Dixon v. United States, 548 U.S. 1 (2006)Assuming that duress is a defense to possession of a firearm by a convicted felon, or by a person under indictment, it is not unconstitutional to place the burden of proving duress on the defendant.United States v. Castleman, 134 S. Ct. 1405 (2014)18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(9), applies to misdemeanor offenses of domestic violence that require an element of force. However, the force need include nothing more than an offensive touching and does not require injury, or violent coduct.Small v. United States, 544 U.S. 385 (2005)A felony conviction from a foreign country may not serve as the predicate for a conviction for possession by a convicted felon.

McDonald v. Chicago, 130 S. Ct. 3020 (2010)The Second Amendment, which provides the right to bear arms, applies to the states through the Fourteenth Amendment (according to four Justices) and applies to the states through the Privileges and Immunities Clause (according to Justice Thomas).Abramski v. United States, 134 S. Ct. 2259 (2014)Prosecuting a “straw purchaser” – someone who buys a gun for someone else, while stating on the form that the gun is being purchased for himself – is permissible. 18 U.S.C. § 922(a)(6). A prosecution is appropriate, even if the person for whom the gun is actually being purchased could have legally purchased the gun.United States v. Fries, 725 F.3d 1286 (11th Cir. 2013)The defendant was charged with violating 18 U.S.C. §922(a)(5), which makes it a crime to sell a firearm to a person in another state unless either the seller or purchaser is a licensed firearms dealer.

Abramski v. United States, USSC No. 12-1493, 2014 WL 2676779 (June 16, 2014), affirmingUnited States v. Abramski, 706 F.3d 307 (4th Cir. 2013); Scotusblog page (includes links to briefs and commentary)Resolving a split between federal circuit courts of appeal, the Supreme Court holds that the prohibition in 18 U. S. C. § 922(a)(6) against making false statements about “any fact material to the lawfulness of the sale” of a firearm applies to a “straw” purchaser—a person who buys a gun on someone else’s behalf while falsely claiming that it is for himself—even if the true buyer could have purchased the gun legally.Abramski purchased a handgun for his uncle, who could have lawfully purchased and possessed the gun.

uently encountered in the cannabis industry involves a cannabis user’s gun rights. This stems from the ever-present federal and state law tension overlaying marijuana in the United States — thanks to the Schedule 1 status of “marihuana” under the Controlled Substances Act. A Westlaw search quickly reveals that over the past year federal courts across the country have reached varying decisions on this or similar issues. For instance, courts in Texas and Oklahoma have held that, under certain circumstances, the Second Amendment protects marijuana users’ right to own and purchase firearms, while courts in Alabama and Mississippi have held the opposite.Last week, for the first time since the Supreme Court’s landmark decision in N.Y. State Rifle & Pistol Ass’n v. Bruen, 142 S. Ct. 2111 (2022), a federal circuit court of appeals spoke on the interplay between federal gun laws and cannabis users. The Fifth Circuit held that an admitted, regular cannabis user cannot be criminally liable under 18 U.S.C. §922(g)(3) — which makes it unlawful for a person “who is an unlawful user of . . . any controlled substance (as defined in section 102 of the Controlled Substances Act (21 U.S.C. 802))” — for possessing a firearm while not under the influence of marijuana. The court held: “In short, our history and tradition may support some limits on an intoxicated person’s right to carry a weapon, but it does not justify disarming a sober citizen based exclusively on his past drug usage. . . . . As applied to Daniels, then, § 922(g)(3) violates the Second Amendment” (United States v. Daniels, No. 22-60596, 2023 WL 5091317, at *1 (5th Cir. Aug. 9, 2023)).The impact of Daniels on a fairly new cannabis industry in the Southern United States, or even beyond, is yet to be seen. But, those of you that routinely read this blog would be wise to familiarize yourselves with this opinion and to watch how a pending appeal in the Eleventh Circuit, which addresses a very similar issue, shakes out.The facts in Daniels are a

In a previous post, we discussed the harsh penalties associated with the use of a firearm during the commission of a crime of violence or a drug trafficking offense under the provisions of 18 U.S.C. § 924. A statutory relative of § 924 is 18 U.S.C. § 922 which criminalizes the possession of a firearm by felons who have been convicted of a crime with a punishment exceeding one year. It is this part of § 922 which most people are familiar with, but the statute also criminalizes possession by other classes of individuals, much further than just convicted felons.

A few years ago, in United States v. Hill, 539 F.3d 1213 (10th Cir. 2008), the Tenth Circuit grappled with 18 U.S.C. 922(g) and whether a prior Kansas crime was "a crime punishable by imprisonment for a term exceeding one year," under 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1), when the Kansas guideline range applicable to the person was, at the top end, less than or equal to one year. Ultimately, the court ruled that defendant's prior Kansas conviction constituted a qualifying felony required to support his federal conviction for "felon in possession of a firearm" because the maximum possible sentence, with the highest possible criminal history (criminal history A), could have taken the sentence to a term of more than one year.

On November 13, 2019, the Second Circuit (Hall, Lynch, Gardephe) issued a decision in United States v. Balde, vacating the defendant’s guilty plea for unlawful possession of a firearm by an alien who is in the United States illegally or unlawfully, in violation of 18 U.S.C. §§922(g)(5)(A) and 924(a)(2). The panel initially upheld Balde’s conviction on appeal, but eight days after the Court’s original decision, the United States Supreme Court decided Rehaif v. United States, 139 S. Ct. 2191 (2019), holding that a conviction under the relevant statutes required the government to prove that the defendant knew that he or she was in the country illegally at the time he or she possessed the firearm.

(Editor’s Note: We get many calls from people wishing to restore their gun rights who we cannot help given current state law. If you have questions about regaining or restoring your rights to possess a firearm after a felony conviction, please refer to Convicted Firearms Possessing Firearms)In a recent post, we pointed out that 18 U.S.C. § 922 criminalizes the possession of a firearm by a convicted felon. To be charged and convicted under § 922, the felon must have been convicted in any court of a crime punishable by imprisonment for a term exceeding one year.

Steven Michael Leonard v. State of Wisconsin, 2015 WI App 57; case activity (including briefs)The court of appeals concludes that there’s no basis in the record for determining whether Leonard’s disorderly conduct conviction qualifies as a “misdemeanor crime of domestic violence” under the federal firearm prohibition, 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(9), and therefore he is not barred from possessing a firearm under that statute. The court also holds that Leonard’s disorderly conduct “involv[ed] the use of” one of Leonard’s guns and therefore § 968.20(1m)(b) bars the return of that gun.Police were dispatched to a “disturbance” involving Leonard arguing with his wife.

Abramski gave the uncle a receipt for the transfer, confirming the uncle had purchased the weapon from him for $400.In July 2010, while conducting an unrelated investigation of Abramski’s parents’ home, federal agents discovered a written receipt for the transfer of the Glock from him to his uncle. Unable to secure an indictment in the other criminal investigation, federal authorities sought, and secured, an indictment of Abramski for two firearms offenses: 1) making the “false and fictitious” statement on the 4473 that he was the actual buyer of the Glock in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 922(a)(6); and 2) making a “false statement with respect to information required to be kept in the records of a licensed firearms dealer” in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 924(a)(1)(A).The Government premised these charges on the “theory” that Abramski was a “straw purchaser” of the Glock that was immediately transferred to his uncle.The federal appeals courts uniformly agree that a “straw purchase” is a sale where a person makes a purchase of a firearm claiming to be the buyer but who is actually purchasing the weapon for another person who will receive possession of it.Attorneys for Abramski sought to have the indictment dismissed on the legal premise that because Abramski and the uncle were both legally entitled to purchase a firearm, Abramski could not be a “straw purchaser.”