Michael Conner v. United States

NYSRPA v. Bruen, 597 U.S. 1 (2022), represented a sea change in Second Amendment jurisprudence, instructing courts to uphold only those firearms regulations that are “consistent with this Nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation.” Looming large post-Bruen was its application to 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1), the federal statute that prohibits anyone previously convicted of “a crime punishable by imprisonment for a term exceeding one year” from possessing a firearm. That statute divests millions of Americans from exercising their Second Amendment rights for life, and prosecutions under § 922(g)(1) account for over 10% of federal criminal cases. In other words, § 922(g)(1) is arguably the most important single firearm regulation in American law. And, yet, this Court has not heard a single § 922(g)(1) case post-Bruen. Without guidance, courts have struggled to apply Bruen to this hugely impactful statute, leading to intractable conflict and highly divergent outcomes. Thus, it is now impossible for millions of Americans to predict whether they are permitted to exercise a core constitutional right or whether they will be imprisoned for doing so. To that end, the question presented is: Whether 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1) violates the Second Amendment either facially or as applied to individuals with convictions for non-violent offenses.