A federal appeals court ruled a man with old drunk-driving convictions can keep his Second Amendment rights, while upholding the gun ban for a carjacking offender who still posed a violence risk.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit issued two related decisions on Tuesday that draw a sharp line under the federal ban on gun possession by convicted felons. In one case the court upheld the restriction. In the other it held the ban could not constitutionally apply.
The rulings test how far the government may go after the Supreme Court’s 2022 decision in Bruen, which requires modern gun laws to match the nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation. Fox News reported the pair of opinions and the split outcomes for the two men at the center of the cases.
James Bost pleaded guilty in Pennsylvania state court after a 2002 carjacking to terroristic threats, criminal conspiracy, false imprisonment, and simple assault. Authorities later found him with a gun and charged him under the federal felon-in-possession law. He moved to dismiss, arguing the ban violated his Second Amendment rights.
Edward Williams had driving-under-the-influence convictions from the early 2000s. One of those convictions triggered the federal prohibition. He received a sentence of 90 days to two years, served under home confinement. After learning the record blocked him from owning firearms, he sued for a declaration that the law was unconstitutional as applied to him.
U.S. Circuit Judge Stephanos Bibas, a Trump appointee, wrote the majority opinion against Bost. The court held that people convicted of crimes showing a risk of physical violence through the misuse of firearms may be disarmed based on those convictions alone.
Bibas put the limit in plain terms:
"The right to keep and bear arms has limits, and this is one: Those who pose a risk of physical violence from misusing guns can be disarmed before that risk becomes a reality,"
That framing tracks the historical-tradition test set out in Bruen. The federal ban generally reaches offenses punishable by more than one year in prison. The Third Circuit treated Bost’s record as the kind of conduct that has long justified stripping gun rights.
Readers tracking other Second Amendment fights will recognize the same historical test now driving challenges nationwide, including the pending Supreme Court review of Cook County’s semiautomatic firearm ban.
The Williams case went the other way. U.S. Circuit Judge Paul Matey, also a Trump appointee, wrote for the court and rejected the Justice Department’s argument that old historical limits on “habitual drunkards” could justify applying the modern felon ban to Williams.
Matey described Williams as:
"a peaceable citizen, capable of bearing arms consistent with the design of the Second Amendment."
He went further on what rehabilitation means under the Constitution:
"And with that rehabilitation comes restoration of the civic privileges guaranteed to citizens by the Constitution, and the freedom to again exercise the natural right of armed defense against threats and tyranny,"
The court refused to treat nonviolent DUI history as automatic grounds for permanent disarmament. That result sits comfortably alongside other recent decisions that have struck down overbroad gun restrictions, including a federal judge’s order invalidating Delaware’s ghost-gun ban.
Joshua Prince, the lawyer for Williams, said the decision made clear there is no historical tradition of stripping Second Amendment rights from people with nonviolent convictions who do not threaten the public with a firearm.
Prince stated:
"there does not exist any historical tradition of stripping individuals with non-violent convictions of their Second Amendment rights and whom do not pose a threat to the public in possession of a firearm."
That reading of Bruen’s historical test is now central to the growing pile of gun cases reaching the high court. The Supreme Court already faces its heaviest Second Amendment docket in years as lower-court rulings continue to sort violent from nonviolent records.
U.S. Circuit Judge Arianna Freeman wrote separately and disagreed with part of the majority’s reasoning. She parted company “when it says a prior conviction is disarming on its face only if it involved violence or threats.”
Freeman argued the Second Amendment still allows restrictions on people whose criminal conduct shows a credible threat to public safety even without explicit violence or threats in the conviction. She said drunk driving can fit that category because the person “poses a credible threat to the physical safety of others.”
Her separate writing did not change the outcome for Williams. It does flag the live debate inside the courts over how far “credible threat” can stretch beyond classic violent felonies.
The Justice Department had urged the panel to treat historical rules aimed at habitual drunkards as enough cover for the modern ban. The majority rejected that stretch. Courts applying Bruen keep demanding a close match between today’s restriction and the actual historical tradition, not a loose analogy.
That same demand for historical fidelity has produced a string of practical wins for gun owners and for administrations that defend the right, the kind of courtroom results Trump has pointed to when celebrating favorable judicial outcomes.
The federal prohibition on gun possession by convicted felons remains on the books. What changed is the as-applied analysis. Bost’s carjacking-related convictions for terroristic threats, conspiracy, false imprisonment, and simple assault showed a risk of physical violence with firearms. The court left the ban intact against him.
Williams’s early-2000s DUI convictions, one of which carried a 90-days-to-two-years sentence served at home, did not. The court treated him as rehabilitated and entitled to the civic privileges the Constitution restores.
Bruen’s 6-3 holding still supplies the yardstick: modern gun restrictions must be “consistent with this nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation.” The Third Circuit applied that test case by case rather than by blanket felony label.
Federal appeals courts keep sorting these records while more Second Amendment petitions head upward. The pattern is consistent. Violent misuse supports disarmament. Nonviolent, non-threatening history does not automatically erase the right to armed self-defense.
Peaceable citizens who have paid their debt do not lose the Constitution’s guarantee just because bureaucrats prefer a permanent ban.
