David Keith Nutter v. United States

In New York State Rifle & Pistol Ass’n v. Bruen, 597 U.S. 1 (2022), this Court adopted a two-step approach for analyzing whether regulation of the possession of firearms violated the Second Amendment. The first step of that analysis involves determining whether the conduct at issue is protected by the Second Amendment. Lower courts, including the Fourth Circuit, have concluded that the first step of Bruen is satisfied only if the challenger is a “law-abiding” citizen. In United States v. Rahimi, 602 U.S. 680 (2024), this Court clarified how a tradition of firearm regulation may be established by a historical analogue sharing the same “why” and “how” in terms of Second Amendment burdens as the modern firearm regulation being challenged. This Court upheld the temporary disarmament imposed by 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(8), based on Founding era civil surety laws and criminal affray laws collectively as historical analogues. Relying on both Rahimi and the analogues it analyzed, the Fourth Circuit in this case also found 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(9) facially constitutional. This Petition presents two issues: 1. Whether § 922(g)(9) runs afoul of the Second Amendment, facially and as-applied, where (a) ambiguous historical regulation of generalized “dangerousness” justifies the “why,” (b) the relevant proxy for such “dangerousness” is a misdemeanor conviction categorically requiring no more than reckless nonconsensual touching to establish use of physical force as an element, and (c) the -1-