Domestic-violence guns ban affirmed

CINCINNATI — A divided federal appeals court panel Thursday upheld the U.S. ban on guns for people convicted of misdemeanor domestic violence, even decades after the offenses.

A panel of 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals judges voted 2-1 to affirm a lower court’s dismissal of the challenge by an Ohio man who pleaded no contest in 1997 to a domestic violence charge for “knowingly causing or attempting to cause harm” to his then-wife.

The man, Terry Stimmel, was blocked in 2002 from buying a gun at a Wal-Mart store after a background check showed his domestic violence record. He said he wanted the gun to “defend his home and family.”

Stimmel, who has no other convictions, appealed unsuccessfully to the FBI and then filed a challenge to the U.S. statute on domestic violence and guns, saying the ban undercuts his constitutional right to keep and bear arms and his right to equal protection under the law.

The appeals panel said that federal courts have consistently upheld the gun ban for misdemeanor domestic violence convicts, who were included in a 1996 law that was intended to disarm domestic abusers who weren’t prosecuted for felonies but posed continued danger to their families.

Judge Danny Boggs dissented, saying the government offered, “at best, minimal evidence” that someone with no other domestic violence history presents a heightened risk decades later.