses only domestic, not foreign, convictions.

The court reasoned that foreign convictions may include convictions for conduct that US domestic laws would permit and that foreign convictions may arise under a legal system inconsistent with American fundamental fairness.

It’s important to note that the court made no exceptions e.g., a conviction in a democratic country like Canada would be treated no differently than a conviction arising out of a criminal case in communist China.