Source: http://volokh.com/2010/12/30/big-second-amendment-opinion-from-the-fourth-circuit-related-to-the-ban-on-gun-possession-by-domestic-violence-misdemeanants/
Timestamp: 2019-04-22 10:37:06+00:00

Document:
Note that, as with the Seventh Circuit Skoien case — in which a panel initially reached a similar result to that just reached by the Fourth Circuit panel — there’s a good chance that the Fourth Circuit will rehear the case en banc.
UPDATE: If the Fourth Circuit doesn’t rehear the case en banc, I doubt that the Supreme Court will agree to consider the matter at this point. Rather, I suspect that the Justices will wait until the district court considers the matter on remand, and the Fourth Circuit considers the inevitable appeal from that decision. Then, if the Fourth Circuit ultimately concludes that § 922(g)(9) is constitutional, there’ll be no circuit split, and the Justices will likely not take the case. But if the Fourth Circuit concludes — again, following the district court decision on remand — that § 922(g)(9) is unconstitutional, the Justices likely will take the case, because there’ll be a split among the circuits as well as the invalidation of a federal statute, two factors that generally cut in favor of the Supreme Court’s reviewing the matter.
(1) Historically accepted exceptions to gun rights (at least ones accepted as of the Framing, and perhaps some more) are constitutional.
(2) Substantial restrictions on gun possession that fall within the core of Second Amendment protection, described by the panel as “the right of a law-abiding, responsible citizen to possess and carry a weapon for self-defense” (note the inclusion of carrying, and not just possession in the home, as some courts have said), are probably subject to strict scrutiny.
(3) Substantial restrictions on gun possession that are neither historically accepted nor applicable to “law-abiding, responsible citizen[s] … possess[ing] and carry[ing] a weapon for self-defense” are subject to intermediate scrutiny, which calls for factual evaluation of whether the law is “substantially related” to a sufficiently “important government goal.” Since there will almost always be an important government goal to which the government could point — preventing death, injury, and violent crime — the main questions will likely be (a) what sort of factual evidence the government will have to show, and (b) to what extent will courts demand that the evidence specifically justify not just some restrictions but life-long (or very long-term) restrictions.
Some courts have treated Heller’s listing of “presumptively lawful regulatory measures,” for all practical purposes, as a kind of “safe harbor” for unlisted regulatory measures, such as 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(9), which they deem to be analogous to those measures specifically listed in Heller. See, e.g., United States v. White, 593 F.3d 1199, 1206 (11th Cir. 2010) (“We see no reason to exclude § 922(g)(9) from the list of longstanding prohibitions on which Heller does not cast doubt.”). This approach, however, approximates rational-basis review, which has been rejected by Heller. In fact, the phrase “presumptively lawful regulatory measures” suggests the possibility that one or more of these “longstanding” regulations “could be unconstitutional in the face of an as-applied challenge.” United States v. Williams, 616 F.3d 685, 692 (7th Cir. 2010).
In view of the fact that Heller ultimately found the District’s gun regulations invalid “under any standard of scrutiny,” it appears to us that the Court would apply some form of heightened constitutional scrutiny if a historical evaluation did not end the matter. The government bears the burden of justifying its regulation in the context of heightened scrutiny review; using Heller’s list of “presumptively lawful regulatory measures” to find § 922(g)(9) constitutional by analogy would relieve the government of its burden.
Thus, a two-part approach to Second Amendment claims seems appropriate under Heller, as explained by the Third Circuit Court of Appeals, and Judge Sykes in the now-vacated Skoien panel opinion. The first question is “whether the challenged law imposes a burden on conduct falling within the scope of the Second Amendment’s guarantee.” This historical inquiry seeks to determine whether the conduct at issue was understood to be within the scope of the right at the time of ratification. If it was not, then the challenged law is valid.
If the challenged regulation burdens conduct that was within the scope of the Second Amendment as historically understood, then we move to the second step of applying an appropriate form of means-end scrutiny. Heller left open the issue of the standard of review, rejecting only rational-basis review. Accordingly, unless the conduct at issue is not protected by the Second Amendment at all, the Government bears the burden of justifying the constitutional validity of the law….
[W]e are certainly not able to say that the Second Amendment, as historically understood, did not apply to persons convicted of domestic violence misdemeanors. We must assume, therefore, that Chester’s Second Amendment rights are intact and that he is entitled to some measure of Second Amendment protection to keep and possess firearms in his home for self-defense. The question then becomes whether the government can justify, under the appropriate level of scrutiny, the burden imposed on Chester’s Second Amendment rights by § 922(g)(9)….
Although Chester asserts his right to possess a firearm in his home for the purpose of self-defense, we believe his claim is not within the core right identified in Heller — the right of a law-abiding, responsible citizen to possess and carry a weapon for self-defense — by virtue of Chester’s criminal history as a domestic violence misdemeanant. Accordingly, we conclude that intermediate scrutiny is more appropriate than strict scrutiny for Chester and similarly situated persons. Accordingly, the government must demonstrate under the intermediate scrutiny standard that there is a “reasonable fit” between the challenged regulation and a “substantial” government objective. Significantly, intermediate scrutiny places the burden of establishing the required fit squarely upon the government.

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