[DO NOT PUBLISH]

In the

United States Court of Appeals

For the Eleventh Circuit

____________________

No. 24-10693

Non-Argument Calendar

____________________

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, 

Plaintiff-Appellee,

versus

TORRENCE DENARD WHITAKER, 

Defendant-Appellant.

____________________

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the Southern District of Florida

D.C. Docket No. 9:22-cr-80196-KAM-1

____________________

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Before ROSENBAUM, NEWSOM, and GRANT, Circuit Judges.

PER CURIAM:

Torrence Whitaker appeals his conviction for possession of 

a firearm and ammunition as a convicted felon, arguing that 

18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1) violates the Second Amendment and the 

Commerce Clause, both facially and as applied to him. The government responds by moving for summary affirmance, arguing 

that § 922(g)(1) is constitutional under the Second Amendment and 

the Commerce Clause, both facially and as applied to Whitaker,

under our binding precedent and that this precedent has not been 

overruled or undermined to the point of abrogation by the Supreme Court or by this Court sitting en banc.

Summary disposition is appropriate either where time is of 

the essence, such as “situations where important public policy issues are involved or those where rights delayed are rights denied,” 

or where “the position of one of the parties is clearly right as a matter of law so that there can be no substantial question as to the outcome of the case, or where, as is more frequently the case, the appeal is frivolous.” Groendyke Transp., Inc. v. Davis, 406 F.2d 1158, 

1162 (5th Cir. 1969).

We review the constitutionality of a statute de novo. United 

States v. Wright, 607 F.3d 708, 715 (11th Cir. 2010).

A criminal defendant’s guilty plea does not bar a subsequent 

constitutional challenge to the statute of conviction. Class v. United 

States, 583 U.S. 174, 178 (2018).

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The prior precedent rule requires us to follow a prior binding precedent unless it is overruled by this Court en banc or by the 

Supreme Court. United States v. White, 837 F.3d 1225, 1228 (11th 

Cir. 2016). “To constitute an overruling for the purposes of this 

prior panel precedent rule, the Supreme Court decision must be 

clearly on point.” United States v. Kaley, 579 F.3d 1246, 1255 (11th 

Cir. 2009) (quotation marks omitted). “In addition to being 

squarely on point, the doctrine of adherence to prior precedent also 

mandates that the intervening Supreme Court case actually abrogate or directly conflict with, as opposed to merely weaken, the 

holding of the prior panel.” Id. “The prior panel precedent rule 

applies regardless of whether the later panel believes the prior 

panel’s opinion to be correct, and there is no exception to the rule 

where the prior panel failed to consider arguments raised before a 

later panel.” United States v. Gillis, 938 F.3d 1181, 1198 (11th Cir. 

2019).

Section 922(g) of Title 18 of the United States Code prohibits 

anyone who has been convicted of a crime punishable by more 

than one year of imprisonment from possessing a firearm or ammunition. 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1).

The Commerce Clause reads: “The Congress shall have 

Power . . . To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and 

among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes.” U.S. Const. 

art. I, § 8, cl. 3. We have “clearly held that 18 U.S.C. § 922(g) is 

constitutional under the Commerce Clause.” United States v. Longoria, 874 F.3d 1278, 1283 (11th Cir. 2017), abrogated on other grounds 

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by Erlinger v. United States, 144 S. Ct. 1840 (2024). We have also 

rejected as-applied challenges to 18 U.S.C. § 922(g), holding that 

the government proves a “minimal nexus” to interstate commerce 

where it demonstrates that the firearms were manufactured outside of the state where the offense took place and, thus, necessarily 

traveled in interstate commerce. Wright, 607 F.3d at 715-16. In 

United States v. McAllister, we explicitly rejected the argument that 

United States v. Lopez, 514 U.S. 549 (1995), rendered § 922(g)(1) unconstitutional as applied to the appellant, holding that § 922(g)(1)’s 

statutory requirement of a connection to interstate commerce was 

sufficient to satisfy the “minimal nexus” requirement that remained in binding precedent. 77 F.3d 387, 390 (11th Cir. 1996). 

Similarly, in United States v. Scott, we held that United States v. Morrison, 529 U.S. 598 (2000), did not abrogate McAllister because 

§ 922(g)(1) contained an explicit statutory jurisdictional requirement that “immunizes § 922(g)(1) from Scott’s facial constitutional 

attack,” and Morrison did not compel a different conclusion than 

reached in McAllister. 263 F.3d 1270, 1273 (11th Cir. 2001).

The Second Amendment reads: “A well regulated Militia, 

being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.” U.S. Const. 

amend. II. In District of Columbia v. Heller, the Supreme Court held 

that the Second Amendment right to bear arms presumptively “belongs to all Americans,” but is not unlimited. 554 U.S. 570, 581, 

626 (2008). The Supreme Court noted in Heller that, while it “[did] 

not undertake an exhaustive historical analysis . . . of the full scope 

of the Second Amendment, nothing in [the Heller] opinion should 

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be taken to cast doubt on longstanding prohibitions on the possession of firearms by felons.” Id. at 581, 626. Courts of appeals 

adopted a “two-step” framework for assessing Second Amendment 

challenges following Heller: (1) determine whether the law in question regulates activity within the scope of the right to bear arms 

based on its original historical meaning; and (2) if so, apply meansend scrutiny to test the law’s validity. New York State Rifle & Pistol 

Ass’n, Inc. v. Bruen, 597 U.S. 1, 18-19 (2022).

In United States v. Rozier, we relied on Heller in holding that 

§ 922(g)(1) did not violate the Second Amendment, “even if a felon 

possesses a firearm purely for self-defense.” 598 F.3d 768, 770 (11th 

Cir. 2010). We recognized that prohibiting felons from possessing 

firearms was a “presumptively lawful longstanding prohibition.” 

Id. at 771 (quotation marks omitted). We stated that Heller suggested that “statutes disqualifying felons from possessing a firearm 

under any and all circumstances do not offend the Second Amendment.” Id. We concluded that Rozier’s purpose for possessing a 

firearm, and the fact that the firearm was constrained to his home, 

was immaterial because felons as a class could be excluded from 

firearm possession. Id.

In Bruen, the Supreme Court held that Heller does not support applying means-end scrutiny in the Second Amendment context. 597 U.S. at 19. Instead, a court must ask whether the firearm 

regulation at issue governs conduct that falls within the plain text 

of the Second Amendment. Id. at 17. If the regulation does govern 

such conduct, the court will uphold it so long as the government 

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“affirmatively prove[s] 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 19. The Supreme Court in Bruen, as it did in 

Heller, referenced the Second Amendment rights of “law-abiding, 

responsible citizens.” Id. at 26, 38 n.9, 70; Heller, 554 U.S. at 635.

In United States v. Dubois, we rejected a defendant’s Second 

Amendment challenge to § 922(g)(1). 94 F.4th 1284, 1291-93 (11th 

Cir. 2024). We noted that Bruen, like Heller, repeatedly described 

the right to bear arms as extending only to “law-abiding, responsible citizens.” Id. at 1292-93. We then determined that Bruen did 

not abrogate our precedent in Rozier under the prior-panel-precedent rule because the Supreme Court made it clear that Heller did 

not cast doubt on felon-in-possession prohibitions and that its holding in Bruen was consistent with Heller. Id. at 1293. We noted that 

Rozier interpreted Heller as limiting the right to “law-abiding and 

qualified individuals,” and as clearly excluding felons from those 

categories by referring to felon-in-possession bans as presumptively lawful. Id. (quotation marks omitted). We held that, because 

clearer instruction was required from the Supreme Court before 

we could reconsider § 922(g)(1)’s constitutionality, we were still 

bound by Rozier, and Dubois’s challenge based on the Second 

Amendment therefore failed. Id.

In United States v. Rahimi, the Supreme Court held that 

§ 922(g)(8), which prohibits the possession of firearms by individuals subject to a domestic violence restraining order, did not facially 

violate the Second Amendment because regulations prohibiting 

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individuals who pose a credible threat of harm to others from misusing firearms are part of this country’s historical tradition. 144 S. 

Ct. 1889, 1889, 1896, 1898, 1902 (2024). The Supreme Court noted 

that courts have “misunderstood” the Bruen methodology and 

stated that the Second Amendment permitted not just regulations 

identical to those in existence in 1791, but also those regulations 

that are “consistent with the principles that underpin our regulatory tradition” and are “relevantly similar to laws that our tradition 

is understood to permit.” Id. at 1898-99 (quotation marks omitted). 

The Supreme Court noted that the right to bear arms “was never 

thought to sweep indiscriminately” and extensively detailed the 

historical tradition of firearm regulations, including the prohibition 

of classes of individuals from firearm ownership. Id. at 1897, 

1899-1901. The Supreme Court held that § 922(g)(8) was constitutional as applied to Rahimi because the restraining order to which 

Rahimi was subject included a finding that he posed “a credible 

threat to the physical safety” of another, and the government provided “ample evidence” that the Second Amendment permitted 

“the disarmament of individuals who pose a credible threat to the 

physical safety of others.” Id. at 1896-98. The Supreme Court 

noted that, “like surety bonds of limited duration,” the restriction 

imposed on Rahimi’s rights by § 922(g)(8) was temporary because 

it applied only while Rahimi was subject to a restraining order. Id. 

at 1902. The Supreme Court also rejected the government’s proposition, in response to Rahimi’s as-applied challenge, that citizens 

who are not “responsible” may be disarmed as a class, noting that 

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the term “responsible” is too vague to act as a rule and did not derive from caselaw. Id. at 1903.

Here, we grant the government’s motion for summary affirmance because it is clearly right as a matter of law that Whitaker’s 

challenges to the constitutionality of § 922(g)(1) are foreclosed by 

our binding precedents. See Groendyke Transp., 406 F.2d at 1162; 

McAllister, 77 F.3d at 389-90. As Whitaker has conceded, his Commerce Clause arguments are foreclosed under White, McAllister, 

and Scott. See White, 837 F.3d at 1228; Kaley, 579 F.3d at 1255; Gillis, 

938 F.3d at 1198; McAllister, 77 F.3d at 390; Scott, 263 F.3d at 1273. 

Our binding precedents in Dubois and Rozier similarly foreclose his 

Second Amendment Arguments. See Rozier, 598 F.3d at 770-71; Dubois, 94 F.4th at 1293. Neither Bruen nor Rahimi abrogated Rozier 

or Dubois. Accordingly, we affirm.

AFFIRMED.

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