It's not a difficult conclusion to reach when the state's highest court potentially guts a law that prevents felons from owning guns, and does so in the most haphazard way.

Barney Britt, convicted of a drug felony 30 years ago, probably deserved to have his gun rights restored. In fact, they were restored in 1987, five years after he completed his prison sentence and probation.

Then, in 2004, the North Carolina General Assembly passed a more comprehensive ban to keep guns from convicted felons.

While previous state laws gave convicted felons the opportunity to have some gun rights restored five years after completing their sentence, the 2004 law did away with those rights.

Britt sued, complaining that the law violated a host of constitutional rights.

Late last month, in a 5-2 ruling, the North Carolina Supreme Court overturned a lower court decision and restored Britt's right to possess firearms.

Justice Ed Brady, writing for the majority, essentially said that Britt seemed to be good guy, had no history of violence and hadn't gotten in trouble for 30 years. So, as applied to him, the prohibition was unreasonable and unconstitutional.

He wrote that the law violated a section of the state constitution that mirrors language in the 2nd Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

Good. Maybe now the state Supreme Court can examine every convicted felon to determine whether they are a good guy or gal.

Lawyers and those in the gun rights fray seemed divided over whether the ruling would have far-reaching implications, whether it might apply to all nonviolent felons.

"It's putting a lot of our state gun laws at risk," said Roxane Kelor of North Carolinians Against Gun Violence.

The ruling ignores a bunch of previous court cases, including a 7-2 U.S. Supreme Court decision in February upholding a federal firearms ban for those convicted of misdemeanor domestic violence laws.

But let's get back to Britt and his timeline.

One aspect of his lawsuit lost in the shuffle was his claim that the 2004 law acted as an ex-post facto law, making something illegal after it happened. Remember, he and other convicted felons who had kept their noses clean for five years had some of their gun rights restored.

Seventeen years later, based on nothing that he did, the rights were yanked away.

Looks, smells and waddles like ex post facto to me.

Case law doesn't support that interpretation either. That's because lawyers and judges have split legal hairs to claim that the prohibitions are a "non-punitive, regulatory scheme" and not a new penalty applied to the previously-convicted.

Now there's a plain reading of the constitution.

But if you're going to ignore 40 years of court rulings, as Brady et al have done, why not ignore them in a way that's logical, fair and narrowly focused?

Oh, did I mention logic and the law together? I apologize.