The National Rifle Association and the Second Amendment Foundation filed an amicus brief in litigation over whether nonviolent felony convictions may permanently bar firearm possession. Their filing says colonial through nineteenth-century practice limited arms bans to people viewed as violent or as risks of armed revolt, while nonviolent offenders who finished their sentences generally kept the right to keep and bear arms. It rejects a Fifth Circuit theory that founding-era capital felonies justify lifelong disarmament of every felon, noting many felonies were not capital crimes and that other Bill of Rights protections are not lost on that ground. The groups contend Congress or a state cannot erase Second Amendment rights solely by labeling an offense a felony.