Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca3-21-02835/USCOURTS-ca3-21-02835-2/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 440
Nature of Suit: Other Civil Rights
Cause of Action: 

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PRECEDENTIAL 

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS 

FOR THE THIRD CIRCUIT 

______________ 

No. 21-2835 

______________ 

BRYAN DAVID RANGE, 

 Appellant 

v. 

ATTORNEY GENERAL UNITED STATES OF AMERICA; 

REGINA LOMBARDO, Acting Director, Bureau of Alcohol, 

Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives 

 

______________ 

On Appeal from the United States District Court 

for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania 

(D.C. No. 5:20-CV-03488) 

District Judge: Honorable Gene E.K. Pratter 

______________ 

Argued before Merits Panel on September 19, 2022 

Argued En Banc on February 15, 2023 

______________ 

Before: CHAGARES, Chief Judge, JORDAN, HARDIMAN, 

GREENAWAY, JR., SHWARTZ, KRAUSE, RESTREPO, 

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BIBAS, PORTER, MATEY, PHIPPS, FREEMAN, 

MONTGOMERY-REEVES, ROTH,*

 and AMBRO,** 

Circuit Judges. 

(Filed: June 6, 2023) 

William V. Bergstrom 

Peter A. Patterson [Argued] 

David H. Thompson 

Cooper & Kirk 

1523 New Hampshire Avenue, N.W. 

Washington, DC 20036 

Michael P. Gottlieb 

Vangrossi & Recchuiti 

319 Swede Street 

Norristown, PA 19401 

Counsel for the Appellant 

Joseph G. S. Greenlee 

Firearms Policy Coalition Action 

5550 Painted Mirage Road 

Suite 320 

Las Vegas, NV 89149 

*

 Judge Roth is participating as a member of the en banc court 

pursuant to 3d Cir. I.O.P. 9.6.4. 

** Judge Ambro assumed senior status on February 6, 2023 and 

elected to continue participating as a member of the en banc 

court pursuant to 3d Cir. I.O.P. 9.6.4. 

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Counsel for Amici Curiae FPC Action Foundation and 

Firearms Policy Coalition, Inc. in Support of Appellant

Lisa B. Freeland 

Renee Pietropaolo 

Eleni Kousoulis 

K. Anthony Thomas 

Helen A. Marino 

Heidi R. Freese 

Matthew Campbell 

Office of Federal Public Defender 

1001 Liberty Avenue 

1500 Liberty Center 

Pittsburgh, PA 15222 

Counsel for Amicus Curiae Federal Public & 

Community Defender Organization of the Third 

Circuit in Support of Appellant 

Brian M. Boynton 

Jacqueline C. Romero 

Mark B. Stern 

Michael S. Raab 

Abby C. Wright 

Kevin B. Soter [Argued] 

United States Department of Justice 

Civil Division 

950 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W. 

Washington, DC 20530 

Counsel for the Appellees 

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Janet Carter 

Everytown Law 

450 Lexington Avenue 

P.O. Box 4148 

New York, NY 10017 

Counsel for Amicus Curiae Everytown for Gun Safety 

in Support of Appellees 

______________ 

OPINION OF THE COURT 

______________ 

HARDIMAN, Circuit Judge, with whom CHAGARES, Chief 

Judge, and JORDAN, GREENAWAY, JR., BIBAS, 

PORTER, MATEY, PHIPPS, and FREEMAN, Circuit 

Judges, join. 

Bryan Range appeals the District Court’s summary 

judgment rejecting his claim that the federal “felon-inpossession” law—18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1)—violates his Second 

Amendment right to keep and bear arms. We agree with Range 

that, despite his false statement conviction, he remains among 

“the people” protected by the Second Amendment. And 

because the Government did not carry its burden of showing 

that our Nation’s history and tradition of firearm regulation 

support disarming Range, we will reverse and remand. 

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I 

A 

The material facts are undisputed. In 1995, Range 

pleaded guilty in the Court of Common Pleas of Lancaster 

County to one count of making a false statement to obtain food 

stamps in violation of Pennsylvania law. See 62 Pa. Stat. Ann. 

§ 481(a). In those days, Range was earning between $9.00 and 

$9.50 an hour as he and his wife struggled to raise three young 

children on $300 per week. Range’s wife prepared an 

application for food stamps that understated Range’s income, 

which she and Range signed. Though he did not recall 

reviewing the application, Range accepted full responsibility 

for the misrepresentation.

Range was sentenced to three years’ probation, which 

he completed without incident. He also paid $2,458 in 

restitution, $288.29 in costs, and a $100 fine. Other than his 

1995 conviction, Range’s criminal history is limited to minor 

traffic and parking infractions and a summary offense for 

fishing without a license. 

When Range pleaded guilty in 1995, his conviction was 

classified as a Pennsylvania misdemeanor punishable by up to 

five years’ imprisonment. That conviction precludes Range 

from possessing a firearm because federal law generally makes 

it “unlawful for any person . . . who has been convicted in any 

court, of a crime punishable by imprisonment for a term 

exceeding one year” to “possess in or affecting commerce, any 

firearm or ammunition.” 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1). Although state 

misdemeanors are excluded from that prohibition if they are 

“punishable by a term of imprisonment of two years or less,” 

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18 U.S.C. § 921(a)(20)(B), that safe harbor provided no refuge 

for Range because he faced up to five years’ imprisonment. 

In 1998, Range tried to buy a firearm but was rejected 

by Pennsylvania’s instant background check system. Range’s 

wife, thinking the rejection a mistake, gifted him a deerhunting rifle. Years later, Range tried to buy a firearm and was 

rejected again. After researching the reason for the denial, 

Range learned he was barred from buying a firearm because of 

his 1995 conviction. Range then sold his deer-hunting rifle to 

a firearms dealer. 

B 

Range sued in the United States District Court for the 

Eastern District of Pennsylvania, seeking a declaration that 

§ 922(g)(1) violates the Second Amendment as applied to him. 

He also requested an injunction prohibiting the law’s 

enforcement against him. Range asserts that but for 

§ 922(g)(1), he would “for sure” purchase another deerhunting rifle and “maybe a shotgun” for self-defense at home. 

App. 197–98. Range and the Government cross-moved for 

summary judgment. 

The District Court granted the Government’s motion. 

Range v. Lombardo, 557 F. Supp. 3d 609, 611 (E.D. Pa. 2021).

Faithfully applying our then-controlling precedents, the Court 

held that Range’s crime was “serious” enough to deprive him 

of his Second Amendment rights. Id. In doing so, the Court 

noted the two-step framework we established in United States 

v. Marzzarella, 614 F.3d 85 (3d Cir. 2010). Range, 557 F. 

Supp. 3d at 613. The Court began—and ended—its analysis at 

the first step. It considered five factors to determine whether 

Range’s conviction made him an “unvirtuous citizen” of the 

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kind historically barred from possessing a firearm: (1) whether 

the conviction was classified as a misdemeanor or a felony; (2) 

whether the elements of the offense involve violence; (3) the 

sentence imposed; (4) whether there was a cross-jurisdictional 

consensus as to the seriousness of the crime, Binderup v. Att’y 

Gen., 836 F.3d 336, 351–52 (3d Cir. 2016) (en banc) 

(plurality); and (5) the potential for physical harm to others 

created by the offense, Holloway v. Att’y Gen., 948 F.3d 164, 

173 (3d Cir. 2020). Range, 557 F. Supp. 3d at 613–14. 

The Government conceded that four of the five factors 

favored Range because he was convicted of a nonviolent, nondangerous misdemeanor and had not been incarcerated. Id. at 

614. But the District Court held the “cross-jurisdictional 

consensus” factor favored the Government because about 40 

jurisdictions would have classified his crime as a felony. Id. at 

614–15. Noting that our decisions in Holloway, 948 F.3d at 

177, and Folajtar v. Att’y Gen., 980 F.3d 897, 900 (3d Cir. 

2020), had rejected as-applied challenges to § 922(g)(1) 

despite only one of the relevant factors weighing in the 

Government’s favor, the District Court held that the crossjurisdictional consensus alone sufficed to disarm Range. 

Range, 557 F. Supp. 3d at 615–16. Range timely appealed. 

While Range’s appeal was pending, the Supreme Court 

decided New York State Rifle & Pistol Ass’n, Inc. v. Bruen, 142 

S. Ct. 2111 (2022). The parties then submitted supplemental 

briefing on Bruen’s impact. A panel of this Court affirmed the 

District Court’s summary judgment, holding that the 

Government had met its burden to show that § 922(g)(1) 

reflects the Nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation 

such that Range’s conviction “places him outside the class of 

people traditionally entitled to Second Amendment rights.” 

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Range v. Att’y Gen., 53 F.4th 262, 266 (3d Cir. 2022) (per 

curiam). 

Range petitioned for rehearing en banc. We granted the 

petition and vacated the panel opinion. Range v. Att’y Gen., 56 

F.4th 992 (3d Cir. 2022). 

II 

The District Court had jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. 

§ 1331 because Range’s complaint raised a federal question: 

whether the federal felon-in-possession law, 18 U.S.C. 

§ 922(g)(1), violates the Second Amendment as applied to 

Range. We have jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1291. 

III 

In District of Columbia v. Heller, the Supreme Court 

held that the Second Amendment guarantees an individual 

right to keep and bear arms unconnected with militia service. 

554 U.S. 570, 583–84 (2008). In view of that right, the Court 

held unconstitutional a District of Columbia law that banned 

handguns and required other “firearms in the home be rendered 

and kept inoperable at all times.” Id. at 630. It reached that 

conclusion after scrutinizing the text of the Second 

Amendment and deducing that it “codified a pre-existing

right.” Id. at 592. The Heller opinion did not apply 

intermediate or strict scrutiny. In fact, it did not apply meansend scrutiny at all. But in response to Justice Breyer’s dissent, 

the Court noted in passing that the challenged law would be 

unconstitutional “[u]nder any of the standards of scrutiny that 

we have applied to enumerated constitutional rights.” Id. at 

628–29. 

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Many courts around the country, including this one, 

overread that passing comment to require a two-step approach 

in Second Amendment cases, utilizing means-end scrutiny at 

the second step. We did so for the first time in Marzzarella, 

614 F.3d at 97, and we continued down that road for over a 

decade. See, e.g., Drake v. Filko, 724 F.3d 426, 429, 434–40 

(3d Cir. 2013); Binderup, 836 F.3d at 344–47, 353–56; Ass’n 

of N.J. Rifle & Pistol Clubs, Inc. v. Att’y Gen. N.J., 910 F.3d 

106, 117 (3d Cir. 2018); Beers v. Att’y Gen., 927 F.3d 150, 

154–55 (3d Cir. 2019), vacated sub nom. as moot, Beers v. 

Barr, 140 S. Ct. 2758 (2020); Holloway, 948 F.3d at 169–172; 

Folajtar, 980 F.3d at 901. 

Bruen rejected the two-step approach as “one step too 

many.” 142 S. Ct. at 2127. The Supreme Court declared: 

“Heller and McDonald do not support applying means-end 

scrutiny in the Second Amendment context.” Id. Instead, those 

cases teach “that when the Second Amendment’s plain text 

covers an individual’s conduct, the Constitution presumptively 

protects that conduct.” Id. at 2126. And “[o]nly if a firearm 

regulation is consistent with this Nation’s historical tradition 

may a court conclude that the individual’s conduct falls outside 

the Second Amendment’s ‘unqualified command.’” Id. 

(quoting Konigsberg v. State Bar of Cal., 366 U.S. 36, 50 n.10 

(1961)). 

Applying that standard, Bruen held “that the Second and 

Fourteenth Amendments protect an individual’s right to carry 

a handgun for self-defense outside the home.” Id. at 2122. But 

the “where” question decided in Bruen is not at issue here. 

Range’s appeal instead requires us to examine who is among 

“the people” protected by the Second Amendment. U.S. Const. 

amend. II; see Bruen, 142 S. Ct. at 2157 (Alito, J., concurring) 

(“Our holding decides nothing about who may lawfully 

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possess a firearm . . . .”); see also Eugene Volokh, 

Implementing the Right to Keep and Bear Arms for SelfDefense: An Analytical Framework and a Research Agenda, 

56 UCLA L. Rev. 1443 (2009) (distinguishing among “who,” 

“what,” “where,” “when,” and “how” restrictions). Range 

claims he is one of “the people” entitled to keep and bear arms 

and that our Nation has no historical tradition of disarming 

people like him. The Government responds that Range has not 

been one of “the people” since 1995, when he pleaded guilty 

in Pennsylvania state court to making a false statement on his 

food stamp application, and that his disarmament is historically 

supported. 

IV 

Having explained how Bruen abrogated our Second 

Amendment jurisprudence, we now apply the Supreme Court’s 

established method to the facts of Range’s case. Both sides 

agree that we no longer conduct means-end scrutiny. And as 

the panel wrote: “Bruen’s focus on history and tradition,” 

means that “Binderup’s multifactored seriousness inquiry no 

longer applies.” Range, 53 F.4th at 270 n.9. 

After Bruen, we must first decide whether the text of the 

Second Amendment applies to a person and his proposed 

conduct. 142 S. Ct. at 2134–35. If it does, the government now 

bears the burden of proof: it “must affirmatively prove that its 

firearms regulation is part of the historical tradition that 

delimits the outer bounds of the right to keep and bear arms.” 

Id. at 2127. 

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A 

We begin with the threshold question: whether Range is 

one of “the people” who have Second Amendment rights. The 

Government contends that the Second Amendment does not 

apply to Range at all because “[t]he right to bear arms has 

historically extended to the political community of lawabiding, responsible citizens.” Gov’t En Banc Br. at 2. So 

Range’s 1995 conviction, the Government insists, removed 

him from “the people” protected by the Second Amendment. 

The Supreme Court referred to “law-abiding citizens” 

in Heller. In response to Justice Stevens’s dissent, which relied 

on United States v. Miller, 307 U.S. 174 (1939), the Court 

reasoned that “the Second Amendment does not protect those 

weapons not typically possessed by law-abiding citizens for 

lawful purposes.” Heller, 554 U.S. at 625. In isolation, this 

language seems to support the Government’s argument. But 

Heller said more; it explained that “the people” as used 

throughout the Constitution “unambiguously refers to all 

members of the political community, not an unspecified 

subset.” Id. at 580. So the Second Amendment right, Heller 

said, presumptively “belongs to all Americans.” Id. at 581. 

Range cites these statements to argue that “law-abiding 

citizens” should not be read “as rejecting Heller’s 

interpretation of ‘the people.’” Range Pet. for Reh’g at 8. We 

agree with Range for four reasons. 

First, the criminal histories of the plaintiffs in Heller, 

McDonald, and Bruen were not at issue in those cases. So their 

references to “law-abiding, responsible citizens” were dicta. 

And while we heed that phrase, we are careful not to overread 

it as we and other circuits did with Heller’s statement that the 

District of Columbia firearm law would fail under any form of 

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heightened scrutiny. Second, other Constitutional provisions 

reference “the people.”1

 It mentions “the people” twice with 

respect to voting for Congress,2

 and “the people” are 

recognized as having rights to assemble peaceably, to petition 

the government for redress,3

 and to be protected against 

unreasonable searches and seizures.4

 Unless the meaning of the 

phrase “the people” varies from provision to provision—and 

the Supreme Court in Heller suggested it does not—to 

conclude that Range is not among “the people” for Second 

Amendment purposes would exclude him from those rights as 

1 See, e.g., U.S. Const. pmbl. (“We the People of the United 

States . . . .” (emphasis added)); id. amend. IX (recognizing 

rights “retained by the people”); id. amend. X (acknowledging 

the powers reserved “to the people”). 

2

 U.S. Const. art. I, § 2 (“The House of Representatives shall 

be composed of Members chosen every second Year by the 

People of the several States . . . .” (emphasis added)); id. 

amend. XVII (“The Senate of the United States shall be 

composed of two Senators from each State, elected by the 

people thereof . . . .” (emphasis added)). 

3

 U.S. Const. amend. I (“Congress shall make no law 

respecting . . . the right of the people peaceably to assemble, 

and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.” 

(emphasis added)). 

4

 U.S. Const. amend. IV (“The right of the people to be secure 

in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against 

unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated . . . .” 

(emphasis added)). 

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well. See 554 U.S. at 580. And we see no reason to adopt an 

inconsistent reading of “the people.” 

Third, as the plurality stated in Binderup: “That 

individuals with Second Amendment rights may nonetheless 

be denied possession of a firearm is hardly illogical.” 836 F.3d 

at 344 (Ambro, J.). That statement tracks then-Judge Barrett’s 

dissenting opinion in Kanter v. Barr, in which she persuasively 

explained that “all people have the right to keep and bear 

arms,” though the legislature may constitutionally “strip 

certain groups of that right.” 919 F.3d 437, 452 (7th Cir. 2019). 

We agree with that statement in Binderup and then-Judge 

Barrett’s reasoning. 

Fourth, the phrase “law-abiding, responsible citizens” is 

as expansive as it is vague. Who are “law-abiding” citizens in 

this context? Does it exclude those who have committed 

summary offenses or petty misdemeanors, which typically 

result in a ticket and a small fine? No. We are confident that 

the Supreme Court’s references to “law-abiding, responsible 

citizens” do not mean that every American who gets a traffic 

ticket is no longer among “the people” protected by the Second 

Amendment. Perhaps, then, the category refers only to those 

who commit “real crimes” like felonies or felony-equivalents? 

At English common law, felonies were so serious they were 

punishable by estate forfeiture and even death. 4 William 

Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England 54 (1769). 

But today, felonies include a wide swath of crimes, some of 

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which seem minor.5

 And some misdemeanors seem serious.6

As the Supreme Court noted recently: “a felon is not always 

more dangerous than a misdemeanant.” Lange v. California, 

141 S. Ct. 2011, 2020 (2021) (cleaned up). As for the modifier 

“responsible,” it serves only to undermine the Government’s 

argument because it renders the category hopelessly vague. In 

our Republic of over 330 million people, Americans have 

widely divergent ideas about what is required for one to be 

considered a “responsible” citizen. 

At root, the Government’s claim that only “law-abiding, 

responsible citizens” are protected by the Second Amendment 

devolves authority to legislators to decide whom to exclude 

from “the people.” We reject that approach because such 

“extreme deference gives legislatures unreviewable power to 

manipulate the Second Amendment by choosing a label.” 

Folajtar, 980 F.3d at 912 (Bibas, J., dissenting). And that 

deference would contravene Heller’s reasoning that “the 

enshrinement of constitutional rights necessarily takes certain 

policy choices off the table.” 554 U.S. at 636; see also Bruen, 

5 See, e.g., 18 U.S.C. § 1464 (uttering “any obscene, indecent, 

or profane language by means of radio communication”); 

Mich. Comp. Laws Ann. § 445.574a(2)(d) (returning out-ofstate bottles or cans); 18 Pa. Cons. Stat. Ann. § 3929.1 (third 

offense of library theft of more than $150); id. § 7613 (reading 

another’s email without permission). 

6 See, e.g., 18 Pa. Cons. Stat. Ann. § 2504 (involuntary 

manslaughter); id. § 2707 (propulsion of missiles into an 

occupied vehicle or onto a roadway); 11 Del. Code § 881 

(bribery). 

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142 S. Ct. at 2131 (warning against “judicial deference to 

legislative interest balancing”). 

In sum, we reject the Government’s contention that only 

“law-abiding, responsible citizens” are counted among “the 

people” protected by the Second Amendment. Heller and its 

progeny lead us to conclude that Bryan Range remains among 

“the people” despite his 1995 false statement conviction. 

Having determined that Range is one of “the people,” 

we turn to the easy question: whether § 922(g)(1) regulates 

Second Amendment conduct. It does. Range’s request—to 

possess a rifle to hunt and a shotgun to defend himself at 

home—tracks the constitutional right as defined by Heller. 554 

U.S. at 582 (“[T]he Second Amendment extends, prima facie, 

to all instruments that constitute bearable arms, even those that 

were not in existence at the time of the founding.”). So “the 

Second Amendment’s plain text covers [Range’s] conduct,” 

and “the Constitution presumptively protects that conduct.” 

Bruen, 142 S. Ct. at 2126. 

B 

Because Range and his proposed conduct are protected 

by the Second Amendment, we now ask whether the 

Government can strip him of his right to keep and bear arms. 

To answer that question, we must determine whether the 

Government has justified applying § 922(g)(1) to Range “by 

demonstrating that it is consistent with the Nation’s historical 

tradition of firearm regulation.” Id. at 2130. We hold that the 

Government has not carried its burden. 

To preclude Range from possessing firearms, the 

Government must show that § 922(g)(1), as applied to him, “is 

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part of the historical tradition that delimits the outer bounds of 

the right to keep and bear arms.” Id. at 2127. Historical 

tradition can be established by analogical reasoning, which 

“requires only that the government identify a well-established 

and representative historical analogue, not a historical twin.”

Id. at 2133. To be compatible with the Second Amendment, 

regulations targeting longstanding problems must be 

“distinctly similar” to a historical analogue. Id. at 2131. But 

“modern regulations that were unimaginable at the founding” 

need only be “relevantly similar” to one. Id. at 2132. Bruen

offers two metrics that make historical and modern firearms 

regulations similar enough: “how and why the regulations 

burden a law-abiding citizen’s right to armed self-defense.” Id.

at 2133. 

In attempting to carry its burden, the Government relies 

on the Supreme Court’s statement in Heller that “nothing in 

our opinion should be taken to cast doubt on longstanding 

prohibitions on the possession of firearms by felons.” 554 U.S. 

at 626. A plurality of the Court reiterated that point in 

McDonald v. City of Chicago, 561 U.S. 742, 786 (2010). And 

in his concurring opinion in Bruen, Justice Kavanaugh, joined 

by the Chief Justice, wrote that felon-possession prohibitions 

are “presumptively lawful” under Heller and McDonald. 142 

S. Ct. at 2162 (quoting Heller, 554 U.S. at 626–27 & n.26).7

Section 922(g)(1) is a straightforward “prohibition[] on the 

possession of firearms by felons.” Heller, 554 U.S. at 626. And 

since 1961 “federal law has generally prohibited individuals 

convicted of crimes punishable by more than one year of 

7

 The Heller, McDonald, and Bruen Courts cited no such 

“longstanding prohibitions,” presumably because they did “not 

undertake an exhaustive historical analysis . . . of the full scope 

of the Second Amendment.” Heller, 554 U.S. at 626.

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imprisonment from possessing firearms.” Gov’t En Banc Br. at 

1; see An Act To Strengthen The Federal Firearms Act, Pub. 

L. No. 87-342, 75 Stat. 757 (1961). But the earliest version of 

that statute, the Federal Firearms Act of 1938, applied only to 

violent criminals. Pub. L. No. 75-785, §§ 1(6), 2(f), 52 Stat. 

1250, 1250–51 (1938). As the First Circuit explained: “the 

current federal felony firearm ban differs considerably from 

the [original] version . . . . [T]he law initially covered those 

convicted of a limited set of violent crimes such as murder, 

rape, kidnapping, and burglary, but extended to both felons and 

misdemeanants convicted of qualifying offenses.” United 

States v. Booker, 644 F.3d 12, 24 (1st Cir. 2011); see also 

United States v. Skoien, 614 F.3d 638, 640 (7th Cir. 2010) (en 

banc). 

Even if the 1938 Act were “longstanding” enough to 

warrant Heller’s assurance—a dubious proposition given the 

Bruen Court’s emphasis on Founding- and Reconstruction-era 

sources, 142 S. Ct. at 2136, 2150—Range would not have been 

a prohibited person under that law. Whatever timeframe the 

Supreme Court might establish in a future case, we are 

confident that a law passed in 1961—some 170 years after the 

Second Amendment’s ratification and nearly a century after 

the Fourteenth Amendment’s ratification—falls well short of 

“longstanding” for purposes of demarcating the scope of a 

constitutional right. So the 1961 iteration of § 922(g)(1) does 

not satisfy the Government’s burden.8

8 Nor are we convinced by the slightly older state and local 

felon-in-possession laws cited by the amicus brief in support 

of the Government filed by Everytown for Gun Safety. Amicus 

cites a series of state statutes banning firearm possession by 

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The Government’s attempt to identify older historical 

analogues also fails.9

 The Government argues that “legislatures 

traditionally used status-based restrictions” to disarm certain 

groups of people. Gov’t En Banc Br. at 4 (quoting Range, 53 

F.4th at 282). Apart from the fact that those restrictions based 

felons passed in the 1920s. But this is still too late: “20thcentury evidence . . . does not provide insight into the meaning 

of the Second Amendment when it contradicts earlier 

evidence.” Bruen, 142 S. Ct. at 2154 n.28. And the 19thcentury local laws cited by Amicus are inapposite because they 

involved prohibitions on concealed carry, a lesser restriction 

than the total ban on firearm possession that § 922(g)(1) 

imposes. 

9 Range argues that because “there is no historical tradition of 

disarming nonviolent felons,” dangerousness is the 

“touchstone.” Range Pet. for Reh’g at 10. In support of that 

view, Range quotes a concurring opinion of five judges in 

Binderup that focused on dangerousness. 836 F.3d at 369 

(Hardiman, J., concurring in part). He also cites Judge Bibas’s 

dissent in Folajtar, 980 F.3d at 913–20, and then-Judge 

Barrett’s dissent in Kanter: “The historical evidence . . . 

[shows] that the legislature may disarm those who have 

demonstrated a proclivity for violence or whose possession of 

guns would otherwise threaten the public safety.” 919 F.3d at 

454. The Government replies that 10 of the 15 judges in 

Binderup and the Court in Holloway and Folajtar rejected 

dangerousness or violence as the touchstone. We need not 

decide this dispute today because the Government did not carry 

its burden to provide a historical analogue to permanently 

disarm someone like Range, whether grounded in 

dangerousness or not. 

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on race and religion now would be unconstitutional under the 

First and Fourteenth Amendments, the Government does not 

successfully analogize those groups to Range and his 

individual circumstances. That Founding-era governments 

disarmed groups they distrusted like Loyalists, Native 

Americans, Quakers, Catholics, and Blacks does nothing to 

prove that Range is part of a similar group today. And any such 

analogy would be “far too broad[ ].” See Bruen, 142 S. Ct. at 

2134 (noting that historical restrictions on firearms in 

“sensitive places” do not empower legislatures to designate 

any place “sensitive” and then ban firearms there). 

The Government also points out that “founding-era 

felons were exposed to far more severe consequences than 

disarmament.” Gov’t En Banc Br. at 4. It is true that “foundingera practice” was to punish some “felony offenses with death.” 

Id. at 9. For example, the First Congress made forging or 

counterfeiting a public security punishable by death. See An 

Act for the Punishment of Certain Crimes Against the United 

States, 1 Stat. 112, 115 (1790). States in the early Republic 

likewise treated nonviolent crimes “such as forgery and horse 

theft” as capital offenses. See Folajtar, 980 F.3d at 

904 (citations omitted). Such severe treatment reflects the 

founding generation’s judgment about the gravity of those 

offenses and the need to expose offenders to the harshest of 

punishments. 

Yet the Government’s attempts to analogize those early 

laws to Range’s situation fall short. That Founding-era 

governments punished some nonviolent crimes with death does 

not suggest that the particular (and distinct) punishment at 

issue—lifetime disarmament—is rooted in our Nation’s 

history and tradition. The greater does not necessarily include 

the lesser: founding-era governments’ execution of some 

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20

individuals convicted of certain offenses does not mean the 

State, then or now, could constitutionally strip a felon of his 

right to possess arms if he was not executed. As one of our 

dissenting colleagues notes, a felon could “repurchase arms” 

after successfully completing his sentence and reintegrating 

into society. Krause Dissent at 28–29. That aptly describes 

Range’s situation. So the Government’s attempt to disarm 

Range is not “relevantly similar” to earlier statutes allowing for 

execution and forfeiture. See Bruen, 142 S. Ct. at 2132. 

Founding-era laws often prescribed the forfeiture of the 

weapon used to commit a firearms-related offense without 

affecting the perpetrator’s right to keep and bear arms 

generally. See, e.g., Act of Dec. 21, 1771, ch. 540, N.J. Laws 

343–344 (“An Act for the Preservation of Deer, and other 

Game, and to prevent trespassing with Guns”); Act of Apr. 20, 

1745, ch. 3, N.C. Laws 69–70 (“An Act to prevent killing deer 

at unseasonable times, and for putting a stop to many abuses 

committed by white persons, under pretence of 

hunting”). Range’s crime, however—making a false statement 

on an application for food stamps—did not involve a firearm, 

so there was no criminal instrument to forfeit. And even if there 

were, government confiscation of the instruments of crime (or 

a convicted criminal’s entire estate) differs from a status-based 

lifetime ban on firearm possession. The Government has not 

cited a single statute or case that precludes a convict who has 

served his sentence from purchasing the same type of object 

that he used to commit a crime. Nor has the Government cited 

forfeiture cases in which the convict was prevented from 

regaining his possessions, including firearms (except where 

forfeiture preceded execution). That’s true whether the object 

forfeited to the government was a firearm used to hunt out of 

season, a car used to transport cocaine, or a mobile home used 

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21

as a methamphetamine lab. And of those three, only firearms 

are mentioned in the Bill of Rights.10

Finally, the Government makes an argument from 

authority. It points to a decision from a sister circuit court that 

“look[ed] to tradition and history” in deciding that “those 

convicted of felonies are not among those entitled to possess 

arms.” Gov’t En Banc Br. at 4 (quoting Medina v. Whitaker, 

913 F.3d 152, 157–61 (D.C. Cir. 2019)). The Government also 

cites appellate decisions that “have categorically upheld felonpossession prohibitions without relying on means-end 

scrutiny.” Id. (citing United States v. Scroggins, 599 F.3d 433, 

451 (5thCir. 2010); United States v. Rozier, 598 F.3d 768, 771 

(11th Cir. 2010) (per curiam); United States v. McCane, 573 

F.3d 1037, 1047 (10th Cir. 2009)). And it cites the more than 

80 district court decisions that have addressed § 922(g)(1) and 

have ruled in favor of the Government. Id. at 5 (citing Brief for 

Fed. Gov’t at 17 n.5, Vincent v. Garland, No. 21-4121 (10th 

Cir. Jan. 17, 2023)). 

As impressive as these authorities may seem at first blush, 

they fail to persuade. First, the circuit court opinions were all 

decided before Bruen. Second, the district courts are bound to 

follow their circuits’ precedent. Third, the Government’s 

10 Even arms used to commit crimes bordering on treason were 

sometimes returned to the perpetrators during the Founding 

era. After the Massachusetts militia quelled Shays’s Rebellion 

in 1787, the state required the rebels and those who supported 

them to “deliver up their arms.” 1 Private and Special Statutes 

of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts from 1780–1805, 

145–47 (1805). But those arms were to be returned after three 

years upon satisfaction of certain conditions. Id. at 146–47.

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contention that “Bruen does not meaningfully affect this 

Court’s precedent,” Gov’t Supp. Br. at 9, is mistaken for the 

reasons we explained in Section III, supra. 

For the reasons stated, we hold that the Government has 

not shown that the Nation’s historical tradition of firearms 

regulation supports depriving Range of his Second 

Amendment right to possess a firearm. See Bruen, 142 S. Ct. 

at 2126. 

* * * 

Our decision today is a narrow one. Bryan Range 

challenged the constitutionality of 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1) only 

as applied to him given his violation of 62 Pa. Stat. Ann. 

§ 481(a). Range remains one of “the people” protected by the 

Second Amendment, and his eligibility to lawfully purchase a 

rifle and a shotgun is protected by his right to keep and bear 

arms. Because the Government has not shown that our 

Republic has a longstanding history and tradition of depriving 

people like Range of their firearms, § 922(g)(1) cannot 

constitutionally strip him of his Second Amendment rights. We 

will reverse the judgment of the District Court and remand so 

the Court can enter a declaratory judgment in favor of Range, 

enjoin enforcement of § 922(g)(1) against him, and conduct 

any further proceedings consistent with this opinion. 

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1 

PORTER, Circuit Judge, concurring. 

I join the majority opinion in full. I write separately to 

highlight one reason why there are no examples of founding, 

antebellum, or Reconstruction-era federal laws like 18 U.S.C. 

§ 922(g)(1) permanently disarming non-capital criminals. 

Until well into the twentieth century, it was settled that 

Congress lacked the power to abridge anyone’s right to keep 

and bear arms. The right declared in the Second Amendment 

was important, but cumulative. The people’s first line of 

defense was the reservation of a power from the national 

government.1

 As James Wilson explained, “A bill of rights 

annexed to a constitution is an enumeration of the powers

reserved.” James Wilson, Remarks in the Pennsylvania 

Convention to Ratify the Constitution of the United States

(Nov. 28, 1787), reprinted in 1 Collected Works of James 

Wilson 195 (Liberty Fund ed., 2007). 

Even without the Second Amendment, the combination 

of enumerated powers and the Ninth and Tenth Amendments 

ensured that Congress could not permanently disarm anyone. 

1

 “The powers delegated by the proposed constitution to the 

federal government, are few and defined. Those which are to 

remain in the state governments, are numerous and indefinite. 

The former will be exercised principally on external objects, as 

war, peace, negotiation, and foreign commerce; with which last 

the power of taxation will, for the most part, be connected. The 

powers reserved to the several states will extend to all the 

objects, which, in the ordinary course of affairs, concern the 

lives, liberties, and properties of the people; and the internal 

order, improvement, and prosperity of the state.” The 

Federalist No. 45, at 241 (Madison) (Liberty Fund ed. 2001). 

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2 

See Kurt T. Lash, The Lost History of the Ninth Amendment

72–93 (2009) (discussing how the Ninth and Tenth 

Amendments work in tandem to serve federalist purposes). The 

adoption of substantive protections in the Bill of Rights, such 

as the right to keep and bear arms, was another layer of 

protection reinforcing dual sovereignty. 

A founding-era source is illustrative. In his influential 

constitutional law treatise, William Rawle, a Federalist, 

grounded the people’s right to keep and bear arms in 

Congress’s lack of delegated power. He described the Second 

Amendment as a backstop to prevent the pursuit of “inordinate 

power.” 

The prohibition is general. No clause in the 

Constitution could by any rule of construction be 

conceived to give congress a power to disarm the 

people. Such a flagitious attempt could only be 

made under some general pretence by a state 

legislature. But if in any blind pursuit of 

inordinate power, either should attempt it, this 

amendment may be appealed to as a restraint on 

both. 

William Rawle, A View of the Constitution of the United States 

of America 125–26 (2d ed. 1829). 

At oral argument, counsel for the government 

hypothesized that the paucity of early American criminal laws 

resulting in disarmament may be explained by a lack of 

political demand. That’s implausible. As Judge Krause’s 

dissenting opinion shows, states were free to, and did, regulate 

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3 

gun ownership and use, indicating political demand. The most 

obvious explanation for a century and a half of congressional 

inaction is not lack of political will but dual sovereignty and 

respect for state police power. 

A New Deal Era attempt at federal gun control is 

revealing. In 1934, the Roosevelt Administration proposed the 

National Firearms Act to address the gangster-style violence of 

the Prohibition Era by reducing the sale of automatic weapons 

and machine guns. Stymied by the federal government’s lack 

of police power, Attorney General Homer Cummings urged 

Congress to regulate guns indirectly through its enumerated 

taxing power. Nicholas J. Johnson, The Power Side of the 

Second Amendment Question: Limited, Enumerated Powers 

and the Continuing Battle Over the Legitimacy of the 

Individual Right to Arms, 70 Hastings L. J. 717, 750–58 

(2019). Congress accepted that suggestion, avoiding the 

acknowledged constitutional problem by imposing a tax—

rather than a direct prohibition—on the making and transfer of 

particular firearms. See National Firearms Act, ch. 757, Pub. 

L. No. 73–474, 48 Stat. 1236 (1934) (current version at 26 

U.S.C. § 5801 et seq.). 

The landscape changed in 1937, when the Supreme 

Court adopted an expansive conception of the Commerce 

Clause. See NLRB v. Jones & Laughlin Steel Corp., 301 U.S. 

1 (1937). Newly empowered, Congress promptly enacted the 

Federal Firearms Act of 1938. For the first time, that law 

disarmed felons convicted of a “crime of violence,” which the 

Act defined as “murder, manslaughter, rape, mayhem, 

kidnapping, burglary, housebreaking; assault with intent to 

kill, commit rape, or rob; assault with a dangerous weapon, or 

assault with intent to commit any offense punishable by more 

than one year.” Federal Firearms Act, Pub. L. No. 75–785, 52 

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Stat. 1250 (1938). In 1961, Congress extended the firearms 

disqualification to all felons, violent or otherwise. See An Act 

to Strengthen the Federal Firearms Act, Pub. L. No. 87-342, 75 

Stat. 757 (1961); see also 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1). 

As the majority opinion makes plain, these modern laws 

have no longstanding analogue in our national history and 

tradition of firearm regulation.2

 Maj. Op. 15–22. That’s 

unsurprising because before the New Deal Revolution, 

Congress was powerless to regulate gun possession and use. 

See United States v. Cruikshank, 92 U.S. 542, 553 (1875) 

(Congress lacks power to infringe the right declared by the 

Second Amendment); Presser v. People of State of Ill. 116 U.S. 

252, 265 (1886) (same). 

Lacking any relevant historical federal data, we may 

look to state statutes and cases for contemporaneous clues 

about the people’s right to keep and bear arms.3

 By 1803, seven 

of the seventeen states protected gun possession and use in 

their own declarations of rights. Eugene Volokh, State 

Constitutional Rights to Keep and Bear Arms, 11 Tex. Rev. L. 

& Pol. 191, 208–11 (2006). And by 1868, twenty-two of thirtyseven states protected the right in their state constitutions. Id. 

The history and tradition of firearm regulation in those states 

2 Bruen defines relevant history for these purposes as the period 

between approximately 1791 and 1868. New York State Rifle 

& Pistol Ass’n., Inc. v. Bruen, 597 U.S. ----, 142 S. Ct. 2111, 

2137–50 (2022) (summarizing “antebellum” historical 

evidence). 

3 Pace Judge Shwartz, I do not understand the Supreme Court 

to require that firearm regulations can be supported only “by a 

federally enacted analog in existence at the founding[.]” 

Shwartz Dissent at n.5.

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5 

may shed light on the scope of the federal constitutional right, 

depending on how similar each state’s constitutional protection 

was to the Second Amendment. See District of Columbia v. 

Heller, 554 U.S. 570, 600–03 (2008) (founding-era state 

constitutions corroborate individual-right interpretation of 

Second Amendment). After all, state constitutions and their 

respective bills of rights were “the immediate source from 

which Madison derived what became the U.S. Bill of Rights.” 

Donald S. Lutz, The State Constitutional Pedigree of the U.S. 

Bill of Rights, 22 Publius 19, 29 (1992). 

But precisely because the states—unlike the national 

government—retained sweeping police powers and weren’t 

originally constrained by the Bill of Rights, they were free to 

regulate the possession and use of weapons in whatever ways 

they thought appropriate (subject to state constitutional 

restrictions that were not uniform). See Barron ex rel. Tiernan 

v. Mayor of Baltimore, 32 U.S. (7 Pet.) 243 (1833). Because of 

that important difference, it’s unclear what many early state 

laws prove about the contours of the Second Amendment right. 

For example, Judge Krause’s dissent cites founding or 

antebellum-era disarmament laws from Delaware, Maryland, 

New Jersey, New York, and Virginia. Krause Dissent at 15-21, 

26-28 & nn. 94-96, 98. But Maryland, New Jersey, and New 

York have never enumerated a Second Amendment analogue. 

Volokh, supra, at 205. Delaware and Virginia did not do so 

until 1987 and 1971, respectively. Id. at 194, 204. So those 

states’ laws provide little insight about the scope of the Second 

Amendment right. 

After McDonald v. City of Chicago, 561 U.S. 742 

(2010), state gun laws are subject to the Second Amendment 

because it is incorporated through the Fourteenth Amendment. 

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The Supreme Court has said that “if a Bill of Rights protection 

is incorporated, there is no daylight between the federal and 

state conduct it prohibits or requires.” Timbs v. Indiana, 586 

U.S. ----, 139 S. Ct. 682, 687 (2019); see also Bruen, 142 S. 

Ct. at 2137. But unlike McDonald, Timbs, and Bruen, this case 

doesn’t involve application of an incorporated right against a 

state law; it’s a challenge to the constitutionality of a relatively 

recent federal statute that has no historical analogue in 

antebellum federal law. 

Using state laws indiscriminately to determine the scope 

of the constitutional right seems incongruous in this context. It 

seeks effectively to reverse incorporate state law into federal 

constitutional law. In Bolling v. Sharpe, 347 U.S. 497 (1954), 

the Supreme Court held that Fourteenth Amendment equalprotection principles applicable to the states also bind the 

federal government through the Fifth Amendment’s Due 

Process Clause because the alternative would be 

“unthinkable.” Id. at 500; but see United States v. Vaello 

Madero, 142 S. Ct. 1539, 1544–47 (2022) (Thomas, J., 

concurring) (criticizing Bolling’s rationale). Here, there is no 

textual basis plausibly supporting reverse incorporation. And 

Bolling’s rule appears to be cabined to equal-protection claims; 

the Court has only invoked reverse incorporation to redress 

invidious discrimination. Without an equal-protection or dueprocess hook, using state law to define a federal constitutional 

amendment that was fashioned to protect individual rights and

a reserved power poses a doctrinal conundrum. 

A conception of the Second Amendment right that 

retcons modern commerce power into early American state law 

is anachronistic and flunks Bruen’s history-and-tradition test. 

Setting the federal floor through a combination of antebellum 

state police power and Congress’s post-New Deal commerce 

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authority, as the dissents propose, would underprotect the 

constitutional right to keep and bear arms. 

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1 

AMBRO, Circuit Judge, concurring, joined by 

GREENAWAY, JR. and MONTGOMERY-REEVES, Circuit 

Judges. 

Bryan Range decades ago made a false statement to 

obtain food stamps to feed his family. That untrue statement, 

however, was a misdemeanor in violation of Pennsylvania law. 

See 62 Pa. Stat. Ann. § 481(a). And his conviction barred him 

from possessing a firearm per 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1). 

I agree with the well-crafted majority opinion of Judge 

Hardiman that Range is among “the people” protected by the 

Second Amendment and that the law is unconstitutional as 

applied to him. I write separately, however, to explain why the 

Government’s failure to carry its burden in this case does not 

spell doom for § 922(g)(1). It remains “presumptively lawful.” 

New York State Rifle & Pistol Ass’n, Inc. v. Bruen, 142 S. Ct. 

2111, 2162 (2022) (Kavanaugh, J., concurring) (quoting 

District of Columbia v. Heller, 554 U.S. 570, 626–27 (2008)). 

This is so because it fits within our Nation’s history and 

tradition of disarming those persons who legislatures believed 

would, if armed, pose a threat to the orderly functioning of 

society. That Range does not conceivably pose such a threat 

says nothing about those who do. And I join the majority 

opinion with the understanding that it speaks only to his 

situation, and not to those of murderers, thieves, sex offenders, 

domestic abusers, and the like. 

 Section 922(g)(1) is the federal “felon-in-possession” 

law. It makes it “unlawful for any person . . . who has been 

convicted in any court . . . of a crime punishable by 

imprisonment for a term exceeding one year” to possess 

firearms or ammunition. 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1). Although 

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those convicted of state misdemeanors “punishable by a term 

of imprisonment of two years or less” are excluded from the 

prohibition, Range is subject to it because his crime carried a 

maximum penalty of five years’ imprisonment even though he 

received no prison sentence. 18 U.S.C. § 921(a)(20)(B). 

 Congress may disarm felons because, as Justice Scalia 

explained in Heller, “[l]ike most rights, the right secured by the 

Second Amendment is not unlimited.” 554 U.S. at 626. He 

demonstrated this is so by listing “presumptively lawful” 

regulations that the ruling should not “be taken to cast doubt 

on.” Id. at 626–27 & n.26. That list included “longstanding 

prohibitions on the possession of firearms by felons.” Id. at 

626–27. Just two years later, in McDonald v. City of Chicago, 

the Supreme Court incorporated the Second Amendment 

against the states. 561 U.S. 742, 767–68 (2010). In doing so, 

it assured the public that “incorporation does not imperil every 

law regulating firearms.” Id. at 786. Thus, it stood by its 

statement “in Heller that our holding did not cast doubt on such 

longstanding regulatory measures as ‘prohibitions on the 

possession of firearms by felons.’” Id. (quoting Heller, 554 

U.S. at 626–27). See also United States v. Jackson, No. 22-

2870, --- F.4th ----, 2023 WL 3769242, at *4 (8th Cir. June 2, 

2023) (observing the Supreme Court has provided assurances 

that felon-in-possession laws are constitutional). 

 In United States v. Barton, we held that “Heller’s list of 

‘presumptively lawful’ regulations is not dicta.” 633 F.3d 168, 

171 (3d Cir. 2011). That aligned us with the Ninth and 

Eleventh Circuits. Id. (citing United States v. Vogxay, 594 F.3d 

1111, 1115 (9th Cir. 2010), and United States v. Rozier, 598 

F.3d 768, 771 n.6 (11th Cir. 2010)). And every other circuit 

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court has looked to the Supreme Court’s treatment of 

“presumptively lawful” prohibitions for guidance.1

 

New York State Rifle & Pistol Ass’n v. Bruen reaffirms 

that felon-in-possession laws are presumed to be lawful. 142 

S. Ct. 2111 (2022). Although that case had nothing to do with 

those laws, three of the six Justices in the majority went out of 

their way to signal that view. Justice Kavanaugh’s 

concurrence, joined by Chief Justice Roberts, explained that, 

“[p]roperly interpreted, the Second Amendment allows a 

‘variety’ of gun regulations” before quoting the Heller excerpt 

that casts prohibitions on the possession of firearms by felons 

as presumptively lawful. Id. at 2162 (quoting Heller, 554 U.S. 

at 626–27 & n.26). Justice Alito’s concurrence also explained 

that the Court’s opinion has not “disturbed anything that we 

said in Heller or McDonald about restrictions that may be 

imposed on the possession or carrying of guns.” Id. at 2157 

(citation omitted). 

 Of course, we are here for a reason. Bruen abrogated 

the circuit courts’ use of means-end analysis and replaced it 

with a history-driven test: 

1

 See United States v. Booker, 644 F.3d 12, 23–24 (1st 

Cir. 2011); United States v. Jimenez, 895 F.3d 228, 233 (2d 

Cir. 2018); United States v. Chester, 628 F.3d 673, 679–80 (4th 

Cir. 2010); Hollis v. Lynch, 827 F.3d 436, 446–47 (5th Cir. 

2016); Tyler v. Hillsdale Cnty. Sheriff’s Dep’t, 837 F.3d 678, 

686–87 (6th Cir. 2016) (en banc); United States v. Skoien, 614 

F.3d 638, 639–40 (7th Cir. 2010); United States v. Bena, 664 

F.3d 1180, 1182–83 (8th Cir. 2011); Bonidy v. United States 

Postal Serv., 790 F.3d 1121, 1124 (10th Cir. 2015); Heller v. 

District of Columbia, 670 F.3d 1244, 1253 (D.C. Cir. 2011). 

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[W]hen the Second Amendment’s plain text 

covers an individual’s conduct, the Constitution 

presumptively protects that conduct. To justify 

its regulation, the government may not simply 

posit that the regulation promotes an important 

interest. Rather, the government must 

demonstrate that the regulation is consistent with 

this Nation’s historical tradition of firearm 

regulation. Only if a firearm regulation is 

consistent with this Nation’s historical tradition 

may a court conclude that the individual’s 

conduct falls outside the Second Amendment’s 

“unqualified command.” 

Id. at 2126. In the wake of Bruen, assessing a gun restriction 

by balancing a government’s interest (safety of citizens) with 

the burden imposed on an individual’s right to bear arms is out. 

Instead, laws that burden Second Amendment rights must have 

“a well-established and representative historical analogue, not 

a historical twin.” Id. at 2133 (emphases in original). So we 

must use “analogical reasoning” to determine whether 

§ 922(g)(1) is “relevantly similar” to a law from a period of 

history that sheds light on the Second Amendment’s meaning. 

Id. at 2132. 

Given that three Justices in Bruen’s majority opinion 

reminded us that felon-in-possession laws remain 

presumptively lawful, and the three dissenting Justices echoed 

that view, id. at 2189 (Breyer, J., dissenting) (“Like Justice 

Kavanaugh, I understand the Court’s opinion today to cast no 

doubt on that aspect of Heller’s holding.”), a sound basis exists 

for § 922(g)(1)’s constitutional application in a substantial 

amount of cases. Any historical inquiry that reaches a contrary 

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result must be wrong in view of the answer the Supreme Court 

has already supplied. See Jackson, 2023 WL 3769242, at *4. 

 We begin with a look to firearm regulation in the era of 

the Second Amendment’s ratification. In England, nonAnglican Protestants and Catholics were disarmed during 

times of tumult. See Range v. Att’y Gen., 53 F.4th 262, 274–

76 (3d Cir. 2022), reh’g en banc granted, opinion vacated, 56 

F.4th 992 (3d Cir. 2023). The American colonies also 

disarmed religious dissenters. See id. at 276–77. And in the 

Revolutionary War period, British loyalists and those who 

refused to take loyalty oaths were disarmed by several 

colonies. See id. at 277–79. See also Jackson, 2023 WL 

3769242, at *5. 

 True, those laws are, by today’s standards, 

unconstitutional on non-Second Amendment grounds. But at 

our Founding they were measures driven by the fear of those 

who, the political majority believed, would threaten the orderly 

functioning of society if they were armed. From this 

perspective, it makes sense that § 922(g)(1) is presumptively 

lawful. Society is protecting itself by disarming, inter alia, 

those who murder, rob, possess child porn, and leak classified 

national security information. See id. at *7. Most felons have 

broken laws deemed to underpin society’s orderly functioning, 

be their crimes violent or not. Section 922(g)(1) thus disarms 

them for the same reason we prohibited British loyalists from 

being armed. 

 Of course, the relevant period may extend beyond the 

Founding era. Indeed, the Supreme Court has not yet decided 

whether individual rights are defined by their public 

understanding at the time of the ratification of the Bill of Rights 

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in 1791 or the Fourteenth Amendment in 1868. See Bruen, 142 

S. Ct. at 2162–63 (Barrett., J., concurring). If the latter, as the 

Eleventh Circuit held in National Rifle Ass’n v. Bondi, 61 F.4th 

1317, 1322–24 (11th Cir. 2023), then Founding-era regulations 

remain instructive unless contradicted by something specific in 

the Reconstruction-era. In any event, the more longstanding a 

prohibition, the more likely it is to be constitutional.2

Certain regulations contemporaneous with the 

Fourteenth Amendment’s ratification reaffirm the familiar 

desire to keep arms from those perceived to threaten the orderly 

functioning of society. A slew of states prohibited “tramps” 

from carrying firearms or dangerous weapons.3

 Kansas barred 

those “not engaged in any legitimate business, any person 

under the influence of intoxicating drink, and any person who 

has ever borne arms against the government of the United 

2

 The Supreme Court did not specify how long it takes for 

a law to become “longstanding.” 

3

 See, e.g., 1878 N.H. Laws 612, ch. 270 § 2; 1878 Vt. 

Laws 30, ch. 14 § 3; 1879 R.I. Laws 110, ch. 806 § 3; 1880 

Ohio Rev. St. 1654, ch. 8 § 6995; 1880 Mass. Laws 232, 

ch. 257, § 4; 1987 Iowa Laws 1981, ch. 5 § 5135. 

 Tramps were typically defined along the lines of the 

following Pennsylvania statute: “Any person going about from 

place to place begging, asking or subsisting upon charity, and 

for the purpose of acquiring money or living, and who shall 

have no fixed place of residence, or lawful occupation in the 

county or city in which he shall be arrested, shall be taken and 

deemed to be a tramp.” 1 A DIGEST OF THE STATUTE LAW OF 

THE STATE OF PENNSYLVANIA FROM THE YEAR 1700 TO 1894, 

541 (Frank F. Brightly, 12th ed. 1894). 

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States” from carrying “a pistol, bowie-knife, dirk or other 

deadly weapon.” 2 General Statutes of the State of Kansas 353 

(1897) (passed in 1868). And Wisconsin prohibited “any 

person in a state of intoxication to go armed with any pistol or 

revolver.” 1883 Wis. Sess. Laws 290, ch. 329, § 3. Although 

these regulations are not felon-in-possession laws, they echo 

the impetus of the Founding-era laws—a desire to stop 

firearms from being possessed or carried by those who cannot 

be trusted with them. 

 But presumptions aren’t rules—they can be rebutted. 

And so it may be that an individual subject to § 922(g)(1) 

would not, if armed, plausibly pose a threat to the orderly 

functioning of society. Here, the Government has not carried 

its burden of proving that Range poses such a threat. Hence, 

he may not be constitutionally disarmed on the record 

presented. 

 Range committed a small-time offense. He did so with 

a pen to receive food stamps for his family. There is nothing 

that suggests he is a threat to society. He therefore stands apart 

from most other individuals subject to § 922(g)(1) whom we 

fear much like early Americans feared loyalists or 

Reconstruction-era citizens feared armed tramps. I therefore 

concur because there is no historical basis for disarming him. 

I close with the observation that the Supreme Court will 

have to square its history-driven test with its concurrent view 

that felon gun restrictions are presumptively lawful. Scholars 

have scrambled to find historical roots for that presumption. 

See, e.g., Carlton F.W. Larson, Four Exceptions in Search of a 

Theory: District of Columbia v. Heller and Judicial Ipse Dixit, 

60 HASTINGS L.J. 1371, 1386 (2008) (originalist analysis 

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8 

“yield[s] partial and incomplete answers” for why the 

measures Heller cited as presumptively lawful enjoy that 

status). Others conclude that a historical basis only exists for 

disarming violent felons, see, e.g., Joseph G.S. Greenlee, The 

Historical Justification for Prohibiting Dangerous Persons 

from Possessing Arms, 20 WYO. L. REV. 249 (2020), who 

represent but a small fraction of the felon population, thus 

leaving out, for example, those who leak national security 

information, disrupt markets with their fraud, and possess child 

porn. See Brian A. Reaves, U.S. Dep’t of Justice, Bureau of 

Justice Statistics, State Violent Felons in Large Urban 

Counties, at 1 (2006) (“From 1990 to 2002, 18% of felony 

convictions in the 75 largest counties were for violent 

offenses.”). 

This opinion is one attempt to offer a historical 

justification for § 922(g)(1), recognizing that history offers no 

precise analogue. And if that proves unsatisfying to the Court, 

it may do away with the presumption that disarming felons is 

lawful. I hope it does not do so. Not just because arming those 

who pose a threat to the orderly functioning of society will lead 

to more deaths, but because it would be a dangerous precedent. 

It is incongruous to believe history displaces means-ends 

balancing for the Second Amendment only. The Court’s 

approach here will affect our ability to pass any rightsburdening law—whether the right be protected by the First, 

Second, Fourth, or Sixth Amendment—that lacks a neat 

historical basis. I trust it will fulfill its promise that Bruen

imposes no “regulatory straightjacket,” 142 S. Ct. at 2133, and 

permit § 922(g)(1) to apply to those who threaten the orderly 

functioning of civil society. 

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1 

SHWARTZ, Circuit Judge, dissenting, joined by RESTREPO, 

Circuit Judge. 

Today, the Majority of our Court has decided that an 

individual convicted of fraud cannot be barred from possessing 

a firearm. While my colleagues state that their opinion is 

narrow, the analytical framework they have applied to reach 

their conclusion renders most, if not all, felon bans 

unconstitutional. Because the Supreme Court has made clear 

that such bans are presumptively lawful, and there is a 

historical basis for such bans, I respectfully dissent.1

In New York State Rifle & Pistol Ass’n, Inc. v. Bruen, 

142 S. Ct. 2111 (2022), the Supreme Court set forth a historybased framework for deciding whether a firearm regulation is 

constitutional under the Second Amendment. Courts must now 

examine whether the “regulation [being reviewed] is part of the 

historical tradition that delimits the outer boundaries of the 

right to keep and bear arms.” Id. at 2127. To make this 

determination, a court must decide whether the challenger or 

conduct at issue is protected by the Second Amendment and, if 

so, whether the Government has presented sufficient historical 

analogues to justify the restriction. See id. at 2129-30. 

1

 While I agree with Judge Krause’s excellent and 

comprehensive review of the history as well as her incisive 

critique of the Majority opinion, I write separately to 

emphasize both that the history supports banning felons from 

possessing firearms and that the Majority opinion is far from 

narrow. 

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2 

The Majority’s analysis is inconsistent with the 

Supreme Court’s jurisprudence and has far-reaching 

consequences. First, the Majority downplays the Supreme 

Court’s consistent admonishment that felon bans are 

“longstanding” and “presumptively lawful.” District of 

Columbia v. Heller, 554 U.S. 570, 626-27 & n.26 (2008); 

McDonald v. City of Chicago, 561 U.S. 742, 786 (2010). In 

Heller and McDonald, the Supreme Court stated that felon 

bans are consistent with our historical tradition. Heller, 554 

U.S. at 626-27; McDonald, 561 U.S. at 786. More recently, a 

majority of the Bruen Court reiterated that felon bans are 

presumptively lawful, and notably did so in the very case that 

explicitly requires courts to find historical support for every 

firearm regulation. Bruen, 142 S. Ct. at 2157 (Alito, J., 

concurring) (explaining that Bruen did not “disturb” anything 

the Court said in Heller or McDonald); id. at 2162 (Kavanaugh, 

J., concurring, joined by Roberts, J.) (“Nothing in our opinion 

should be taken to cast doubt on the longstanding prohibitions 

on the possession of firearms by felons.” (quoting Heller, 554 

U.S. at 626)); id. at 2189 (Breyer, J., dissenting, joined by 

Sotomayor, J., & Kagan, J.) (“I understand the Court’s opinion 

today to cast no doubt on . . . Heller’s holding [regarding 

longstanding prohibitions.]”). These statements show that 

felon bans have historical roots.2

 See United States v. Jackson, 

No. 22-2870, 2023 WL 3769242, --- F. 4th ----, at *4, *7 n.3 

(8th Cir. June 2, 2023) (upholding the constitutionality of the 

2

 The Supreme Court also recognized that other firearm 

regulations are “longstanding” and “presumptively lawful.” 

Heller, 554 U.S. at 626-27. Thus, the Majority’s willingness 

to devalue the Supreme Court’s observations may have 

consequences on regulations beyond the status-based ban at 

issue here. 

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3 

federal felon ban as applied to a non-violent drug offender 

based, in part, on the Supreme Court’s statements). 

Second, the Majority incorrectly discounts the 

importance of the Supreme Court’s emphasis on lawabidingness as a limitation on the Second Amendment right. 

While the Majority dismisses this language as “dicta,” Maj. 

Op. at 11, the Bruen Court’s use of the phrase fourteen times 

highlights the significance that this criterion played in its 

decision, Bruen, 142 S. Ct. at 2122, 2125, 2131, 2133-34, 2135 

n.8, 2138 n.9, 2150, 2156; see also Jackson, 2023 WL 

3769242, at *6 (noting Bruen’s repeated statements about a 

law-abider’s right to possess arms). Indeed, the Bruen court 

approved of certain gun regulations that included criminal 

background checks. Bruen, 142 S. Ct. at 2138 n. 9. While the 

Majority says that the phrase “law abiding” is “expansive” and 

“vague,” Maj. Op. at 13, there is no question that one who has 

a felony or felony-equivalent conviction is not law abiding. 

Thus, the Supreme Court’s jurisprudence tells us that the right 

to bear arms is limited to law abiders, and that felon bans are 

presumptively lawful. 

Third, the Majority acknowledges but then disregards 

important aspects of Bruen. The Bruen Court emphasized that 

its test should not be a “regulatory straightjacket [sic]” and that 

courts should look for a “historical analogue” to the challenged 

regulation, not a “historical twin.” 142 S. Ct. at 2133. Despite 

these instructions, the Majority demands a historical twin by 

requiring the Government to identify a historical crime, 

including its punishment, that mirrors Bryan Range’s 

conviction. At the founding, the fraud-based crime of the type 

Range committed was considered a capital offense, which 

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4 

obviously carries with it the loss of all possessory rights.3 

Folajtar v. Att’y Gen., 980 F.3d 897, 904-05 (3d Cir. 2020) 

(collecting authorities). The Majority recognizes that this 

severe punishment “reflects the founding generation’s 

judgment about the gravity of those offenses” and the need for 

harsh punishment. Maj. Op. at 19. It then, however, rejects 

this historical data by stressing that today, a far less severe 

punishment results, thereby rendering Range’s offense not 

“relevantly similar” to founding-era fraud offenses. Id. at 19-

20 (quoting Bruen, 142 S. Ct. at 2132). The problem with this 

analysis is that it focuses on present-day punishments to 

determine whether a founding-era crime is a historical 

analogue. Like it or not, Bruen mandates that we look at the 

law as it existed at the founding, and so the fact that the law 

has changed, or in this case, the punishment has changed, is 

irrelevant. Put differently, Bruen requires us to don blinders 

and look at only whether there is a historical analogue for the 

firearm regulation at issue. When we do so, history 

demonstrates that fraudsters could lose their life, and hence 

their firearms rights. 

The Majority also rejects the Government’s analogy to 

now unconstitutional status-based bans on Native Americans, 

Blacks, Catholics, Quakers, loyalists, and others because 

Range is not “part of a similar group today.” Maj. Op. at 19. 

Whether Range is a member of one of these groups is 

3

 Even some noncapital offenses resulted in life 

imprisonment and the forfeiture of the offender’s entire estate, 

which contemplates the loss of all property, including 

firearms. Act of Apr. 18, 1786, 2 Laws of the State of New 

York 253, 260–61 (1886); Act of Nov. 27, 1700, 2 Statutes at 

Large of Pennsylvania 12 (Wm. Stanley Ray ed., 1904).

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5 

irrelevant. Rather, under Bruen, the relevant inquiry is why a 

given regulation, such as a ban based on one’s status, was 

enacted and how that regulation was implemented. Bruen, 142 

S. Ct. at 2133. No matter how repugnant and unlawful these 

bans are under contemporary standards, the founders 

categorically disarmed the members of these groups because 

the founders viewed them as disloyal to the sovereign. Range 

v. Att’y Gen., 53 F.4th 262, 273-82 (3d Cir. 2022) (per curiam) 

(collecting authorities), vacated by 56 F.4th 992 (3d Cir. 2023); 

see also Jackson, 2023 WL 3769242, at *5 (observing that the 

founding-era categorical prohibitions are relevant “in 

determining the historical understanding of the right to keep 

and bear arms”). The felon designation similarly serves as a 

proxy for disloyalty and disrespect for the sovereign and its 

laws. Such categorization is especially applicable here, where 

Range’s felony involved stealing from the government, a crime 

that directly undermines the sovereign. Therefore, the trust and 

loyalty reasons underlying the status-based bans imposed at the 

founding show that the bans are an appropriate historical 

analogue for the present-day prohibition on felon possession.4

4

 The Majority also gives no weight to various 

founding-era statutory violations that led to disarmament, see, 

e.g., Act of Dec. 21, 1771, ch. 540, N.J. Laws 343–344; Act of 

Apr. 20, 1745, ch. 3, N.C. Laws 69–70; see also Range, 53 

F.4th at 281 (collecting additional authorities), because it 

contends that offenders were only disarmed of the firearm they 

possessed at the time of the violation and not barred from 

possessing firearms in the future, Maj. Op. at 19-20. From this, 

the Majority asserts crime-based bans were not permanent. Id. 

Whether true or not, the federal felon ban under 18 U.S.C. 

§ 922(g) is not permanent. Congress specifically identified 

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6 

Finally, the Majority’s approach will have far-reaching 

consequences. Although the Majority states that its holding is 

“narrow” because it is limited to Range’s individual 

circumstances, Maj. Op. at 22, the only individual 

circumstance the Majority identifies is that the penalty Range 

faced differs from the penalty imposed at the founding. As 

discussed above, that fact is irrelevant under Bruen. Thus, the 

ruling is not cabined in any way and, in fact, rejects all 

historical support for disarming any felon.5

 As a result, the 

Majority’s analytical framework leads to only one conclusion: 

ways to avoid the ban, such as by securing an expungement, 

pardon, or having one’s civil rights restored. 18 U.S.C. 

§ 921(a)(20). Additionally, although it is currently unfunded, 

Congress enacted 18 U.S.C. § 925(c), which allows the Bureau 

of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms to restore an individual’s 

right to possess a firearm upon consideration of the 

individual’s personal circumstances. See Logan v. United 

States, 552 U.S. 23, 28 n.1 (2007). 

5

 The Majority also says that it need not decide whether 

disarmament of violent criminals is supported by the historical 

evidence, Maj. Op. at 18 n.9, but its view of the history, its 

requirement of a historical twin, and its explanation that federal 

felon prohibitions enacted in 1938 and 1961 are too recent to 

be longstanding, necessarily mean that the Majority would 

conclude that bans on violent felons cannot be justified. 

Moreover, the framework outlined in Judge Porter’s 

concurrence would mean that the federal government would be 

prohibited from enacting any gun regulation. In fact, Judge 

Porter’s requirement that a current federal regulation be 

supported by a federally enacted analog in existence at the 

founding would call into question the federal government’s 

ability to regulate activities that did not then exist. 

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there will be no, or virtually no, felony or felony-equivalent 

crime that will bar an individual from possessing a firearm.6

 

This is a broad ruling and, to me, is contrary to both the 

sentiments of the Supreme Court and our history. 

I therefore respectfully dissent. 

6

 Moreover, and significantly, the Majority provides no 

way for a felon to know whether his crime of conviction 

prevents him from possessing a firearm. This, however, is not 

entirely the Majority’s fault. Bruen requires a review of our 

nation’s history during a finite time period to determine 

whether a felon’s particular crime of conviction 

constitutionally permits disarmament—an inquiry that, under 

the Majority’s test, will vary from crime to crime. Thus, the 

concerns about due process and notice discussed in Judge 

Fuentes’s dissent in Binderup v. Attorney General, 836 F.3d 

336, 409-11 (3d Cir. 2016) (Fuentes, J., dissenting in part and 

concurring in part), are even more pronounced after Bruen. 

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1 

KRAUSE, Circuit Judge, dissenting. 

As Americans, we hold dear the values of individual 

liberty and freedom from tyranny that galvanized our Founders 

and are enshrined in the Constitution. So it is not surprising 

that we often look to history and tradition to inform our 

constitutional interpretation.1

 But as Alexis de Tocqueville 

rightly observed of “the philosophical method of the 

Americans,” we “accept tradition only as a means of 

information, and existing facts only as a lesson to be used in . 

. . doing better.”2

 Thus, when we draw on parallels with the 

past to assess what is permissible in the present, we typically 

look to match history in principle, not with precision. 

When it comes to permissible regulation of the right to 

bear arms, it might make good sense to hew precisely to history 

and tradition in a world where “arms” still meant muskets and 

1

 In the past few years, the Supreme Court has adopted a “history and tradition” test in a variety of constitutional contexts, 

breaking from its own history where its precedent diverged 

from that interpretive method. See, e.g., Dobbs v. Jackson 

Women’s Health Org., 142 S. Ct. 2228 (2022) (interpreting the 

Due Process Clause and overruling Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113 

(1973)); Kennedy v. Bremerton Sch. Dist., 142 S. Ct. 2407 

(2022) (interpreting the Free Exercise Clause and overruling 

Lemon v. Kurtzman, 403 U.S. 602 (1971)); TransUnion LLC v. 

Ramirez, 141 S. Ct. 2190 (2021) (explaining Article III standing); Am. Legion v. Am. Humanist Ass’n, 139 S. Ct. 2067 

(2019) (interpreting the Establishment Clause). 

2

 2 Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America 1 (Francis 

Bowen ed., Henry Reeve trans., 3d ed. 1863). 

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2 

flintlock pistols,3

 and where communities were still so small 

and “close-knit” that “[e]veryone knew everyone else,” “wordof-mouth spread quickly,” and the population “knew and 

agreed on what acts were right and wrong, which ones were 

permitted and forbidden.”4

 But that is not the America of 

today. In modern times, arms include assault rifles,5

 highcapacity magazines, and semi-automatic handguns; our 

population of more than 330 million is mobile, diverse, and, as 

to social mores, deeply divided; and, tragically, brutal gun 

deaths and horrific mass shootings—exceeding 260 in just the 

past five months—are a daily occurrence in our schools, our 

3 See Joseph Blocher & Eric Ruben, Originalism-by-Analogy 

and Second Amendment Adjudication, 133 Yale L.J. (forthcoming 2023) (manuscript at 47), https://ssrn.com/abstract=4408228 (“Americans in 1791 generally owned muzzleloading flintlocks, liable to misfire and incapable of firing multiple shots. Guns, thus, generally were not kept or carried 

loaded in 1791[.]” (quotation omitted)); Akhil Reed Amar, 

Second Thoughts, 65 Law & Contemp. Probs. 103, 107 (2002) 

(“At the Founding . . . [a] person often had to get close to you 

to kill you, and, in getting close, he typically rendered himself 

vulnerable to counterattack. Reloading took time, and thus one 

person could not ordinarily kill dozens in seconds.”). 

4

 Stephanos Bibas, The Machinery of Criminal Justice 2 

(2012). 

5 See Robert J. Spitzer, Gun Accessories and the Second 

Amendment: Assault Weapons, Magazines, and Silencers, 83 

Law & Contemp. Probs. 231, 240 (2020) (“[A]ssault weapons 

play a disproportionately large role in three types of criminal 

activity: mass shootings, police killings, and gang activity.”). 

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3 

streets, and our places of worship.6

 In today’s world, the 

responsibilities that should accompany gun ownership are 

flouted by those who lack respect for the law. 

As debates rage on about the causes of this crisis and 

the solutions, the people’s elected representatives bear the 

heavy responsibility of enacting legislation that preserves the 

right to armed self-defense while ensuring public safety. 

Although they face evolving challenges in pursuing those twin 

aims, striking that delicate balance has long been a core 

function of the legislature in our system of separated powers,7

6 See Statement from President Joe Biden on the Shooting in 

Allen, Texas, White House (May 7, 2023), 

https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2023/05/07/statement-from-president-joe-biden-onthe-shooting-in-allen-texas/; A Partial List of U.S. Mass Shootings in 2023, N.Y. Times (May 30, 2023), https://www.nytimes.com/article/mass-shootings-2023.html; Gun Violence in 

America, Everytown for Gun Safety (Feb. 13, 2023), 

https://everytownresearch.org/report/gun-violence-in-america/. 

7 See Adam Winkler, Scrutinizing the Second Amendment, 105 

Mich. L. Rev. 683, 715 (2007) (“Achievement of that balance 

requires highly complex socio-economic calculations regarding what kinds of weapons ought to be possessed by individuals and how to limit access to them by those deemed untrustworthy or dangerous. Such complicated multi-factor judgments require trade-offs that courts are not institutionally 

equipped to make. Legislatures, by contrast, are structured to 

make precisely those kinds of determinations.”); see also Lon 

L. Fuller, The Forms and Limits of Adjudication, 92 Harv. L. 

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and legislatures’ authority to disarm those who cannot be 

trusted to follow the laws has long been crucial to that 

endeavor. 

Section 922(g)(1) of the U.S. Code, Title 18, embodies 

this delicate equilibrium and comports with traditional 

principles that have guided centuries of legislative judgments 

as to who can possess firearms. As Justice Alito has observed, 

§ 922(g) “is no minor provision. It probably does more to 

combat gun violence than any other federal law.”8

 And as a 

“longstanding”9

 and widely accepted aspect of our national 

gun culture,10 the federal felon-possession ban—carefully 

crafted to respect the laws of the states—is the keystone of our 

national background check system,11 and has repeatedly been 

characterized by the Supreme Court as “presumptively 

Rev. 353, 371 (1978) (noting the “relative incapacity of adjudication to solve ‘polycentric’ problems”). 

8 Rehaif v. United States, 139 S. Ct. 2191, 2201 (2019) (Alito, 

J., dissenting). 

9 District of Columbia v. Heller, 554 U.S. 570, 626 (2008). 

10 See Dru Stevenson, In Defense of Felon-in-Possession Laws, 

43 Cardozo L. Rev. 1573, 1574 (2022) (explaining § 922(g)(1) 

is “the centerpiece of gun laws in the United States” and “the 

center of the gun-regulation universe”). 

11 See id. at 1575 (“The felon prohibitor functions as the cornerstone of the federal background check system for firearm 

purchases[.]”). 

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5 

lawful.”12 Where, as here, the legislature has made a 

reasonable and considered judgment to disarm those who show 

disrespect for the law, it is not the place of unelected judges to 

substitute that judgment with their own. 

Yet today’s majority brushes aside these realities and 

the seismic effect of its ruling. It is telling that, although it 

describes itself as limited “to Range’s situation,”13 today’s 

opinion is not designated non-precedential as appropriate for a 

unique individual case, but has precedential status, necessarily 

reaching beyond the particular facts presented. It is also telling 

that it tracks precisely the Fifth Circuit’s deeply disturbing 

opinion in United States v. Rahimi, which, finding no precise 

historical analogue, struck down as unconstitutional the ban on 

gun possession by domestic abusers.14 And in the process, the 

majority creates a circuit split with the Eighth Circuit’s recent 

opinion in United States v. Jackson, which rejected the notion 

of “felony-by-felony litigation” and recognized that “Congress 

acted within the historical tradition when it enacted § 922(g)(1) 

and the prohibition on possession of firearms by felons.”15 

In short, for all its assurances to the contrary and its 

lulling simplicity, the majority opinion commits our Court to a 

12 E.g., Heller, 554 U.S. at 627 n.26. 

13 Maj. Op. at 19. 

14 61 F.4th 443 (5th Cir. 2023), petition for cert. filed (U.S. 

Mar. 21, 2023) (No. 22-915). 

15 No. 22-2870, 2023 WL 3769242, at *4, *7 (8th Cir. June 2, 

2023). 

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framework so indefinite as to be void for vagueness and with 

dire consequences for our case law and citizenry. I therefore 

respectfully dissent. 

I write here to clarify three points16: First, the historical 

record demonstrates that, contrary to the majority opinion, 

legislatures have historically possessed the authority to disarm 

entire groups, like felons, whose conduct evinces disrespect for 

the rule of law. Second, the doctrinal and practical 

ramifications of the majority’s approach, which my colleagues 

do not even acknowledge, let alone address, are profound and 

pernicious. Third, in order to hold § 922(g)(1) inapplicable to 

Range in a truly narrow opinion, my colleagues did not need to 

throw out the baby with the bath water; instead, they could 

have issued a declaratory judgment holding § 922(g)(1) 

unconstitutional as applied to the petitioner currently before 

the Court—in effect, prospectively restoring his firearm rights. 

At least that approach would have been more faithful to history 

and consistent with the rule of law than the majority’s 

sweeping, retroactive pronouncement and the calamity it 

portends. 

I. The Historical Validity of § 922(g)(1) 

We begin our historical inquiry with the benefit of more 

than a decade of Supreme Court precedent that illuminates the 

Court’s understanding of traditional firearm regulations. In 

Bruen, the majority characterized the holders of Second 

16 I also share the doctrinal and historical concerns raised in 

Judge Shwartz’s cogent dissent, with which I agree in full. 

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Amendment rights as “law-abiding” citizens fourteen times.17 

Delimiting the “unqualified command” of the Second Amendment to “law-abiding” individuals was not novel.18 In holding 

“the right of the people”19 protected by the Second Amendment 

was an “individual right,”20 Justice Scalia’s seminal opinion in 

Heller specified this meant “the right of law-abiding, 

17 N.Y. State Rifle & Pistol Ass’n, Inc. v. Bruen, 142 S. Ct. 

2111, 2122, 2125, 2131, 2133–34, 2135 n.8, 2138 & n.9, 2150, 

2156 (2022). 

18 Id. at 2130–31 (quotation omitted). 

19 Heller, 554 U.S. at 579. In the first part of its analysis, the 

majority defends its belief that convicted felons remain part of 

“the people,” so their firearm possession is presumptively protected and the Government must prove its disarmament regulation comports with historical tradition. Maj. Op. at 11–15. 

Other jurists believe that historical tradition permits the disarmament of felons precisely because “the people” historically 

meant “law-abiding, responsible citizens.” Bruen, 142 S. Ct. 

at 2131 (quotation omitted). But that debate—unlike the test 

for what constitutes an adequate “historical analogue,” id. at 

2133 (quoting Drummond v. Robinson, 9 F.4th 217, 226 (3d 

Cir. 2021))—is largely academic. As then-Judge Barrett recognized, the “same body of evidence” can be used to illuminate 

who is part of the people or “the scope of the legislature’s 

power,” and either approach “yield[s] the same result.” Kanter 

v. Barr, 919 F.3d 437, 452 (7th Cir. 2019) (Barrett, J., dissenting). 

20 Heller, 554 U.S. at 592. 

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responsible citizens” to keep and bear arms,21 and therefore 

characterized “prohibitions on the possession of firearms by 

felons” as both “longstanding” and “presumptively lawful.”22

In Bruen, the Supreme Court clarified who qualifies as 

a “law-abiding” citizen when it explained that, despite the infirmity of New York’s may-issue open-carry licensing regime, 

“nothing in our analysis should be interpreted to suggest the 

unconstitutionality of the 43 States’ ‘shall-issue’ licensing regimes . . . [,] which often require applicants to undergo a [criminal] background check” and “are designed to ensure only that 

those bearing arms in the jurisdiction are, in fact, ‘law-abiding, 

responsible citizens.’”23

Thus, time and again, the Supreme Court has acknowledged that the deep roots of felon-possession bans in American 

history impart a presumption of lawfulness to 18 U.S.C. 

§ 922(g)(1). Yet my colleagues persist in disputing it. They 

21 Id. at 635. 

22 Id. at 626–27 & n.26; see also McDonald v. City of Chicago, 

561 U.S. 742, 786 (2010) (plurality) (“repeat[ing] those assurances”); Bruen 142 S. Ct. at 2157 (Alito, J., concurring) 

(same), 2162 (Kavanaugh, J., concurring) (same). 

23 142 S. Ct. at 2138 n.9 (quoting Heller, 554 U.S. at 635). 

Those background checks screen for both violent and non-violent offenses. See, e.g., Wash. Rev. Code Ann. 

§ 9.41.070(1)(a); Colo. Rev. Stat. Ann. § 18-12-203(1)(c); 

Kan. Stat. Ann. § 75-7c04(a)(2); Miss. Code. Ann. § 45-9-

101(2)(d); N.H. Rev. Stat. Ann. § 159:6(I)(a); N.C. Gen. Stat. 

Ann. § 14-415.12(b)(1). 

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contend that, as a twentieth-century enactment, § 922(g)(1) 

“falls well short of ‘longstanding’ for purposes of demarcating 

the scope of a constitutional right.”24 But “longstanding” can 

mean decades, not centuries,25 when a practice has become an 

accepted part of “our Nation’s public traditions,”26 as the felonpossession ban has,27 and, by virtue of that acceptance, it is entitled to a “strong presumption of constitutionality.”28 Moreover, Bruen observed that historical analogies must be more 

flexible when a contemporary regulation implicates “unprecedented societal concerns or dramatic technological 

changes[.]”29 Section 922(g)(1) is such a regulation, as the lethality of today’s weaponry, the ubiquity of gun violence, the 

24 Maj. Op. at 17. 

25 Am. Legion, 139 S. Ct. at 2082. 

26 Freedom from Religion Found., Inc. v. County of Lehigh, 

933 F.3d 275, 283 (3d Cir. 2019). 

27 See Stevenson, supra note 10, at 1574. 

28 Am. Legion, 139 S. Ct. at 2085. 

29 142 S. Ct. at 2132 (quotation omitted). The Eighth Circuit 

likewise observed that common sense and flexibility are indispensable in assessing historical analogues because “the Constitution can, and must, apply to circumstances beyond those 

the Founders specifically anticipated.” Jackson, No. 22-2870, 

2023 WL 3769242, at *6 (quoting Bruen, 142 S. Ct. at 2132). 

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size and anonymity of the population, and the extent of interstate travel were unknown at the Founding.30

As the Supreme Court has not performed an “exhaustive 

historical analysis” of the felon-possession ban, much less “the 

full scope of the Second Amendment,”31 we must conduct that 

review to determine whether § 922(g)(1)’s application to felons, including Range, finds support in our national tradition. 

That analysis confirms it does. 

For purposes of this inquiry, “not all history is created 

equal.”32 As the right to keep and bear arms was a “pre-existing right,” we must consider “English history dating from the 

late 1600s, along with American colonial views leading up to 

the founding.”33 Post-ratification practices from the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries are also highly relevant, 

while later nineteenth century history is less informative.34 If 

we heed the Supreme Court’s admonition to analogize to historical regulations, but not to require a “historical twin,”35 these 

30 Even aside from these modern-day developments, however, 

the tradition of categorically disarming entire groups whom 

legislatures did not trust to obey the law dates back to at least 

the seventeenth century. See infra Section I.A. 

31 Bruen, 142 S. Ct. at 2128 (quotation omitted). 

32 Id. at 2136. 

33 Id. at 2127 (citing Heller, 554 U.S. at 595). 

34 See id. at 2136–37. 

35 Id. at 2133. 

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sources demonstrate the validity of § 922(g)(1) as applied in 

this case. 

A. England’s Restoration and Glorious Revolution 

During the late seventeenth century, the English 

government repeatedly disarmed individuals whose conduct 

indicated that they could not be trusted to abide by the 

sovereign and its dictates. 

Following the tumult of the English Civil War, the 

restored Stuart monarchs disarmed nonconformist (i.e., nonAnglican) Protestants.36 Of course, not all nonconformists 

were dangerous; to the contrary, many belonged to pacificist 

denominations like the Quakers.37 However, they refused to 

participate in the Church of England, an institution headed by 

the King as a matter of English law.38 And nonconformists 

36 See Joyce Lee Malcolm, To Keep and Bear Arms: The Origins of an Anglo-American Right 45 (1994) (describing how 

Charles II “totally disarmed . . . religious dissenters”). 

37 See Joyce Lee Malcolm, The Right of the People to Keep and 

Bear Arms: The Common Law Tradition, 10 Hastings Const. 

L.Q. 285, 304 n.117 (1983) (“Persons judged to be suspicious 

by the royal administration were those . . . who belonged to the 

Protestant sects that refused to remain within the Church of 

England. The Quakers were prominent sufferers.”). 

38 See Church of England, BBC (June 30, 2011), 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/religions/christianity/cofe/cofe_1.shtml (describing “the Act of Supremacy” enacted during the reign of Henry VIII). 

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often refused to take mandatory oaths acknowledging the 

King’s sovereign authority over matters of religion.39 As a 

result, Anglicans accused nonconformists of believing their 

faith exempted them from obedience to the law.40

Protestants had their rights restored after the Glorious 

Revolution of 1688 replaced the Catholic King James II with 

William of Orange and Mary, James’s Protestant daughter.41 

But even then, Parliament enacted the English Bill of Rights, 

which declared: “Subjects which are Protestants, may have 

Arms for their Defence suitable to their Conditions, and as 

allowed by Law.”42 This “predecessor to our Second 

Amendment”43 reveals that the legislature—Parliament—was 

39 See Frederick B. Jonassen, “So Help Me?”: Religious Expression and Artifacts in the Oath of Office and the Courtroom 

Oath, 12 Cardozo Pub. L., Pol’y & Ethics J. 303, 322 (2014) 

(describing Charles II’s reinstation of the Oath of Supremacy); 

Caroline Robbins, Selden’s Pills: State Oaths in England, 

1558–1714, 35 Huntington Lib. Q. 303, 314–15 (1972) (discussing nonconformists’ refusal to take such oaths). 

40 See Christopher Haigh, ‘Theological Wars’: ‘Socinians’ v. 

‘Antinomians’ in Restoration England, 67 J. Ecclesiastical 

Hist. 325, 326, 334 (2016). 

41 See Alice Ristroph, The Second Amendment in a Carceral 

State, 116 Nw. U. L. Rev. 203, 228 (2021). 

42 1 W. & M., Sess. 2, ch. 2, § 7 (Eng. 1689) (emphasis added). 

43 Bruen, 142 S. Ct. at 2141 (quoting Heller, 554 U.S. at 593). 

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understood to have the authority and discretion to decide who 

was sufficiently law-abiding to keep and bear arms.44

In 1689, the pendulum of distrust swung the other way. 

Parliament enacted a statute prohibiting Catholics who refused 

to take an oath renouncing the tenets of their faith from owning 

firearms, except as necessary for self-defense.45 As with 

nonconformists, this prohibition was not based on the notion 

that every single Catholic was dangerous. Rather, the 

categorical argument English Protestants made against 

Catholicism at the time was that Catholics’ faith put the 

dictates of a “foreign power,” namely the Vatican, before 

English law.46 Official Anglican doctrine—regularly preached 

throughout England—warned that the Pope taught “that they 

that are under him are free from all burdens and charges of the 

commonwealth, and obedience toward their prince[.]”47 

44 Cf. Lois G. Schwoerer, To Hold and Bear Arms: The English 

Perspective, 76 Chi.-Kent L. Rev. 27, 47–48 (2000) (explaining how the English Bill of Rights preserved Parliament’s authority to limit who could bear arms). 

45 An Act for the Better Securing the Government by Disarming Papists and Reputed Papists, 1 W. & M., Sess. 1, ch. 15 

(Eng. 1688); see Malcolm, supra note 36, at 123. 

46 See Diego Lucci, John Locke on Atheism, Catholicism, Antinomianism, and Deism, 20 Etica & Politica/Ethics & Pol. 

201, 228–29 (2018). 

47 An Exhortation Concerning Good Order, and Obedience to 

Rulers and Magistrates, in Sermons or Homilies Appointed to 

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Accordingly, the disarmament of Catholics in 1689 reflects 

Protestant fears that Catholics could not be trusted to obey the 

law. 

That restriction could be lifted only prospectively and 

on an individual basis. That is, Parliament permitted Catholics 

who “repeated and subscribed” to the necessary oath before 

“any two or more Justices of the Peace” to resume keeping 

arms.48 Disavowal of religious tenets hardly demonstrated that 

the swearing individual no longer had the capacity to commit 

violence; rather, the oath was a gesture of allegiance to the 

English government and an assurance of conformity to its laws. 

The status-based disarmament of Catholics thus again evinces 

the “historical understanding”49 that legislatures could 

categorically disarm a group they viewed as unwilling to obey 

the law. 

B. Colonial America 

The English notion that the government could disarm 

those not considered law-abiding traveled to the American 

colonies. Although some of the earliest firearm laws in 

colonial America forbid Native Americans and Black persons 

Be Read in Churches in the Time of Queen Elizabeth of Famous Memory 114, 125 (new ed., Gilbert & Rivington 1839). 

48 1 W. & M., Sess. 1, ch. 15 (Eng. 1688). 

49 Bruen, 142 S. Ct. at 2131. 

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from owning guns,50 the colonies also repeatedly disarmed 

full-fledged members of the political community as it then 

existed—i.e., free, Christian, white men—whom the 

authorities believed could not be trusted to obey the law. Those 

restrictions are telling because they were imposed at a time 

when, before the advent of the English Bill of Rights, the 

charters of Virginia and Massachusetts provided 

unprecedented protections for colonists’ firearm rights.51 

The Virginia Company carried out one of the earliest 

recorded disarmaments in the American colonies in 1624. For 

his “opprobrious” and “base and detracting speeches 

concerning the Governor,” the Virginia Council ordered 

Richard Barnes “disarmed” and “banished” from Jamestown.52 

50 See Clayton E. Cramer, Armed America: The Remarkable 

Story of How and Why Guns Became as American as Apple Pie 

31, 43 (2006). Today, we emphatically reject these bigoted and 

unconstitutional laws, as well as their premise that one’s race 

or religion correlates with disrespect for the law. I cite them 

here only to demonstrate the tradition of categorical, statusbased disarmaments. See Blocher & Ruben, supra note 3, at 

63 (urging courts examining historical disarmament laws that 

would violate the Constitution today to “ask[] why earlier generations regulated gun possession more generally, rather than 

just who they disarmed”). 

51 See Nicholas J. Johnson et al., Firearms Law and the Second 

Amendment: Regulation, Rights, and Policy 174 (3d ed. 2022). 

52 David Thomas Konig, “Dale’s Laws” and the Non-Common 

Law Origins of Criminal Justice in Virginia, 26 Am. J. Legal 

Hist. 354, 371 (1982). 

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By disrespecting the colonial authorities, Barnes demonstrated 

that he could no longer be trusted as a law-abiding member of 

the community and thus forfeited his ability to keep arms. 

During the late 1630s, a Boston preacher named Anne 

Hutchinson challenged the Massachusetts Bay government’s 

authority over spiritual matters by advocating for direct, 

personal relationships with the divine.53 Governor John 

Winthrop accused Hutchinson and her followers of being 

Antinomians—those who viewed their salvation as exempting 

them from the law—and banished her.54 The colonial 

government also disarmed at least fifty-eight of Hutchinson’s 

supporters, not because those supporters had demonstrated a 

propensity for violence, but rather “to embarrass the offenders” 

who were forced to personally deliver their arms to the 

authorities in an act of public submission.55 The Massachusetts 

authorities therefore disarmed Hutchinson’s supporters to 

shame those colonists because the authorities concluded their 

conduct evinced a willingness to disobey the law.56 Again, 

53 See Edmund S. Morgan, The Case Against Anne Hutchinson, 

10 New Eng. Q. 635, 637–38, 644 (1937). 

54 Id. at 648; Ann Fairfax Withington & Jack Schwartz, The 

Political Trial of Anne Hutchinson, 51 New Eng. Q. 226, 226 

(1978). 

55 James F. Cooper, Jr., Anne Hutchinson and the “Lay Rebellion” Against the Clergy, 61 New Eng. Q. 381, 391 (1988). 

56 Cf. John Felipe Acevedo, Dignity Takings in the Criminal 

Law of Seventeenth-Century England and the Massachusetts 

Bay Colony, 92 Chi.-Kent L. Rev. 743, 761 (2017) (describing 

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restoration of that right was available, but only prospectively, 

for individuals who affirmatively sought relief: Hutchinson’s 

followers who renounced her teachings and confessed their 

sins to the authorities “were welcomed back into the 

community and able to retain their arms,” as they had shown 

that they could once again be trusted to abide by the law.57

Like the Stuart monarchs in England, the Anglican 

colony of Virginia disarmed nonconformist Protestants in the 

1640s due to their rejection of the King’s sovereign power over 

religion. When a group of nonconformist Puritans from 

Massachusetts resettled in southeastern Virginia,58 Virginia 

Governor William Berkeley “acted quickly to silence the 

Puritan[s].”59 His concern with any “[o]pposition to the 

other shaming punishments used at the time, including scarlet 

letters). 

57 Joseph G.S. Greenlee, The Historical Justification for Prohibiting Dangerous Persons from Possessing Arms, 20 Wyo. 

L. Rev. 249, 263 (2020). 

58 Charles Campbell, History of the Colony and Ancient Dominion of Virginia 211 (1860). 

59 Kevin Butterfield, The Puritan Experiment in Virginia, 

1607–1650, at 21 (June 1999) (M.A. thesis, College of William 

and Mary) (on file with William and Mary Libraries). 

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king”60 led Governor Berkeley to disarm the Puritans before 

banishing them from the colony.61

After the Glorious Revolution, the American colonies 

also followed England in disarming their Catholic residents. 

Just three years after designating Anglicanism as the colony’s 

official religion,62 Governor Benjamin Fletcher of New York 

disarmed Catholic colonists in 1696.63 The colonies redoubled 

their disarmament of Catholics during the Seven Years’ War 

of 1756–1763.64 Maryland, for example, though founded as a 

haven for persecuted English Catholics,65 confiscated firearms 

from its Catholic residents during the war.66 Notably, that 

decision was not in response to violence; indeed, the colony’s 

60 Id.

61 Campbell, supra note 58, at 212. 

62 See George J. Lankevich, New York City: A Short History 30 

(2002). 

63 See Shona Helen Johnston, Papists in a Protestant World: 

The Catholic Anglo-Atlantic in the Seventeenth Century 219–

20 (May 11, 2011) (Ph.D. dissertation, Georgetown University) (on file with the Georgetown University Library). 

64 See Greenlee, supra note 57, at 263. 

65 See Michael W. McConnell, The Origins and Historical Understanding of Free Exercise of Religion, 103 Harv. L. Rev. 

1409, 1424 (1990). 

66 See Greenlee, supra note 57, at 263; Johnson et al., supra

note 51, at 197. 

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governor at the time, Horatio Sharpe, observed that “the 

Papists behave themselves peaceably and as good subjects.”67 

Neighboring Virginia likewise disarmed Catholics, but 

allowed those who demonstrated their willingness to obey the 

law by swearing an oath of loyalty to the King to retain their 

weapons.68 The colonies therefore continued the English 

practice of disarming Catholics based on their perceived 

unwillingness to adhere to the King’s sovereign dictates. 

Catholics were not the only group of colonists disarmed 

during the Seven Years’ War. New Jersey confiscated firearms 

from Moravians, a group of nonconformist Protestants from 

modern-day Germany.69 Like the Quakers, Moravians were—

as they are today—committed pacifists who owned weapons 

for hunting instead of fighting.70 Regardless, New Jersey 

Governor Jonathan Belcher deemed their nonconformist views 

sufficient evidence that they could not be trusted to obey royal 

authority, so he ordered their disarmament.71

67 Elihu S. Riley, A History of the General Assembly of Maryland 224 (1912) (quoting a July 9, 1755 letter from Governor 

Sharpe). 

68 See Johnson et al., supra note 51, at 198. 

69 See id.

70 See id.

71 See id. (discussing Governor Belcher’s view that the Moravians were “Snakes in the Grass and Enemies of King 

George”). 

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C. Revolutionary War 

As the colonies became independent states, legislatures 

continued to disarm individuals whose status indicated that 

they could not be trusted to obey the law. John Locke—a 

philosopher who profoundly influenced the American 

revolutionaries72—argued that the replacement of individual 

judgments of what behavior is acceptable with communal 

norms is an essential characteristic of the social contract.73 

Members of a social compact, he explained, therefore have a 

civic obligation to comply with communal judgments 

regarding proper behavior.74

Drawing on Locke, state legislatures conditioned their 

citizens’ ability to keep arms on compliance with that civic 

72 See Thad W. Tate, The Social Contract in America, 1774–

1787: Revolutionary Theory as a Conservative Instrument, 22 

Wm. & Mary Q. 375, 376 (1965); see also Gundy v. United 

States, 139 S. Ct. 2116, 2133 (2019) (Gorsuch, J., dissenting) 

(observing “John Locke [was] one of the thinkers who most 

influenced the framers”). 

73 See John Locke, Two Treatises of Government § 163 

(Thomas I. Cook ed., Hafner Press 1947) (reasoning “there 

only is political society where every one of the members hath 

quitted his natural power [to judge transgressions and] resigned 

it up into the hands of the community”). 

74 Locke grounded that duty in the consent of those within a 

political society; however, he argued that mere presence in a 

territory constitutes tacit consent to the laws of the reigning 

sovereign. See id. § 119. 

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obligation, and several states enacted statutes disarming all 

those who refused to recognize the sovereignty of the new 

nation.75 In Connecticut, for instance, as tensions with England 

rose, colonists denounced loyalists’ dereliction of their duty to 

the civic community. The inhabitants of Coventry passed a 

resolution in 1774 stating loyalists were “unworthy of that 

friendship and esteem which constitutes the bond of social 

happiness, and ought to be treated with contempt and total 

neglect.”76 “Committees of Inspection” formed across 

Connecticut and published the names and addresses of 

suspected loyalists in local newspapers as “persons held up to 

the public view as enemies to their country.”77 Concerns that 

loyalists could not be trusted to uphold their civic duties as 

members of a new state culminated in a 1775 statute that forbid 

anyone who defamed resolutions of the Continental Congress 

from keeping arms, voting, or serving as a public official.78

75 See Robert H. Churchill, Gun Regulation, the Police Power, 

and the Right to Keep Arms in Early America: The Legal Context of the Second Amendment, 25 Law & Hist. Rev. 139, 158 

(2007). 

76 G.A. Gilbert, The Connecticut Loyalists, 4 Am. Hist. Rev. 

273, 280 (1899) (describing this resolution as “a fair sample of 

most of the others passed at this time”). 

77 Id. at 280–81. 

78 See id. at 282. 

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Virginia disarmed those viewed as unwilling to abide by 

the newly sovereign state’s legal norms.79 Virginia’s loyalty 

oath statute disarmed “all free born male inhabitants of this 

state, above the age of sixteen years, except imported servants 

during the time of their service” who refused to swear their 

“allegiance and fidelity” to the state.80 And conversely, it 

allowed for prospective restoration of rights upon the taking of 

that oath.81

Pennsylvania also disarmed entire groups whose status 

suggested they could not be trusted to abide by the law. In 

1777, the legislature enacted a statute requiring all white male 

inhabitants above the age of eighteen to swear to “be faithful 

and bear true allegiance to the commonwealth of Pennsylvania 

as a free and independent state,”82 and providing that those who 

failed to take the oath “shall be disarmed” by the local 

79 An Act to Oblige the Free Male Inhabitants of this State 

Above a Certain Age to Give Assurance of Allegiances to the 

Same, and for Other Purposes ch. III (1777), 9 Statutes at 

Large; Being a Collection of All the Laws of Virginia, from the 

First Session of the Legislature in the Year 1619 281, 281 (William W. Hening ed., 1821). 

80 Id. 

81 Id. 

82 Act of June 13, 1777, § 1 (1777), 9 The Statutes at Large of 

Pennsylvania from 1652–1801 110, 111 (William Stanley Ray 

ed., 1903). 

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authorities.83 That statute is especially illuminating because 

Pennsylvania’s 1776 constitution protected the people’s right 

to bear arms.84 Yet the disarmament law deprived sizable 

numbers of pacifists of that right because oath-taking violated 

the religious convictions of Quakers, Moravians, Mennonites, 

and other groups.85 Those groups were not disarmed because 

they were dangerous,86 but rather because their refusal to swear 

allegiance demonstrated that they would not submit to 

communal judgments embodied in law when it conflicted with 

83 Id. § 3, at 112–13. 

84 See Saul Cornell, “Don’t Know Much About History”: The 

Current Crisis in Second Amendment Scholarship, 29 N. Ky. 

L. Rev. 657, 670–71 (2002). 

85 See Jim Wedeking, Quaker State: Pennsylvania’s Guide to 

Reducing the Friction for Religious Outsiders Under the Establishment Clause, 2 N.Y.U. J.L. & Liberty 28, 51 (2006); see 

also Thomas C. McHugh, Moravian Opposition to the Pennsylvania Test Acts, 1777 to 1789, at 49–50 (Sept. 7, 1965) 

(M.A. thesis, Lehigh University) (on file with the Lehigh Preserve Institutional Repository). 

86 See Heller, 554 U.S. at 590 (“Quakers opposed the use of 

arms not just for militia service, but for any violent purpose 

whatsoever . . . .”); Johnson et al., supra note 51, at 301 (noting 

that states disarmed “Quakers and other pacifists; although 

they were not fighters, they did own guns for hunting”). 

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personal conviction.87 Only those presumptively 

untrustworthy individuals who came forward and established 

that they were indeed law-abiding by swearing the loyalty oath 

before state authorities had their firearm rights restored.88

D. Ratification Debates 

The Founding generation reiterated the longstanding 

principle that legislatures could disarm non-law-abiding 

citizens during the deliberations over whether to ratify the 

Constitution. 

Debates between the Federalists and Anti-Federalists in 

Pennsylvania “were among the most influential and widely 

distributed of any essays published during ratification.”89 

Those essays included “The Dissent of the Minority,” a 

statement of the Anti-Federalist delegates’ views90 that proved 

87 See Wedeking, supra note 85, at 51–52 (describing how 

Quakers were “penal[ized] for allegiance to their religious 

scruples over the new government”). 

88 Act of June 13, 1777, § 3 (1777), 9 The Statutes at Large of 

Pennsylvania from 1652–1801 110, 112 (William Stanley Ray 

ed., 1903). 

89 Saul Cornell, Commonplace or Anachronism: The Standard 

Model, the Second Amendment, and the Problem of History in 

Contemporary Constitutional Theory, 16 Const. Comment. 

221, 227 (1999). 

90 See id. at 232–33. 

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“highly influential” for the Second Amendment.91 The Dissent 

of the Minority proposed an amendment stating: 

[T]he people have a right to bear 

arms for the defence of themselves 

and their own State or the United 

States, or for the purpose of killing 

game; and no law shall be passed 

for disarming the people or any of 

them unless for crimes committed, 

or real danger of public injury from 

individuals.92

While this amendment was not adopted, it is important 

because, read in the context of traditional Anglo-American 

firearm laws, it reflects the understanding of the Founding 

generation—particularly among those who favored enshrining 

91 Heller, 554 U.S. at 604; see also Amul R. Thapar & Joe Masterman, Fidelity and Construction, 129 Yale L.J. 774, 797 

(2020) (“Although one might question why we should listen to 

the debate’s ‘losers,’ the Anti-Federalist Papers are relevant for 

the same reason that the Federalist Papers are: to quote Justice 

Scalia, ‘their writings, like those of other intelligent and informed people of the time, display how the text of the Constitution was originally understood.’ Plus, the Anti-Federalists 

did not exactly ‘lose,’ in the same way in which a party who 

settles a case but gets important concessions does not ‘lose’ the 

case.” (quoting Antonin Scalia, A Matter of Interpretation: 

Federal Courts and the Law 38 (Amy Gutmann ed., 1997))). 

92 2 Bernard Schwartz, The Bill of Rights: A Documentary History 665 (1971) (emphasis added). 

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the right to armed self-defense in the Constitution—that 

“crimes committed,” whether dangerous or not, justified 

disarmament. 

E. Criminal Punishment 

The penalties meted out for a variety of offenses 

between the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries also 

demonstrate the widespread acceptance of legislatures’ 

authority to disarm felons. 

 At the Founding, a conviction for a serious crime 

resulted in the permanent loss of the offender’s ability to keep 

and bear arms. Those who committed grave felonies—both 

violent and non-violent—were executed.93 A fortiori, the 

ubiquity of the death penalty94 suggests that the Founding 

generation would have had no objection to imposing on felons 

the comparatively lenient penalty of disarmament. Indeed, 

under English law, executed felons traditionally forfeited all 

their firearms, as well as the rest of their estate, to the 

government.95 That practice persisted in the American 

colonies and the Early Republic.96 Even some non-capital 

93 See Folajtar v. Att’y Gen., 980 F.3d 897, 904–05 (3d Cir. 

2020). 

94 See Baze v. Rees, 553 U.S. 35, 94 (2008) (Thomas, J., concurring). 

95 See 4 William Blackstone, Commentaries *97–98. 

96 See Respublica v. Doan, 1 U.S. 86, 91 (Pa. 1784) (“Doan, 

besides the forfeiture of his estate, has forfeited his life.”). At 

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offenses triggered the permanent loss of an offender’s estate, 

including any firearms. For example, a 1786 New York statute 

punished those who counterfeited state bills of credit with life 

imprisonment and the forfeiture of their entire estate.97 Again, 

this drastic punishment indicates that the Founding generation 

would not have considered the lesser punishment of 

disarmament beyond a legislature’s authority. 

 Individuals who committed less serious crimes also lost 

their firearms on a temporary, if not permanent, basis. Where 

state legislatures stipulated that certain offenses were not 

common law, forfeiture also resulted in “corruption of the 

blood,” which prevented the felon’s heirs from inheriting or 

transmitting the offender’s property. Richard E. Finneran & 

Steven K. Luther, Criminal Forfeiture and the Sixth Amendment: The Role of the Jury at Common Law, 35 Cardozo L. 

Rev. 1, 27 (2013). In the Early Republic, several states limited 

the loss of one’s property to the lifetime of the offender. See 2 

James Kent, Commentaries on American Law *387 (1826); cf.

U.S. Const. art. III, § 3, cl. 2 (“The Congress shall have Power 

to declare the Punishment of Treason, but no Attainder of Treason shall work Corruption of Blood, or Forfeiture except during the Life of the Person attainted.” (emphasis added)). Estate 

forfeiture ultimately fell into disuse in the 1820s. See Com. v. 

Pennock, 1817 WL 1789, at *1–2 (Pa. 1817); Will Tress, Unintended Collateral Consequences: Defining Felony in the 

Early American Republic, 57 Clev. St. L. Rev. 461, 473 (2009). 

97 Act of Apr. 18, 1786, 2 Laws of the State of New York 253, 

260–61 (1886); see also Act of Nov. 27, 1700, 2 Statutes at 

Large of Pennsylvania 12 (Wm. Stanley Ray ed., 1904) (punishing arson with life imprisonment and estate forfeiture). 

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punishable by death or life imprisonment, but rather resulted in 

forfeiture,98 the offender was stripped of his then-existing 

estate, including any firearms,99 and only upon successfully 

98 See, e.g., Act of Apr. 5, 1790, § 2 (1790), 13 Statutes at Large 

of Pennsylvania 511, 511–12 (Wm. Stanley Ray ed., 1908) 

(robbery, burglary, sodomy, buggery); Act of Jan. 4, 1787, § 9 

(1787), 24 Colonial Records of North Carolina 787, 788 (Walter Clark ed., 1905) (filing a false inventory of property in connection with a procurement fraud investigation); An Act to Prevent Routs, Riots, and Tumultuous Assemblies, § 4 (1786), 3 

Compendium and Digest of the Laws of Massachusetts 1132, 

1134 (Thomas B. Wait ed., 1810) (rioting); Act of Nov. 26, 

1779, § 2 (1779), 10 Statutes at Large of Pennsylvania 12, 15–

16 (Wm. Stanley Ray ed., 1904) (counterfeiting); An Act for 

the Regulation of the Markets in the City of Philadelphia, and 

for Other Purposes Therein Mentioned, § 1 (1779), 9 Statutes 

at Large of Pennsylvania 387, 388–89 (Wm. Stanley Ray ed., 

1904) (diverting food en route to Philadelphia or attempting to 

raise the price of food at the city’s market three times); An Act 

for Establishing an Office for the Purpose of Borrowing Money 

for the Use of the Commonwealth, § 4 (1777), 9 Statutes at 

Large; Being a Collection of All the Laws of Virginia, from the 

First Session of the Legislature in the Year 1619, at 286, 287 

(William W. Hening ed., 1821) (counterfeiting). 

99 See, e.g., Act of Apr. 5, 1790, § 2 (1790), 13 Statutes at Large 

of Pennsylvania 511, 511–12 (Wm. Stanley Ray ed., 1908) 

(providing that the offender “shall forfeit to the commonwealth 

all . . . goods and chattels whereof he or she was seized or possessed at the time the crime was committed and at any time 

afterwards until conviction”). 

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serving of his sentence and reintegrating into society could he 

presumably repurchase arms. 

 Finally, colonial and state legislatures punished minor 

infractions with partial disarmaments by seizing firearms 

involved in those offenses. For example, individuals who 

hunted in certain prohibited areas had to forfeit any weapons 

used in the course of that violation.100

* * * 

As this survey reflects, and as the Supreme Court 

observed in Heller, restrictions on the ability of felons to 

possess firearms are indeed “longstanding[.]”101 Four 

centuries of Anglo-American history demonstrate that 

legislatures repeatedly exercised their discretion to impose 

“status-based restrictions” disarming entire “categories of 

persons,” who were presumed, based on past conduct, 

100 See 1652 N.Y. Laws 138; Act of Apr. 20, ch. III (1745), 23 

Acts of the North Carolina General Assembly 218, 219 (1805); 

1771 N.J. Laws 19–20; An Act for the Protection and Security 

of the Sheep and Other Stock on Tarpaulin Cove Island, Otherwise Called Naushon Island, and on Nennemessett Island, 

and Several Small Islands Contiguous, Situated in the County 

of Dukes County § 2 (1790), 1 Private and Special Statutes of 

the Commonwealth of Massachusetts 258, 259 (Manning & 

Loring ed., 1805); 1832 Va. Acts 70; 1838 Md. Laws 291–92; 

12 Del. Laws 365 (1863). 

101 554 U.S. at 626. 

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unwilling to obey the law.102 Legislatures did so not because 

the individuals in these groups were considered dangerous, but 

because, based on their status, they were deemed non-lawabiding subjects.103 The particular groups varied dramatically 

over time, but the Founding generation understood that felons 

were one such group. 

The length of disarmaments varied too, but the 

Founding generation recognized that legislatures—in their 

discretion—could impose permanent, temporary, or indefinite 

bans that lasted until the individual affirmatively sought relief 

and made a showing of commitment to abide by the law. In 

that case, the showing was not viewed as voiding the ban 

retroactively, from its inception; rather, it operated 

prospectively. Only after the individual had made the requisite 

showing to a government official—and thus rebutted the 

presumption that those with his status were not law-abiding—

was the individual’s right to possess firearms restored. 

That is precisely how § 922(g)(1) functions, disarming 

a group that has demonstrated disregard for the law104 and 

allowing for restoration of the right to keep arms upon the 

102 Jackson, No. 22-2870, 2023 WL 3769242, at *7. 

103 Even if dangerousness were “the traditional sine qua non

for dispossession, then history demonstrates that there is no requirement for an individualized determination of dangerousness as to each person in a class of prohibited persons.” Id. at 

*6. 

104 See 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1). 

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requisite showing.105 Because that statutory scheme is 

“consistent with this Nation’s historical tradition of firearm 

regulation,”106 it comports with the Second Amendment. 

II. Consequences of the Majority Opinion 

 Instead of respecting legislatures’ longstanding 

authority to disarm groups who pose a threat to the rule of law, 

the majority usurps that function and enacts its own policy. 

And instead of heeding the Supreme Court’s instruction to take 

§ 922(g)(1) as “longstanding” and “lawful,”107 the majority 

nullifies it with an insurmountably rigid view of historical 

analogues and an approach so standardless as to render it void 

for vagueness in any application. 

My colleagues have adopted and prescribed a 

methodology by which courts must examine each historical 

practice in isolation and reject it if it deviates in any respect 

from the contemporary regulation: Confronted with 

legislatures’ regular practice at the Founding of imposing the 

far more severe penalty of death for even non-violent felonies, 

the majority responds that the permanent loss of all rights is 

not analogous to “the particular . . . punishment at issue—

lifetime disarmament[.]”108 To the longstanding practice of 

forfeiture, which resulted in a permanent loss of firearms for 

those felons convicted of capital offenses or sentenced to life 

105 See 18 U.S.C. § 921(a)(20). 

106 Bruen, 142 S. Ct. at 2126. 

107 Heller, 554 U.S. at 626–27 & n.26. 

108 Maj. Op. at 19. 

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imprisonment, the majority avers that forfeiture is entirely 

distinguishable because other felons—those who committed 

lesser offenses and thus served temporary rather than life 

sentences—could repurchase arms upon their release.109 To 

evidence that legislatures repeatedly disarmed entire groups of 

people based on their distrusted status, the majority dismisses 

those laws as inconsistent with contemporary understandings 

of the First and Fourteenth Amendments.110 To the historical 

reality that disarmament was not limited to those considered 

violent and indeed extended to well-known pacifists like the 

Quakers, the majority decrees without elaboration that any 

analogy between § 922(g)(1) and those laws would be “far too 

broad.”111 Finally, to the notion that Congress can 

categorically disarm felons today, just as legislatures once 

disarmed loyalists, Catholics, and other groups, the majority 

falls back on its bottom line: any analogy will be unlike “Range 

and his individual circumstances.”112

The Supreme Court in Bruen specifically admonished 

the judiciary not to place “a regulatory straightjacket” on our 

109 Id. at 19–20. 

110 Id. at 18–19. Strikingly, several of my colleagues once asserted that these same laws justified disarming dangerous felons. See Binderup v. Att’y Gen., 836 F.3d 336, 368–69 (3d Cir. 

2016) (en banc) (Hardiman, J., concurring in part); Folajtar, 

980 F.3d at 914–15 (Bibas, J., dissenting). Today’s majority 

provides no such assurance. Maj. Op. at 18 n.9. 

111 Id. at 19 (quoting Bruen, 142 S. Ct. at 2134). 

112 Id.

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Government by requiring a “historical twin,” and explained 

that “even if a modern-day regulation is not a dead ringer for 

historical precursors, it still may be analogous enough to pass 

constitutional muster.”113 Yet, how else would one describe 

the kind of analogue the majority demands—a Founding-era 

statute that imposed the “particular”114 restriction for the same 

length of time on the same group of people as a modern 

law115—if not as a contemporary regulation’s “dead ringer” 

and “historical twin”?116

While the majority opinion spurns this instruction from 

Bruen and the Eighth Circuit’s conclusion that § 922(g)(1) is 

constitutional as applied to any felon,117 it fully embraces the 

Fifth Circuit’s reasoning in United States v. Rahimi.

118 In that 

case, the Fifth Circuit held that 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(8), which 

prohibits individuals subject to domestic abuse civil protective 

orders from possessing firearms, violates the Second 

Amendment.119 After rejecting the Supreme Court’s repeated 

references to “law-abiding citizens” as devolving too much 

113 Bruen, 142 S. Ct. at 2133. 

114 Maj. Op. at 19. 

115 See id. 

116 Bruen, 142 S. Ct. at 2133. 

117 Jackson, No. 22-2870, 2023 WL 3769242, at *4. 

118 61 F.4th at 443. 

119 Id. at 461. 

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discretion to the Government,120 the Fifth Circuit addressed 

each of the Government’s historical analogues in isolation and, 

paving the way for today’s majority, concluded every one was 

distinguishable from § 922(g)(8): Statutes disarming 

distrusted groups were inapt because legislatures believed 

those groups threatened social and political order generally, 

whereas domestic abusers threaten identifiable individuals;121

criminal forfeiture laws seizing arms from those who terrorized 

the public were insufficient because domestic abuse protective 

orders derive from civil proceedings.122 Like my colleagues, 

the Rahimi Court concluded that any difference between a 

historical law and contemporary regulation defeats an 

otherwise-compelling analogy. 

For all their quibbling, though, neither today’s majority 

nor the Fifth Circuit explain why those differences suggest the 

Founding generation would have considered § 922(g) beyond 

the authority of a legislature. Furthermore, the methodology 

the majority adopts from Rahimi creates a one-way ratchet: 

My colleagues offer a detailed roadmap for rejecting historical 

analogues yet refuse to state when, if ever, a historical practice 

will justify a contemporary regulation. 

By confining permissible firearm regulations to the precise measures employed at the Founding, the majority displaces a complex array of interlocking statutes that embody the 

considered judgments of elected representatives at the federal 

120 Id. at 453. 

121 Id. at 457. 

122 Id. at 458–59. 

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and state level. For example, in § 922(g)(1), Congress disarmed those who commit felonies or felony-equivalent misdemeanors, but specifically excluded particular offenses it 

deemed not sufficiently serious: “antitrust violations, unfair 

trade practices, restraints of trade, or other similar offenses relating to the regulation of business practices[.]”123 The majority ignores that judgment and rewrites the statute with its own 

expansive view of excludable offenses. 

Section 922(g)(1) also disarms those who commit state 

felonies out of respect for the historic power of state legislatures to designate which offenses were considered sufficiently 

serious by the people of that state to be punished as felonies. 

Underlying the majority’s decision to exempt a felon-equivalent “like Range” from § 922(g)(1), however, is an unspoken 

premise antithetical to federalism and the separation of powers: 

that federal judges know better than the people’s elected representatives what offenses should qualify as serious to the people of that state. 

In addition to eviscerating the federal disarmament statute, the vague test adopted by the majority impugns the constitutional application of every state statute that prohibits felons 

from possessing guns. Those laws differ significantly across 

the forty-eight states that restrict offenders’ firearm rights—

including which offenses trigger restrictions as well as their 

duration—in keeping with each state’s local circumstances and 

values.124 But, under the Supremacy Clause, the majority’s 

123 18 U.S.C. § 921(a)(20)(A). 

124 See generally Fifty-State Comparison: Loss and Restoration of Civil/Firearms Rights, Restoration Rts. Project (Nov. 

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test, indeterminant as it is, necessarily supplants those laws no 

less than it does § 922(g)(1). 

Similarly, out of respect for federalism, Congress exempted from the federal felon-possession ban any offender 

whose conviction “has been expunged,” who “has been pardoned,” or who has had his “civil rights restored.”125 In every 

single state, the governor or pardon board is authorized to issue 

a pardon, automatically restoring an offender’s firearm 

rights.126 Thirty-six states also offer additional gun rights restoration mechanisms127—from automatic restoration after a set 

term of years,128 to individualized judicial expungement proceedings.129 The divergent “state policy judgments” codified 

2022), https://ccresourcecenter.org/state-restoration-profiles/chart-1-loss-and-restoration-of-civil-rights-and-firearmsprivileges-2/. None of these statutes appears to disarm individuals who commit pretextual offenses. I note, however, that history suggests any pretextual disarmament law would violate 

the Second Amendment. See 1 William Blackstone, Commentaries app. *300 (St. George Tucker ed., Birch & Small 1803) 

(decrying how “[i]n England, the people have been disarmed, 

generally, under the specious pretext of preserving the game”). 

125 18 U.S.C. § 921(a)(20). 

126 See Fifty-State Comparison: Loss and Restoration of 

Civil/Firearms Rights, supra note 124. 

127 See id.

128 See, e.g., Mich. Comp. Laws § 750.224f. 

129 See, e.g., Tenn. Code Ann. § 39-17-1307(c)(1)(C). 

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in these statutes promote “the benefits of federalism: experimentation, localism, and to some extent, decentralization”130—

so much so that the Supreme Court itself has acknowledged the 

significance of Congress’s decision “to defer to a State’s dispensation relieving an offender from disabling effects of a conviction.”131 Yet the majority annuls these mechanisms for the 

restoration of gun rights by declaring that offenders like Range 

can never be disarmed in the first place. 

In place of legislatures’ measured judgments, the majority imposes a constitutional framework so standardless as to 

thwart the lawful application of 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1) to any

offender. Congress enacted a bright-line rule distinguishing 

offenders who can possess firearms from those who cannot. 

By looking to the maximum punishment available for his offense, a felon or state misdemeanant can easily determine if he 

can possess a gun.132 The majority, however, replaces that 

straightforward test with an opaque inquiry—whether the offender is “like Range.”133 

So what exactly is this new test? What specifically is it 

about Range that exempts him—and going forward, those “like 

[him]”—from § 922(g)(1)’s enforcement? Regrettably, that is 

130 D. Bowie Duncan, Note, Dynamic Incorporation, Rights 

Restoration, and 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1), 15 N.Y.U. J.L. & Liberty 233, 274 (2021). 

131 Logan v. United States, 552 U.S. 23, 37 (2007). 

132 See 18 U.S.C. § 921(a)(20). 

133 Maj. Op. at 22. 

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left to conjecture. My colleagues describe Range’s individual 

circumstances in minute detail, appearing to attach significance to such specifics as his hourly wage, his marital status, 

the number of children he raised, his purported justification for 

his fraud, the amount he stole, his culpability relative to his 

wife who was not charged, his employment history, his largely 

law-abiding life post-conviction, his explanations for his postconviction attempts to purchase a gun, the circumstances in 

which his wife then purchased it for him, his intended use of 

firearms to hunt deer in his spare time, and the timing of his 

discovery that he was subject to § 922(g)(1).134 The particulars 

are plentiful, but the majority never specifies, among these and 

other descriptors of Range’s life pre- and post-conviction, the 

respects in which an offender must be “like Range” to preclude 

the application of § 922(g)(1). 

If it is that Range’s offense was not “violent,” that 

standard is unworkable and leads to perverse results. Federal 

courts’ prior attempts to define “violent felony,” e.g., for purposes of the Armed Career Criminal Act, yielded “repeated attempts and repeated failures to craft a principled and objective 

standard [for that term,] confirm[ing] its hopeless indeterminacy.”135 Accordingly, the Supreme Court in Johnson v. 

United States held that the “violent felony” provision “denie[d] 

fair notice to defendants and invite[d] arbitrary enforcement by 

judges,” thus violating due process.136 So does the “like 

Range” test relegate us to the widely disparaged “categorical 

134 Id. at 5–6. 

135 Johnson v. United States, 576 U.S. 591, 598 (2015). 

136 Id. at 597. 

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approach,” excluding all offenses that lack an element of the 

“use of force”?137 Of what relevance is the conduct underlying 

a given crime? Will courts be limited to considering Shepard

documents?138 What about crimes that lack an element of force 

but are undeniably associated with violence, like drug trafficking, human trafficking, drunk driving, and treason?139

If it is Range’s largely law-abiding life in the nearly 30 

years since his conviction, that standard is even more confounding. My colleagues hold that Range’s disarmament was 

invalid ab initio, meaning he could have prevailed on a Second 

Amendment challenge to § 922(g)(1) had he raised one at the 

time of his conviction (as will myriad felons after today’s decision).140 Yet judges are not soothsayers. Post-conviction 

conduct would be relevant if my colleagues were holding 

137 United States v. Scott, 14 F.4th 190, 195 (3d Cir. 2021). 

138 Those documents include the “charging document, written 

plea agreement, transcript of plea colloquy, and any explicit 

factual finding by the trial judge to which the defendant assented.” Shepard v. United States, 544 U.S. 13, 16 (2005). 

139 As Range’s counsel candidly conceded at argument, under 

a “violence” test, offenses like possession of child pornography, money laundering, and drunk driving would not support 

disarmament. Oral Arg. at 19:51–20:20, 24:00–24:26. 

140 See Maj. Op. at 4 (“[Range] remains among ‘the people’ 

protected by the Second Amendment. And . . . the Government 

did not carry its burden of showing that our Nation’s history 

and tradition of firearm regulation support disarming 

Range[.]”). 

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narrowly that Range’s firearm rights should be restored going 

forward. But how can they possibly hold that he should not 

have lost them upon conviction, based on post-conviction conduct? 

This retrospective mode of analysis defies not just logic, 

but also the Due Process Clause. Due process guarantees that 

a “person of ordinary intelligence [must have] a reasonable opportunity to know what is prohibited, so he may act accordingly.”141 Under the majority’s “like Range” test, however, offenders cannot possibly know in advance of a court’s retroactive declaration whether possessing a firearm post-conviction 

is a constitutional entitlement or a federal felony. As interpreted today by the majority, § 922(g)(1) is rendered so vague 

as to be facially unconstitutional. 

On the enforcement side, the majority opinion makes 

the statute’s mens rea impossible to establish. In Rehaif, the 

Supreme Court held that to convict a defendant under § 922(g) 

the Government must prove the defendant not only knew that 

he possessed a firearm, but also knew that “he had the relevant 

status when he possessed [the firearm.]”142 The Court then 

clarified in Greer that a Rehaif error is not a basis for relief 

under the plain-error standard unless the defendant can make a 

sufficient argument on appeal that, but for the error, he could 

have established he did not know he was a felon.143 That would 

be a difficult argument to make, the Court observed, because 

141 Grayned v. City of Rockford, 408 U.S. 104, 108 (1972). 

142 Rehaif, 139 S. Ct. at 2194. 

143 Greer v. United States, 141 S. Ct. 2090, 2097 (2021). 

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“as common sense suggests, individuals who are convicted felons ordinarily know that they are convicted felons [for purposes of § 922(g)(1).]”144 

But, today, the majority displaces Rehaif’s clear and ascertainable standard with an incoherent one: the Government 

must prove the defendant knew he was not “like Range” when 

he possessed firearms. And in lieu of Greer’s high threshold 

for plain-error relief, the majority hands defendants a readymade argument for appeal: that they could not know at the time 

they possessed a firearm—indeed, at any time before a court 

made a “like Range” determination—whether their status was 

subject to or exempt from § 922(g)(1). In short, the floodgates 

the Supreme Court attempted to close on Rehaif errors in 

Greer, my colleagues throw wide open: Today’s opinion will 

strain the federal courts with a deluge of Rehaif challenges,145

compelling us to vacate countless § 922(g)(1) convictions on 

144 Id. at 2095. 

145 As explained above, courts will struggle to apply the majority’s “like Range” test, which apparently extends to offenders’ 

post-conviction conduct. For example, how should a court rule 

when a felon committed a murder thirty years ago, but has 

since become deeply religious and a model prisoner? What 

about someone with Range’s employment history and family 

ties who has amassed a lengthy rap sheet of nonviolent misdemeanors in the decades since his welfare fraud conviction? Or 

someone otherwise like Range who knew he was subject to 

§ 922(g)(1) as understood before today, yet deliberately engaged his spouse as a straw purchaser to circumvent that statute? There is no reason for the federal judiciary to hurl itself 

into this morass. 

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direct appeal and compelling our district court colleagues to 

dismiss countless indictments. 

Today’s decision will also undermine law enforcement 

in three critical respects. First, it will cripple the FBI’s National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS). 

Currently, NICS includes over five million felony conviction 

records,146 and that number continues to grow as additional 

agencies contribute records to the NICS database.147 Prior felony convictions are by far the most common reason individuals 

fail NICS background checks148—the very background checks 

the Supreme Court endorsed in Bruen as ensuring individuals 

bearing firearms are “law-abiding” citizens.149 Yet the majority’s indeterminant and post-hoc test for which felons fall outside § 922(g)(1) and under what circumstances renders NICS 

a dead letter. 

If the police receive a tip that an ex-offender is toting an 

assault rifle, it is no longer sufficient for probable cause to 

simply confirm a prior felony conviction in NICS. How will 

officers—or prosecutors for that matter—know whether that 

felon is sufficiently “like Range” to justify his arrest as a felon146 Active Records in the NICS Indices, FBI (Jan. 31, 2023), 

https://www.fbi.gov/file-repository/active_records_in_the_nics-indices.pdf/view. 

147 See Stevenson, supra note 10, at 1597. 

148 Federal Denials, FBI (Jan. 31, 2023), 

https://www.fbi.gov/file-repository/federal_denials.pdf/view. 

149 See 142 S. Ct. at 2138 n.9. 

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in-possession, or whether they are instead bringing liability on 

themselves for violating the felon’s civil rights? Must they research the suspect’s post-conviction conduct? Should they 

consider relevant conduct underlying the original violation? 

How could they possibly determine that conduct in the case of 

guilty pleas entered decades earlier? 

Second, without a functional background check system, 

how will federal firearms licensees (FFLs) comply with federal 

law? FFLs who discover that a potential customer was convicted of a felony will have no way of knowing whether the 

individual’s crime and post-conviction conduct are sufficiently 

similar to Range’s to preclude the application of § 922(g)(1).150 

Of particular concern, any assessments based on the majority 

opinion’s “vague criteria are vulnerable to biases” along race, 

class, gender, and other lines, resulting in disparities between 

which groups retain gun rights and which do not.151

Third, until today, the prohibition on possessing a firearm was a well-accepted “standard condition” of bail, 

150 The penalty for incorrectly concluding a felon can purchase 

a weapon without an exhaustive inspection of the felon’s 

crime, conduct, and personal circumstances will be stiff: a single error will result in the loss of the FFL’s license, barring the 

FFL from the industry. See Simpson v. Att’y Gen., 913 F.3d 

110, 114 (3d Cir. 2019) (holding a single violation in which 

“the licensee knew of his legal obligation and purposefully disregarded or was plainly indifferent to the requirements” is 

grounds for revocation). 

151 Ryan T. Sakoda, The Architecture of Discretion: Implications of the Structure of Sanctions for Racial Disparities, 

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supervised release, probation, and parole.152 But under my colleagues’ reasoning, the inclusion of that condition among state 

or federal conditions of release now appears to be unconstitutional as to any number of defendants, depending on whether 

the judge at the bail or sentencing hearing views them as “like 

Range.” That means disarmament on release will be anything 

but “standard,” leaving scores of non-incarcerated criminal defendants armed and subjecting not just the public, but also probation and parole officers to significant risk of harm. 

In sum, the majority opinion casts aside the admonitions 

that § 922(g)(1) is “longstanding,”153 “presumptively 

lawful,”154 and “does more to combat gun violence than any 

other federal law.”155 Instead, it abandons judicial restraint, 

jettisons principles of federalism, unsettles countless 

indictments and convictions, debilitates law enforcement, and 

vitiates our background check system—all in the name of reSeverity, and Net Widening, 117 Nw. U. L. Rev. 1213, 1227 

(2023); cf. Joseph Blocher & Reva B. Siegel, Race and Guns, 

Courts and Democracy, 135 Harv. L. Rev. F. 449, 449 (2022) 

(arguing “racial justice concerns [with firearm laws] should be 

addressed in democratic politics rather than in the federal 

courts”). 

152 U.S.S.G. § 5D1.3(c)(10). 

153 Heller, 554 U.S. at 626. 

154 Id. at 627 n.26. 

155 Rehaif, 139 S. Ct. at 2201 (Alito, J., dissenting). 

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arming convicted felons. There is a narrower and less 

hazardous path they could have chosen. 

III. The Narrow Road Not Taken 

 My colleagues object that § 922(g)(1) can impose a 

“permanent[],”156 “lifetime ban on firearm possession,”157 but 

their retroactive holding—that the Government could not 

constitutionally disarm Range when he was convicted—is far 

broader than necessary to address their concern. Had they 

heeded judicial restraint when granting Range relief, the 

majority would have issued a purely prospective declaratory 

judgment, restoring Range’s gun rights going forward. That 

approach would have prevented the most grievous 

consequences of the majority’s decision today. And should the 

Supreme Court agree with my colleagues that the statutory 

exclusions to § 922(g)(1) are constitutionally inadequate, that 

approach also offers an administrable alternative worthy of 

consideration. How could the majority have resolved this case 

narrowly? 

 First, the only question the Court had to answer is 

whether § 922(g)(1) is unconstitutional as applied to the 

individual petitioning the Court today, accounting for his 

present circumstances and potentially entitling him to bear 

arms on a forward-looking basis. After all, Range did not 

challenge the loss of his firearm rights at the time of his 

conviction or at any time until he initiated the underlying suit 

here, and all he now seeks is declaratory relief enabling him to 

156 Maj. Op. at 18 n.9. 

157 Id. at 20. 

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purchase and possess firearms in the future. The majority, 

however, reaches out to answer a different question: whether 

Range’s disarmament was ever consistent with the Second 

Amendment.158 Needlessly invalidating Range’s initial 

disarmament violates “the fundamental principle of judicial 

restraint that courts should neither anticipate a question of 

constitutional law in advance of the necessity of deciding it nor 

formulate a rule of constitutional law broader than is required 

by the precise facts to which it is to be applied.”159 

 Second, providing prospective declaratory relief in this 

case and similar as-applied challenges would resolve my 

colleagues’ permanency concern. I appreciate that their 

opposition to imposing a permanent ban or putting the onus on 

the offender to seek relief finds some historical support for 

certain lesser offenses. That is, the subset of felons who were 

not sentenced to death or lifetime imprisonment only forfeited 

their firearms temporarily and did not need to petition to regain 

their firearm rights; they could simply repurchase arms after 

completing their sentences. But times have changed. Gone are 

the days of “close-knit” communities in which “everyone knew 

everyone else,”160 and with the extreme mobility and relative 

158 See Maj. Op. at 19 (asserting that the “punishment at issue—lifetime disarmament—is [not] rooted in our Nation’s 

history and tradition”); id. at 22 (framing the issue presented as 

“the constitutionality of 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1) [] as applied to 

[Range] given his violation of 62 Pa. Stat. Ann. § 481(a)”). 

159 Wash. St. Grange v. Wash. St. Republican Party, 552 U.S. 

442, 450 (2008) (quotations omitted). 

160 Bibas, supra note 4, at 1. 

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anonymity of today’s society and the magnitude of harm that 

can be inflicted by a single assault rifle,161 automatic 

restoration of the right to bear arms upon completion of a 

sentence would jeopardize public safety and the utility of 

background checks. In any event, it is not the case that 

legislatures historically imposed only bans that expired of their 

own accord: They sometimes exercised their authority—just 

as Congress did in § 922(g)(1)—to categorically disarm a 

group presumed, based on status, to be non-law-abiding and to 

place the burden on individuals in that group to petition for 

relief and prove, through oaths or similar gestures of 

allegiance, that they could be trusted to obey the law.162

Section 922(g)(1) is sufficiently analogous to that 

model to meet the history-and-tradition test, as it already 

allows felons to petition for relief by seeking an expungement, 

pardon, or restoration of rights under state law. True, Congress 

provided another avenue for relief in § 925(c) that it has not 

161 See Terry Spencer, Florida School Shooter’s AR-15 Shown 

to His Jurors, AP (July 25, 2022), https://apnews.com/article/education-florida-fort-lauderdale-parkland-school-shooting-60791bdf38785f494400c43b90a97c39 (describing the 

AR-15 rifle “used to murder 17 students and staff members . . 

. at Parkland’s Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School”). 

162 Historical examples include Parliament’s disarmament of 

Catholics in 1689, Massachusetts’s disarmament of Anne 

Hutchinson’s followers, Virginia’s disarmament of Catholics 

during the Seven Years’ War, and the loyalty oath laws of 

Pennsylvania and Virginia during the Revolution. See supra

notes 45–49, 53–57, 68, 82–88 and accompanying text. 

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funded in recent years,163 but § 921(a)(20) ensures the felonpossession ban fits comfortably in the history of our nation’s 

traditional firearm regulations. And if those avenues are 

deemed inadequate, that purported infirmity would be cured by 

a prospective declaratory judgment finding that a convicted 

felon no longer poses a threat to the rule of law and therefore 

can once again possess firearms. 

Third, such declaratory judgment proceedings would 

give effect to the purportedly rebuttable presumption to which 

the Supreme Court referred in describing felon-possession 

bans as “presumptively lawful,”164 as well as its admonition 

that the Government bears the burden at the outset to 

“demonstrate that the regulation is consistent with this 

163 Section 925(c) permitted the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, 

Firearms and Explosives to conduct individualized reviews and 

make an administrative determination that the applicant could 

keep arms prospectively, but that mechanism proved so costly 

for the country that it was disbanded and has not been funded 

since 1992. See Logan, 552 U.S. at 28 n.1; S. Rep. No. 102-

353 (1992). 

164 Heller, 554 U.S. at 626–27 & n.26; see McDonald, 561 U.S. 

at 786; see also Bruen, 142 S. Ct. at 2162 (Kavanaugh, J., concurring); id. at 2157 (Alito, J., concurring). Like the Eighth 

Circuit, I believe the premise that the Supreme Court used the 

phrase “presumptively lawful” to establish “a presumption of 

constitutionality that could be rebutted on a case-by-case basis” is dubious. Jackson, No. 22-2870, 2023 WL 3769242, at 

*7 n.2. Rather, the Court most likely “termed the conclusion 

presumptive because the specific regulations were not at issue 

in Heller.” Id.

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49 

Nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation[.]”165 That is 

because once the Government establishes that an offender 

committed a felony, it has necessarily satisfied its burden 

consistent with the historical practice of disarming felons upon 

conviction. The burden at that point, like the taking of oaths 

or swearing of allegiance, would fall on the felon to rebut the 

ban’s presumptive lawfulness by establishing he is presently a 

“law-abiding, responsible” citizen.166

Fourth, limiting relief in as-applied § 922(g)(1) challenges to prospective declaratory judgments would eliminate 

the intractable due process problems with the majority’s approach. Any felon who possessed a firearm without first securing a favorable declaratory judgment would remain subject 

to prosecution pursuant to § 922(g)(1), and those granted relief 

would have their rights restored prospectively. In contrast to 

the “like Range” test, that clear rule would provide felons with 

constitutionally adequate notice as to whether and when they 

regained their right to bear arms and thus would allow 

§ 922(g)(1) to withstand void-for-vagueness challenges. Prospective declaratory judgments likewise would avoid opening 

the floodgates to mens rea challenges to § 922(g)(1) 

165 Bruen, 142 S. Ct. at 2126. 

166 Id. at 2131. This approach would not result in repetitive 

actions because a felon who brings an unsuccessful declaratory 

judgment suit must provide “newly discovered evidence that, 

with reasonable diligence, could not have been discovered” to 

prevail in a subsequent as-applied challenge to § 922(g)(1). 

Fed. R. Civ. P. 60(b)(2). 

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50 

prosecutions, and the high threshold Greer set for defendants 

to overturn § 922(g)(1) convictions would endure.167

Fifth, this use of declaratory judgments would respect 

both the separation of powers and federalism. Other than for 

felons who received favorable declaratory judgments, Congress’s decision to disarm those who commit felonies or comparable state misdemeanors would remain intact. Likewise, 

state statutes restricting the ability of felons to possess firearms 

would be generally enforceable, ensuring local communities’ 

priorities continue to shape when felons are permitted to possess firearms under state law. The states’ rights-restoration regimes would also continue to perform an important function, 

serving as alternatives to federal declaratory judgments. 

Finally, prospective relief would avoid the debilitating 

effect of today’s decision on law enforcement, U.S. Attorney’s 

Offices, and our background check system. Currently, those 

previously convicted of a felony can submit documentation to 

the FBI through a voluntary appeal file application, including 

“information regarding an expungement, restoration of firearm 

rights, pardon, etc.”168 Successful applicants receive a unique 

personal identification number to prevent future background 

check denials.169 A felon who secures a prospective 

167 See 141 S. Ct. at 2097. 

168 Types of Documents Requested Based on Prohibitor, FBI 

(Sept. 14, 2018), https://www.fbi.gov/file-repository/nics-appeal-documents-requested.pdf/view. 

169 Firearm-Related Challenge (Appeal) and Voluntary Appeal 

File (VAF), FBI (last accessed Mar. 3, 2023), 

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51 

declaratory judgment could simply submit that judgment to the 

FBI to prevent false positives on his background check when 

next purchasing firearms. Thus, just as they do today, law enforcement and prosecutors could depend on NICS for data 

when deciding whom to charge with violating § 922(g)(1); 

courts could rely on existing jury instructions, the standard 

conditions of supervised release or parole, and the plain-error 

test set out in Greer; and firearm dealers could ascertain from 

a background check whether a convicted felon is entitled to 

purchase weapons. 

The majority has taken a far more radical approach, 

creating a stark circuit split and holding § 922(g)(1) is 

unconstitutional ab initio based on a seemingly random 

sampling of observations about the pre- and post-conviction 

conduct of this Appellant. Our district courts are left without 

any intelligible standard, and our citizenry will be left reeling 

from the consequences: a flood of motions to dismiss 

indictments, appeals, and reversals of § 922(g)(1) convictions; 

more armed felons and gun violence on our streets; less faith 

in elected representatives stymied in their efforts to protect the 

public; and less trust in a judiciary mired in formalism and the 

usurpation of legislative function. The sooner the Supreme 

Court takes up this issue, the safer our republic will be. 

IV. Conclusion 

For the foregoing reasons, I respectfully dissent. 

https://www.fbi.gov/how-we-can-help-you/more-fbi-servicesand-information/nics/national-instant-criminal-backgroundcheck-system-nics-appeals-vaf. 

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1 

ROTH, Circuit Judge, dissenting 

I agree with the Majority’s well-reasoned conclusions 

that (1) New York State Rifle & Pistol Association, Inc. v. 

Bruen1

 abrogated the use of means-end scrutiny to assess 

Second Amendment challenges and (2) Bryan Range is among 

“the people” protected by the Second Amendment. I part with 

my colleagues, however, over their determination that the 

government failed to show that 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1), as 

applied to Range, is consistent with our nation’s historical 

tradition of firearms regulation. 

In Bruen, the Supreme Court considered whether a 

regulation issued by a state government was a facially 

constitutional exercise of its traditional police power. Range 

presents a distinguishable question: Whether a federal statute, 

which the Supreme Court has upheld as a valid exercise of 

Congress’s authority under the Commerce Clause,2 is 

constitutional as applied to him. The parties and the Majority 

conflate these spheres of authority and fail to address binding 

precedents affirming Congress’s power to regulate the 

possession of firearms in interstate commerce. Because Range 

lacks standing under the applicable Commerce Clause 

jurisprudence, I respectfully dissent. 

I. 

As the Majority explains, the Supreme Court in Bruen 

invalidated the means-end component test that we have, in 

1

 142 S. Ct. 2111 (2022). 

2

 U.S. Const. art. 1, § 8, cl. 3 (authorizing Congress “to regulate 

commerce with foreign nations, and among the several states, 

and with the Indian tribes”). 

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recent years, applied to Second Amendment challenges.3

 The 

Supreme Court held: “[W]hen the Second Amendment’s plain 

text covers an individual’s conduct, the Constitution 

presumptively protects that conduct. To justify its regulation . 

. . the government must demonstrate that the regulation is 

consistent with this Nation’s historical tradition of firearm 

regulation.”4

 

While I agree with the Majority’s assessment of the 

government’s burden, I read Bruen to articulate a structured 

framework for the government’s comparative analysis. This 

framework is useful because it clarifies both what the 

government must compare and how close the match must be. 

As I read Bruen, the government must begin by 

identifying the societal problem addressed by the challenged 

regulation.5

 The government must demonstrate whether the 

problem is (1) persistent (“has persisted since the 18th 

century”) or (2) modern (involves “unprecedented societal 

concerns or dramatic technological changes”).6

 

If the problem is persistent, the government must 

demonstrate that its modern regulation is “distinctly similar” to 

a historical forebear, showing that early and recent legislatures 

approached the problem in basically the same way.7

 Here, 

“lack of a distinctly similar historical regulation addressing 

that problem” or evidence that “earlier generations addressed 

3 Bruen, 142 S. Ct. at 2127. 

4 Id. at 2126. 

5 Id. at 2131–32. 

6 Id. at 2131. 

7 Id. at 2132. 

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the societal problem . . . through materially different means” 

are “relevant evidence that the challenged regulation is 

inconsistent with the Second Amendment.”8

 

In contrast, for modern problems that early legislatures 

did not confront, Bruen allows for a more extended 

comparison. Here, the government must show by analogical 

reasoning that its regulation is “relevantly similar” to a 

historical firearm regulation.9

 Under this prong, the 

government must show that the “modern and historical 

regulations impose a comparable burden on the right of armed 

self-defense and . . . that the burden is comparably justified.”10 

In other words, the government need not identify a “historical 

twin,” but only show that the regulations are aligned as to “how

and why [they] burden a law-abiding citizen’s right to armed 

self-defense.”11

II. 

This framework helps to illuminate my substantive 

disagreement with the Majority opinion, which begins with its 

characterization of the societal problem addressed by § 

922(g)(1). The Majority asserts that “§ 922(g)(1) is a 

straightforward ‘prohibition[] on the possession of firearms by 

felons.’”12 This is overbroad. 

8 Id. 9 Id. 10 Id. at 2133. 

11 Id. (emphasis added). 

12 Op. 16 (quoting Heller, 554 U.S. at 626). 

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4 

To identify the problem Congress intended to address, 

“we look to the text, structure, and purpose of the statute and 

the surrounding statutory framework.”13 Section 922(g)(1) 

makes it unlawful for a person “convicted in any court, of a 

crime punishable by imprisonment for a term exceeding one 

year” to “possess in or affecting commerce, any firearm or 

ammunition.”14 This jurisdictional language is essential. In 

other contexts, such as for the purposes of categorical analysis 

or meeting the requirement of scienter, the Supreme Court has 

distinguished “substantive” from “jurisdictional” elements.15 

In § 922(g)(1), however, “far from being token, [the] 

‘conventional jurisdictional element[]’ serve[s] to narrow the 

kinds of crimes that can be prosecuted.”16 Here, the 

jurisdictional element constrains Congress’s reach “to a 

discrete set of firearm possessions that additionally have an 

explicit connection with or effect on interstate commerce.”17 

The Supreme Court reached this exact conclusion in 

analyzing § 922(g)(1)’s predecessor, “conclud[ing] that the 

commerce requirement . . . must be read as part of the 

‘possesses’ and ‘receives’ offenses.”18 Otherwise, the Court 

concluded, the statute would “dramatically intrude[] upon 

13 Rosenberg v. DVI Receivables XVII, LLC, 835 F.3d 414, 419 

(3d Cir. 2016) (citing Medtronic, Inc. v. Lohr, 518 U.S. 470, 

486 (1996)). 

14 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1) (emphasis added). 

15 See Rehaif v. United States, 139 S. Ct. 2191, 2196 (2019); 

Torres v. Lynch, 578 U.S. 452, 457 (2016). 

16 Torres, 578 U.S. at 486 (dissent, J. Sotomayor, with Thomas, 

J. and Breyer, J.). 

17 United States v. Lopez, 514 U.S. 549, 562 (1995). 

18 United States v. Bass, 404 U.S. 336, 350 (1971). 

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traditional state criminal jurisdiction.”19 The line of Supreme 

Court decisions concerning § 922(g)(1) and its predecessor 

statute20 deal squarely with the Commerce Clause,21

considering Congress’s authority to regulate firearms in 

interstate commerce in light of those “modern-era precedents” 

that, within strict limits, expanded Congress’s authority to 

address “great changes that had occurred in the way business 

was carried on in this country.”22 Our Court, with our sisters, 

expressly upheld the constitutionality of § 922(g)(1) because 

“by its very terms, [it] only regulates those weapons affecting 

interstate commerce by being the subject of interstate trade. It 

addresses items sent in interstate commerce and the channels 

of commerce themselves, delineating that the latter be kept 

clear of firearms.”23 Accordingly, the societal problem 

19 Id. 20 Title VII of the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act 

of 1968, 18 U.S.C.App. § 1202(a). 

21 Lopez, 514 U.S. at 556 (favorably contrasting § 922(g)(1) 

with § 922(q), which the Court deemed unconstitutional for 

lack of a nexus to interstate commerce); Scarborough v. United 

States, 431 U.S. 563 (1977) (holding § 922(g)(1)’s predecessor 

statute constitutional); Bass, 404 U.S. 336 (same). 

22 Lopez, 514 at 556. 

23 United States v. Singletary, 268 F.3d 196, 204 (2001); United 

States v. Gateward, 84 F.3d 670, 672 (3d Cir. 1996) 

(“Congress drafted § 922(g) to include a jurisdictional element, 

one which requires a defendant felon to have possessed a 

firearm ‘in or affecting commerce.’”); accord U.S. v. Wallace, 

889 F.2d 580 (5th Cir. 1989) (“[S]ection 922(g) reaches only 

those firearms that traveled in interstate or foreign commerce 

and is thus constitutional); United States v. Dupree, 258 F.3d 

1258, 1259 (2001); United States v. Stuckey, 255 F.3d 528, 

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addressed by § 922(g)(1) is the possession of firearms in 

interstate commerce by particular “channels of commerce”—

those channels under the language of § 922(g)(1) being 

individuals with certain criminal convictions.24 

The Majority concludes, and I agree, that Bruen 

“abrogated our Second Amendment jurisprudence,”25 meaning 

the line of cases from Marzzarella,

26 through Binderup,27 to 

Holloway and Folajtar.28 Yet the Majority does not assert that 

Bruen abrogated our Commerce Clause jurisprudence or that 

of the Supreme Court.29 Rightly so. We must “leave to the 

529-30 (8th Cir. 2001); United States v. Gallimore, 247 F.3d 

134, 137–38 (4th Cir. 2001); United States v. Davis, 242 F.3d 

1162, 1162–63 (9th Cir. 2001); United States v. Santiago, 238 

F.3d 213, 216-17 (2d Cir. 2001); United States v. Dorris, 236 

F.3d 582, 584–86 (10th Cir. 2000); United States v. Napier, 

233 F.3d 394, 399–402 (6th Cir. 2000); United States v. 

Wesela, 223 F.3d 656, 659–60 (7th Cir. 2000). 

24 Notably, § 921(a)(20)(A) makes clear that § 922(g)(1) does 

not apply uniformly to individuals convicted of any felony 

offense, expressly excluding individuals convicted of serious 

“Federal and State offenses pertaining to antitrust violations, 

unfair trade practices, restraints of trade, or other similar 

offenses.” Accordingly, to describe the statute as a ban on 

possession by “felons” overstates its reach. 

25 Op. 10. 

26 United States v. Marzzarella, 614 F.3d 85 (3d Cir. 2010). 

27 Binderup v. Att’y Gen., 836 F.3d 336 (3d Cir. 2016) (en 

banc) (plurality). 

28 Holloway v. Att’y Gen., 948 F.3d 164 (3d Cir. 2020); 

Folajtar v. Att’y Gen., 980 F.3d (1) 

29 Lopez, 514 U.S. at 556; Scarborough, 431 U.S. at 566–67 

(holding proof the firearm petitioner possessed had previously 

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[Supreme] Court itself ‘the prerogative of overruling its own 

decision[s].’”30 The Court did not, in Bruen, overrule its 

decisions upholding Congress’s power to regulate the 

possession of firearms in interstate commerce.31 These 

decisions remain good law. 

Under the constitutionally mandated Commerce Clause 

jurisprudence that continues to bind us, Range lacks standing. 

“It is well established that plaintiffs bear the burden of 

demonstrating that they have standing in the action that they 

traveled in interstate commerce sufficient to meet the nexus 

requirement); Bass, 404 U.S. at 350 (holding § 922(g)(1)’s 

predecessor constitutional in light of the jurisdictional 

element); accord Greer v. United States, 141 S. Ct. 2090, 2095 

(2021) (citing Rehaif, 139 S. Ct. at 2194 (clarifying the mens 

rea requirement under § 922(g)(1)); Logan v. United States, 

552 U.S. 23, 37 (2007) (clarifying the scope of § 921(a)(20)). 

See also Small v. United States, 544 U.S. 385, 394 (2005) 

(Thomas, J., dissenting) (calling for § 922(g)(1) to apply to a 

wider category of individuals, specifically those convicted in 

foreign courts). 

30 Singletary, 268 F.3d at 205. 

31 As the Majority acknowledges, Op. 16, Justice Kavanaugh’s 

concurrence in Bruen, joined by the Chief Justice, asserted that 

felon-possession prohibitions remain “presumptively lawful” 

under Heller and McDonald. 142 S. Ct. at 2162 (quoting 

District of Columbia v. Heller, 554 U.S. 570, 626–27 & n.26 

(2008)) (citing McDonald v. City of Chicago, 561 U.S. 742, 

786 (2010)). 

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have brought.”32 To meet this burden, they must demonstrate 

“(1) the invasion of a concrete and particularized legally 

protected interest and resulting [actual or imminent] injury. . . 

. (2) a causal connection between the injury and the conduct 

complained of . . . and [3] that the injury will be redressed by 

a favorable decision.”33 

Before the District Court, Range alleged that “he suffers 

the on-going harm of being unable to obtain firearms from 

licensed federal firearms dealers.”34 While the District of 

Columbia Court of Appeals has recognized a cognizable injury 

where “the federal regulatory scheme thwarts [a challenger’s] 

continuing desire to purchase a firearm,” it did so in cases 

where the regulation’s facial constitutionality was at issue.35 

32 Blunt v. Lower Merion Sch. Dist., 767 F.3d 247, 278 (3d Cir. 

2014) (citing Danvers Motor Co. v. Ford Motor Co., 432 F.3d 

286, 291 (3d Cir. 2005)). 

33 Id. at 278 (citing Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife, 504 U.S. 

555, 560 (1992)). 

34 Appx026. 

35 Dearth v. Holder, 641 F.3d 499, 503 (D.C. Cir. 2011) 

(affirming that the petitioner suffered a cognizable injury 

where “the federal regulatory scheme thwarts his continuing 

desire to purchase a firearm”); see Parker v. District of 

Columbia, 478 F.3d 370, 376 (D.C. Cir. 2007) (“The formal 

process of application and denial, however routine, makes the 

injury to [the petitioner’s] alleged constitutional interest 

concrete and particular.”), aff’d sub nom. District of Columbia 

v. Heller, 554 U.S. 570 (2008); see United States v. Salerno,

481 U.S. 739, 745 (1987) (“A party asserting a facial challenge 

‘must establish that no set of circumstances exists under which 

the Act would be valid.”). 

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Here, Range brought only an as-applied challenge.36 

Moreover, he has identified no specific firearm that he has been 

prohibited from possessing. To sustain a conviction under § 

922(g)(1), the government must prove beyond a reasonable 

doubt that the specific firearm possessed by the individual 

moved through interstate commerce.37 The reason is that while 

the nexus need only be minimal,38 § 922(g)(1) simply does not 

36 See United States v. Marcavage, 609 F.3d 264, 273 (3d Cir. 

2010) (“An as-applied attack . . . does not contend that a law is 

unconstitutional as written but that its application to a 

particular person under particular circumstances deprived that 

person of a constitutional right.”). 

37 See Singletary, 268 F.3d at 200; accord United States v. 

Shambry, 392 F.3d 631, 632 (3d Cir. 2004); United States v. 

Leuschen, 395 F.3d 155, 160 (3d Cir. 2005). 

38 See Shambry, 392 F. 3d at 635 (citing United States v. 

Corey, 207 F.3d 84, 88 (1st Cir.2000) (“[T]he ‘interstate 

nexus’ element was met provided the government 

demonstrated that [the defendant] possessed the shotgun in a 

state other than the one in which it was manufactured.”); 

United States v. Lawson,173 F.3d 666, 670 (8th Cir. 1999) 

(finding that the stipulation that the guns were manufactured 

outside of the state where the defendant possessed them 

satisfied “‘the minimal nexus that the firearms have been, at 

some time, in interstate commerce,’ that is, that the firearms at 

some point prior to [the defendant’s] possession . . . crossed a 

state line” (quoting United States v. Shelton, 66 F.3d 991, 992 

(8th Cir. 1995) (per curiam))); United States v. Pierson, 139 

F.3d 501, 504 (5th Cir. 1998) (“[E]vidence that a gun was 

manufactured in one state and possessed in another state is 

sufficient to establish a past connection between the firearm 

and interstate commerce.”); United States v. Crump, 120 F.3d 

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10 

criminalize possession of firearms out of interstate commerce. 

Here, Range has not asserted that this constitutionally reviewed 

regulation of commerce intrudes on any Second Amendment 

rights by establishing in § 922(g)(1) a prohibition on certain 

channels of commerce, i.e., felons, possessing firearms that 

have circulated in interstate commerce.39

462, 466 & n. 2 (4th Cir. 1997) (“[It] is our view that the 

movement of a firearm beyond the boundaries of its state of 

manufacture ‘substantially affects’ interstate commerce. . . .”); 

United States v. Lewis, 100 F.3d 49, 50 (7th Cir. 1996) 

(“[P]roof of a gun’s manufacture outside of the state in which 

it was allegedly possessed is sufficient to support the factual 

finding that the firearm was ‘in or affecting commerce.’” 

(quoting United States v. Lowe, 860 F.2d 1370, 1374 (7th Cir. 

1988))); United States v. Farnsworth, 92 F.3d 1001, 1006 (10th 

Cir. 1996) (finding expert testimony that the defendant’s gun 

had been manufactured in a different state from that in which 

it was found was sufficient nexus to interstate commerce); 

United States v. Sanders, 35 F.3d 61, 62 (2d Cir. 1994) (finding 

fact that gun was manufactured in a state different from that in 

which it was possessed was sufficient nexus to interstate 

commerce); United States v. Morris, 904 F.2d 518, 519 (9th 

Cir. 1990) (same); United States v. Singleton, 902 F.2d 471, 

473 (6th Cir. 1990) (“[T]he mere fact that the firearm was 

manufactured in a different state established a sufficient nexus 

with interstate commerce.”)). 

39 The Eighth Circuit recently rejected a similar as-applied 

challenge to § 922(g)(1). The decision underscored Congress’ 

recognition that “only through adequate Federal control over 

interstate and foreign commerce in these weapons” could the 

“grave problem” of lawlessness and violent crime in the 

United States be dealt with, as it arose from the “widespread 

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In short, the harm that Range has asserted is not 

constitutional. He has failed to set forth the necessary 

interstate commerce connections to allow federal jurisdiction 

of his complaint. He has merely established that a thoroughly 

reviewed statute has had its intended effect by preventing him 

from possessing a firearm in interstate commerce because of 

his particular criminal conviction, which falls within the 

statute’s clearly defined ambit. 

This jurisdictional deficiency has put Range’s claims 

beyond our reach. It is not unlikely, however, that a future 

challenge to the prohibition of § 922(g)(1) will come before us 

in which federal jurisdiction has been properly established. In 

such a case, I would share the concern expressed today by my 

dissenting colleagues40 about the extent to which this 

precedential opinion may reverberate beyond the 

circumstances presented in this as-applied challenge. 

Certainly, such an analysis would be crucial for us should a 

future, similar challenge arise within our jurisdiction, 

particularly on a facial basis. 

traffic in firearms moving in or otherwise affecting interstate 

or foreign commerce” and “the ease with which any person can 

acquire firearms other than a rifle or shotgun.” United States 

v. Jackson, No. 22-2870, 2023 WL 3769242, *8 (8th Cir. June 

2, 2023). Although the court thus tacitly and, in my view, 

appropriately acknowledged that Congress’ authority to 

regulate here was under the Commerce Clause, it unfortunately 

did not address whether Jackson had established standing 

accordingly for his as-applied challenge. 

40 See generally Shwartz Dissent; Krause Dissent 4–5. 

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 For the above reasons, I respectfully dissent. 

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