SALT LAKE CITY � A single mother with two advanced degrees who works as a
licensed clinical social worker wants to buy a gun to protect herself and
to go hunting and target shooting with her family.

But a federal felony conviction in 2008 for trying to cash a fraudulent
$498.12 check at a Salt Lake grocery store years ago prohibits Mindy
Vincent from ever possessing a firearm.

�I can�t even be in a car with a bullet,� the Heber City resident said.

State and federal laws generally bar convicted felons from possessing a
gun. A person found in violation of the law could be sent to prison.

Vincent has too many charges to have her criminal record expunged in state
court, but she has applied to the Utah Board of Pardons and Parole for a
pardon. There is no expungement law in the federal system and federal
courts have no inherent authority to expunge criminal convictions.

Short of a presidential pardon, Vincent can�t have her Second Amendment
rights restored, even though she has turned her life around and been sober
for nearly 14 years. For that reason, she is suing the federal government
and the state of Utah.

�It�s about more than just my firearm rights. It�s about the fact that I�m
not ever given an opportunity for redemption no matter how much I�ve done,
no matter how much I�ve accomplished, no matter how good I am in my
community, I�m still always labeled a felon,� said the 42-year-old mother
of a 19-year-old son and 11-year-old daughter.

Vincent isn�t alone in her quest to own a gun again.

At least three others are petitioning the U.S. Supreme Court to hear their
cases. One of them, Torres v. U.S., references a Utah law that makes it a
felony for making an illicit recording in a movie theater on the second
offense.

The high court has not agreed to take on those arguments, but the issue is
of keen interest to newly appointed Justice Amy Coney Barrett.

In a dissenting opinion in a 7th Circuit Court of Appeals case, Barrett
concluded that only people convicted of dangerous felonies should lose
their right to keep and bear arms. She traced the history of the Second
Amendment and the punishing of convicted felons to colonial times.

History, she wrote, is consistent with common sense that legislatures have
the power to prohibit dangerous people from possessing guns, but that
power extends only to people who are dangerous.

�In sum, founding-era legislatures categorically disarmed groups whom they
judged to be a threat to the public safety,� Barrett wrote. �But neither
the convention proposals nor historical practice supports a legislative
power to categorically disarm felons because of their status as felons.�

In that case, Rickey Kanter, of Mequon, Wisconsin, pleaded guilty in 2011
to one count of mail fraud for selling therapeutic shoe inserts that he
misrepresented as Medicare-approved through his company, Dr. Comfort. He
was sentenced to a year and one day in prison. After serving his time and
paying restitution, he challenged state and federal laws banning felons
from owning guns.

The majority on the three-judge panel, however, ruled that the federal and
Wisconsin laws were substantially related to the governmental objective of
keeping firearms away from those convicted of serious crimes. Because
Kanter was convicted of a serious federal felony, his challenge to the
constitutionality of the laws is without merit, the judges wrote.

A lower court ruling also found that courts are not equipped to predict
which nonviolent felons pose a risk and which do not, while the the
appeals court noted several studies that have found a connection between
nonviolent offenders like Kanter and a risk of future violent crime.

Vincent�s attorneys, Sam Meziani and Jeremy Delicino, argue that laws
barring convicted felons from having guns should be more narrowly drawn to
exclude people like Vincent who have rehabilitated and redeemed themselves
and proven they are deserving of society�s trust to have a gun.

Her nonviolent crime is not the type of offense that allows the government
to permanently deprive her of gun ownership and they say it�s
unconstitutional to apply the law to her.

�Ms. Vincent now brings this lawsuit to remove the scarlet letter imposed
by current law and to restore rights that can no longer be
indiscriminately withheld by legislative fiat,� they wrote in the lawsuit
filed in U.S. District Court in Salt Lake City.

The attorneys aren�t contending that felons should always be allowed to
have guns after they have served their time. The government, they say, can
only take away the right to bear arms from people it deems dangerous.

But Vincent, they said, has no history of violence and has led an
exemplary life since overcoming her drug addiction.

The law, according to the lawsuit, has offered her neither forgiveness nor
redemption, but consigns her to a lifetime as a second-class citizen by
permanently stripping of her Second Amendment rights.

Born in Bear Lake, Vincent grew up in a poor, dysfunctional family where
there was trauma and abuse. She started injecting and cooking
methamphetamine at age 15. Her struggles with addiction and homelessness
pushed her into committing crimes. After her arrest in 2007, Vincent
entered treatment for her drug and alcohol addiction and graduated from
drug court.

In the midst of her recovery, she was convicted in federal court of trying
to cash a fake check. Rather than send her to prison, the late U.S.
District Judge Dee Benson sentenced her to probation and gave her a second
chance.

Vincent made the most of it.

With a new lease on life, she earned a behavioral science degree from Utah
Valley University followed by master�s in social work from the University
of Utah. She opened a private practice in therapy and counseling.

In 2018, she completed a master�s degree in public administration at the
U. She is the founder and executive director of the Utah Harm Reduction
Coalition, a nonprofit that works to develop science-driven drug and
criminal justice reform policies. She also started the first legal syringe
exchange service in the state.

Meziani said he can count on one hand the number of clients like Vincent
he has had in his legal career. He described her turnaround as rare and
remarkable.

�That�s not to say that should be the requirement. You shouldn�t have to
go to the great lengths that she�s gone to in order to have your Second
Amendment rights restored. But if she can�t get her rights restored, I�m
not sure that there�s anyone who could,� he said.

Vincent said once people have served their sentences, that should be the
end of it, though she agrees repeat violent offenders should not have
guns. But people shouldn�t have to �grovel and beg forgiveness� to get
their rights back. She said she hopes her lawsuit provides a pathway for
redemption in the federal system.

�This is about so much more than me. There are so many people who are just
like me who have turned their lives around, they�ve given back to their
community, they�re an asset to their community, yet they can�t have their
God-given rights as an American,� Vincent said.

Vincent said she owns property and ATVs at Bear Lake and enjoys target
shooting with her family on weekends. And as a single mother, �I just want
the right to defend my home with a firearm if I so need to.�

Although the Supreme Court could take up the issue and a ruling would
impact their case, Vincent�s attorneys are pressing ahead with the
lawsuit. It�s also possible a judge could put Vincent�s case on hold
pending a high court decision.

https://www.deseret.com/utah/2020/12/30/22179231/gun-rights-restored-
felon-second-amendment-amy-coney-barrett-kanter-utah-federal-lawsuit

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We live in a time where intelligent people are being silenced so that
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Durham Report: The FBI has an integrity problem. It has none.

No collusion - Special Counsel Robert Swan Mueller III, March 2019.
Officially made Nancy Pelosi a two-time impeachment loser.

Thank you for cleaning up the disaster of the 2008-2017 Obama / Biden
fiasco, President Trump.

Under Barack Obama's leadership, the United States of America became the
The World According To Garp. Obama sold out heterosexuals for Hollywood
queer liberal democrat donors.

President Trump boosted the economy, reduced illegal invasions, appointed
dozens of judges and three SCOTUS justices.