The court seemed remarkably disinterested in exploring the underlying policy rationale for the business regulation exception.\u00a0 The statute’s reference to “similar offenses” cries out for a theory to explain what the listed offenses (antitrust violations, unfair trade practices, and\u00a0restraints of trade) have in common and why Congress deemed it appropriate to carve these offenses out of the general criminal prohibition on gun possession by a felon.\u00a0 For instance, it strikes me that the listed offenses are\u00a0similar in that all are nonviolent and are commonly perpetrated by otherwise legitimate business enterprises.\u00a0 Thus, those who commit such offenses are not presumptively dangerous in ways that would warrant special restrictions on their right to own guns.\u00a0\u00a0Based on\u00a0this analysis, a court might determine whether a prior conviction counts as a “similar offense” by considering whether the\u00a0offense was nonviolent and of the sort commonly perpetrated by otherwise legitimate business enterprises.\u00a0 (Such an approach would, among other things, have the benefit of helping to ensure that some substantial state interest warrants the infringement on Second Amendment rights imposed by the felon-in-possession statute.)<\/p>\n
Rather than\u00a0attempting to discern a coherent congressional purpose behind the business regulation exception, the Seventh Circuit instead cobbled together a handful of holdings from other circuits to reach this test:<\/p>\n
In order for the exclusion to apply under “regulation of business practices,” the government would have been required to prove, as an element of the predicate offense, that competition or consumers were affected; possible incidental affects are not relevant.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Because Schultz’s telecoms offense did not have as an element “that competitition or consumers were affected,” it qualified as a predicate offense.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Interestingly, Schultz’s offense did, in fact, have as an element that his conduct affected interstate commerce.\u00a0 But the court dismissed the significance of this element,\u00a0observing simply that “many criminal statutes include such a jurisdictional nexus.”\u00a0<\/p>\n
Absent is any discussion of why it makes sense to treat business regulatory offenses differently based on whether competition or consumers were affected.\u00a0\u00a0Stealing cable\u00a0is hardly laudable conduct, but why should the person who cheats the cable company get treated so much more harshly than the person who cheats real live consumers?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
In 2005, Kevin Schultz pled guilty to one count of trafficking in counterfeit telecommunications instruments.\u00a0 His offense involved modifying telecommunications equipment for the purpose of stealing cable.\u00a0 His sentence? Two years on probation, including a period of home detention. Two and a half years after his first conviction, federal agents searched Schultz’s home and found […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ocean_post_layout":"","ocean_both_sidebars_style":"","ocean_both_sidebars_content_width":0,"ocean_both_sidebars_sidebars_width":0,"ocean_sidebar":"","ocean_second_sidebar":"","ocean_disable_margins":"enable","ocean_add_body_class":"","ocean_shortcode_before_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_after_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_before_header":"","ocean_shortcode_after_header":"","ocean_has_shortcode":"","ocean_shortcode_after_title":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_bottom":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_bottom":"","ocean_display_top_bar":"default","ocean_display_header":"default","ocean_header_style":"","ocean_center_header_left_menu":"","ocean_custom_header_template":"","ocean_custom_logo":0,"ocean_custom_retina_logo":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_height":0,"ocean_header_custom_menu":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_family":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_subset":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_size":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_unit":"px","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_line_height":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_unit":"","ocean_menu_typo_spacing":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_unit":"","ocean_menu_link_color":"","ocean_menu_link_color_hover":"","ocean_menu_link_color_active":"","ocean_menu_link_background":"","ocean_menu_link_hover_background":"","ocean_menu_link_active_background":"","ocean_menu_social_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_links_color":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_color":"","ocean_disable_title":"default","ocean_disable_heading":"default","ocean_post_title":"","ocean_post_subheading":"","ocean_post_title_style":"","ocean_post_title_background_color":"","ocean_post_title_background":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_image_position":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_attachment":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_repeat":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_size":"","ocean_post_title_height":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay":0.5,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay_color":"","ocean_disable_breadcrumbs":"default","ocean_breadcrumbs_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_separator_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_hover_color":"","ocean_display_footer_widgets":"default","ocean_display_footer_bottom":"default","ocean_custom_footer_template":"","ocean_post_oembed":"","ocean_post_self_hosted_media":"","ocean_post_video_embed":"","ocean_link_format":"","ocean_link_format_target":"self","ocean_quote_format":"","ocean_quote_format_link":"post","ocean_gallery_link_images":"on","ocean_gallery_id":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[30,28,23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7867","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-criminal-justice","category-criminal-law-process","category-seventh-circuit","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7867","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7867"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7867\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7867"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7867"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7867"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"seventh](\"http:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/11\/seventh-circuit.jpg\" "\\"seventh")
In 2005, Kevin Schultz pled guilty to one count of trafficking in counterfeit telecommunications instruments.\u00a0 His offense involved modifying telecommunications equipment for the purpose of stealing cable.\u00a0 His sentence? Two years on probation, including a period of home detention.<\/p>\n