US District Court concludes Second Amendment requires dismissal of federal felon-in-possession prosecution

In this post last year, I flagged a fascinating order authored by US District Judge Carlton Reeves in a case in which a defendant challenged, on Second Amendment grounds, application of the federal criminal statute prohibiting felons from possessing firearm.  In the order, Judge Carlton Reeves, after stressing the Supreme Court's recent re-orientation of Second Amendment jurisprudence, asked the parties whether he "should appoint a historian to serve as a consulting expert in this matter."  No historian was appointed, but Judge Reeves continued to struggle with how to apply the Supreme Court's landmark Bruen ruling, and that struggle has now produced a 77-page opinion in US v. Bullock, No. 3:18‐CR‐165‐CWR‐FKB (SD Miss. June 28, 2023) (available here).  The opinion includes these passages within its opening discussion:

In this case, the federal government seeks to imprison Jessie Bullock for possessing a firearm as a convicted felon. See 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1). Mr. Bullock claims that this is a violation of his Second Amendment rights. He observes that he finished serving his sentence long ago, and the available evidence indicates that the firearm the government complains of was kept in the sanctity of his home. Yet Section 922(g)(1)’s ban on gun possession is a lifetime one.

The question presented appears simple: has the government demonstrated that, as to Mr. Bullock, the federal felon‐in‐possession ban is consistent with America’s “historical tradition of firearm regulation”?  The government says the answer is also simple: “yes.” It points to more than 120 U.S. District Court decisions which recently determined that the government had met its burden — at least in those cases. 

This Court is not so sure.  The government’s citation to the mere volume of cases is not enough.  See Heller, 554 U.S. at 624 n.24 (rejecting decisions of “hundreds of judges”).  There also is doubt about the process those cases used to determine the history of the felon‐in‐possession ban.  In none of those cases did the government submit an expert report from a historian justifying felon disarmament.  In none of those cases did the court possess an amicus brief from a historian.  And in none of those cases did the court itself appoint an independent expert to help sift through the historical record.  It is unsurprising that the government relies on jurisprudence filled with such methodological flaws. The same errors define the Supreme Court’s own Second Amendment jurisprudence....

Nevertheless, the standard announced by the Supreme Court in Bruen is the law of the land.  It must be enforced. Under that standard, the government has failed to meet its burden.  The federal felon‐in‐possession ban was enacted in 1938, not 1791 or 1868 — the years the Second and Fourteenth Amendments were ratified. 

The government’s brief in this case does not identify a “well‐established and representative historical analogue” from either era supporting the categorical disarmament of tens of millions of Americans who seek to keep firearms in their home for self‐defense. Bruen, 142 S. Ct. at 2132; see Gabriel J. Chin, The New Civil Death: Rethinking Punishment in the Era of Mass Conviction, 160 U. Pa. L. Rev. 1789, 1791 (2012) (explaining that “tens of millions” of free‐world Americans have criminal records).

American history might support state‐level felon disarmament laws; that at least would align with principles of federalism.  It might support disarmament of persons adjudicated to be dangerous — as Justice Barrett found when she sat on the Seventh Circuit. See Kanter v. Barr, 919 F.3d 437, 451 (7th Cir. 2019) (Barrett, J., dissenting).  And it likely does support disarmament of persons convicted of death‐eligible offenses.  The power to take someone’s life necessarily includes the lesser power to disarm them.  The government’s arguments for permanently disarming Mr. Bullock, however, rest upon the mirage of dicta, buttressed by a cloud of law review articles that do not support disarming him.  In Bruen, the State of New York presented 700 years of history to try and defend its early 1900s‐era gun licensing law.  That was not enough.  Bruen requires no less skepticism here, where the challenged law is even younger.

For the reasons that follow, therefore, Mr. Bullock’s motion to dismiss will be granted.  

Some (of many) prior recent related posts:

• By 6-3 vote, SCOTUS expands Second Amendment rights by striking down NY public-carry licensing requirements 
• Are all broad felon-in-possession criminal gun statutes now constitutionally suspect after Bruen? 
• Federal judge orders briefing on whether to appoint historian to resolve challenge to federal felon gun possession ban after Bruen
• Justice Department tells federal district judge "it is unnecessary ... to appoint an historian to assist" in resolving defendant's Second Amendment claim 
• How long until the Supreme Court takes up another Second Amendment case after Bruen? 
• En banc Third Circuit rules, based on Bruen, that federal felon-in-possession law is unconstitutional when applied to nonviolent, nondangerous offender
• Eighth Circuit panel rejects constitutional challenge to federal felon-in-possession prohibition