In District of Columbia v. Heller, 554 U.S. 570 (2008), the United States Supreme Court held that the Second Amendment protects an individual’s right to possess firearms for lawful purposes such as self-defense. Heller unleashed a tsunami of litigation over the nature and scope of that right. Of particular interest to criminal lawyers, Heller led to constitutional challenges of many of the subsections of 18 U.S.C. § 922(g), the federal statute that prohibits the possession of firearms by, among others, illegal immigrants, drug users, and convicted felons. I spent some time last night looking at several recent Fourth Circuit cases in this area, and I thought I’d combine them into a Second Amendment update. At the end of this post, I’ll note a couple of relevant state law developments as well. Here are the recent Fourth Circuit cases: United States v. Moore, __ F.3d __ (4th Cir. Jan. 25, 2012) (Agee, J.). The Fourth Circuit rejected a defendant’s facial and as-applied Second Amendment challenges to 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1), the federal statute prohibiting felons from possessing firearms. United States v. Carter, __ F.3d __ (4th Cir. Jan. 23, 2012) (Niemeyer, J.). A long-time marijuana user was prosecuted under 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(3), the federal statute prohibiting drug users from possessing firearms. He appealed on Second Amendment grounds, and the court ruled: “Although we conclude, applying the intermediate scrutiny standard, that Congress had an important objective for enacting § 922(g)(3) to reduce gun violence and might have reasonably served that objective by [...]
Faculty Coordinators
