If someone commits a crime, lock him or her up or shoot them, or whatever. But once the penalty is over, all normal rights return. The right to vote, the right to free speech, the right to own weapons, etc.
Depends on your perspective. I can see a valid case for a penalty for say armed robbery that entails a lifetime, or 5/10/X year ban on ownership of guns. Other violent armed crime like this could also incur such a penalty as part of the sentence and I would consider this reasonable, however, banning ownership of guns for any felony is definitely not at all reasonable.
(Somehow most people think it's OK that convicted felons lose their rights to vote and to have guns. (Once they're released, of course.) Do they think convicted felons no longer have religious freedom? Can no longer write as they wish? Jeesh.)
Speech cannot harm someone, if someone has commited a violent crime and are likely to do so again, banning ownership of firearms sounds reasonable to me, of course this is not going to be an effective ban, but that is beside the point.
I find it interesting that they find the right to vote as dangerous as the right to own a gun.
Indeed, I can see no justification whatsoever for banning participation in the democratic process as an ongoing penalty for commision of crime after the main sentence is completed. 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"