A federal law makes it a crime for many people to have guns. “It probably does more to combat gun violence than any other federal law,” wrote Justice Samuel Alito in 2019. “It prohibits the possession of firearms by, among others, convicted felons, mentally ill persons found by a court to present a danger to the community, stalkers, harassers, perpetrators of domestic violence and illegal aliens.” Since then, the Supreme Court has interpreted the Second Amendment in a way that puts major parts of the law at risk and has left lower courts in, as one challenger put it, a “state of disarray.” Given the conflicts in the federal appeals courts and the importance of the law, the justices will soon have to intervene, reports the New York Times. It is a consequence of a 2022 Supreme Court ruling in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen, which created a new test to decide whether gun control laws are constitutional.
The test requires judges to strike down gun laws unless they can find a historical analogue. Last month, two federal appeals courts issued different decisions on the part of the law that permanently bars people convicted of felonies from having guns. Some 8,000 people were convicted under the law in the year ending in September 2023, getting average sentences of more than five years. More than 88 percent of those convictions were under the provision barring felons from possessing guns. Lower courts are sharply split on whether that part of the law can survive the test announced in Bruen. “Perhaps no single Second Amendment issue has divided the lower courts more,” said Judge Lawrence. VanDyke of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. Last year, the high court ruled that the government can temporarily disarm people subject to restraining orders for domestic violence. The Biden administration asked the Supreme Court to hear follow-on cases on the far more consequential Second Amendment question of whether the provision concerning people convicted of felonies is constitutional. On Friday, the justices are scheduled to consider the case of Andre Dubois at their private conference. He was convicted under the felon-in-possession provision and urged the court to hear his case to address what he said was a “state of disarray” in the lower courts.
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