The idea is that the criminal has received their punishment once released from prison. Any further infringements on the person's rights are unacceptable. That includes the person's Natural Right to acquire fully-automatic weapons, should he so desire. [BTW, the nature of the crime committed is irrelevant].
Not so, I believe Kent pointed out the US statute that describes unreasonable punishment as being "cruel and unusual", banning ownership of firearms as part of the punishment for a violent crime seems perfectly reasonable to me, but foo on that anyway: punishment should fit the crime, if you commit murder or rape or any one of a number of such serious crimes I see no reason why you shouldn`t be punished cruelly. I can see the point of view which accepts serving of sentence as being the end of punishment, and I do not accept a ban on firearms as being implicit in the commision of a felony, but if a court explicitly states that part of the punishment should be a X year or lifetime ban I can accept that. Datacomms Technologies data security Paul Bradley, Paul@fatmans.demon.co.uk Paul@crypto.uk.eu.org, Paul@cryptography.uk.eu.org Http://www.cryptography.home.ml.org/ Email for PGP public key, ID: FC76DA85 "Don`t forget to mount a scratch monkey"