Antonio L. Rodriguez v. United States

The Second Amendment to the United States Constitution guarantees citizens the fundamental right to keep and bear arms. Although the Second Amendment right is not unlimited, courts must not treat the right as a “second-class right.” New York State Rifle & Pistol Ass’n v. Bruen, 597 U.S. 1, 70 (2022) (quoting McDonald v. Chicago, 561 U.S. 742, 780 (2010)). Where a citizen has previously been convicted of a crime punishable by a term of more than one year of imprisonment, Title 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1) imposes a permanent ban on the citizen’s right to possess any firearm that previously traveled in interstate commerce even where the possession was in relation to self-defense, a “central component” of the Second Amendment right. District of Columbia v. Heller, 554 U.S. 570, 599 (2008). This Court should resolve the unsettled and widely disputed question of whether § 922(g)(1) violates the people’s Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms. It should hold this Petition pending resolution of any merits cases involving the constitutionality of § 922(g)(1) or other similar regulations that restrict the people’s right to keep and bear arms.