Supreme Court declines to take felon's Second Amendment challenge to lifetime gun ownership ban

WASHINGTON – The Supreme Court Monday declined to take a challenge to a Wisconsin law banning state residents who have been convicted of felonies – including non-violent crimes – from owning handguns for the rest of their lives.

Leevan Roundtree challenged his conviction after police found a revolver and bullets in his home and charged him in 2015 with possessing a firearm despite a prior felony conviction. Twelve years earlier Roundtree pleaded guilty to failure to pay child support for more than four months, a felony in Wisconsin.

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The question of whether states can ban non-violent felons from owning guns has repeatedly come up at the Supreme Court but remains unanswered. The justices declined to take up three similar challenges earlier this year, allowing to stand lower court rulings that upheld similar state laws. One of those cases involved a man who had pleaded guilty to selling counterfeit cassette tapes in the 1980s.

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