A Clayton County judge must grant a gun license to a man with a prior felony conviction because he had his civil rights restored, the Georgia Supreme Court ruled Monday.
The decision means a four-year wait should end soon for Manuel E. Perry, who was denied a weapon-carry license in February 2009 by Clayton Probate Judge Pam Ferguson. Perry sued Ferguson after she denied him the permit on the grounds that he had not had his gun rights restored since being convicted of a felony 38 years earlier.
Perry was convicted in 1971 for violating federal liquor tax laws, or moonshining. In 1978, the U.S. Treasury Department granted Perry relief from federal firearms restrictions, although the agency said it was not relieving him from any restrictions under state or local laws.
Perry then turned to the state parole board, which in 1979 restored his civil and political rights in an order that said “all disabilities” resulting from his federal conviction had been removed.
In Monday’s opinion, Justice David Nahmias wrote that the parole board’s order, while inartfully written, was all Perry needed to get the gun-carry license.
The Georgia Constitution granted the parole board the authority to lift such a restriction, Nahmias wrote. The board, he added, also has recognized that the right to keep and bear arms is a civil right by specifically excepting the right to possess a firearm when restoring other civil rights to convicted felons in separate cases.
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