What do alleged sniper John Allen Muhammad and Timothy Joe
Emerson have in common? 18 U.S.C. 922(g)(8) — that’s what. And
that’s a lot.
That federal law is the controversial one that makes a felon of
a fellow who possesses a firearm after a domestic restraint has
been issued against him, a controversial statute passed during a
blossoming of care in Congress over spousal abuse. It is not just
Muhammad’s possession of that Bushmaster .223 that enables the
federal government to hold him without bond as the various offended
jurisdictions decide where and for what Muhammad will be tried. It
is the fact that he possessed it while a spousal restraint was in
force against him. And it is the same statute that gave the FBI
probable cause to search his car. It isn’t the gun that got him.
It’s his ex-wife.
You know who and what John Muhammad is. But Timothy Joe Emerson
is another person altogether, a Texas doctor from San Angelo whose
name is involved in the biggest Second Amendment legal case ever to
hit the courts. Emerson was charged with possessing a pistol after
a judge had issued a restraining order during a divorce dust-up in
1998. 18 U.S.C. 922(g)(8). He pleaded the Second Amendment in his
defense. And federal judge Sam Cummings of the Northern District of
Texas upheld that defense. Not only that, but Judge Cummings
rendered a lengthy opinion that reviewed the history of the right
to bear arms from English Common Law through the permutations of
American jurisprudence.
The judge examines the two schools of thought, the “states’
rights” theory and the “individual rights” theory and he concludes
that the Second Amendment means the individual has this right to
bear arms. Gun rights advocates hailed the Cummings decision which
the government appealed to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals. Last
fall the fifth circuit majority also endorsed the “individual
rights” interpretation but said the government has the right to
restrict that right. It reversed the Cummings decision and the case
was sent back to Texas for trial. Doctor Emerson appealed to the
U.S. Supreme Court but the highest court in the land ducked and
refused to hear the appeal, avoiding the chance to settle this
“militia” versus individual argument once and for all.
October 7 a federal jury in Lubbock found Emerson guilty on
three counts of illegally possessing a firearm. When sentenced, he
faces a $250,000 fine and five years in prison. The case that
produced some of the most learned verbiage on the history of
individual vs. state or collective rights is still subject to
appeal.
As the Emerson verdict was being rendered in Texas, the alleged
killing spree of John Muhammad was well under way. And many months
before, his ex-wife had had restraints issued against him. Thus the
charge on which his car was searched, and the one on which he was
first sent to jail — violation of 18 U.S.C. 922(g)(8). You’ll read
about it only in journalistic shorthand: “a federal weapons
violation.”
The power of Muslim husbands over their wives is legendary. But
the power of a miffed wife over a gun-owning husband in America
dwarfs anything in all of Islam.
