Background
Curtis Squire was indicted for possession of a firearm as a convicted felon in violation of Section nineteen eighty-two, subsection nine hundred twenty-two, paragraph one. He had prior felony convictions for drug trafficking, burglary, and other offenses. Squire moved to dismiss the indictment, arguing that the Second Amendment protects his right to possess a firearm in his home regardless of his felon status. The district court denied the motion, and Squire pleaded guilty while preserving his right to appeal. He was sentenced to fifty-two months of imprisonment followed by three years of supervised release.
The court’s reasoning
The court applied the two-step Bruen framework. At Step One, the plain text of the Second Amendment covered Squire’s conduct, presumptively protecting it. At Step Two, the court examined whether the regulation was consistent with the Nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation. The court found that historical laws disarmed classes of people deemed dangerous, such as British loyalists and religious minorities, without exceptions for the home. The court concluded that drug traffickers fall within a class of dangerous individuals that the historical tradition permits legislatures to disarm, even inside their homes.
Because our historical tradition supports disarming drug traffickers based on their dangerousness, we AFFIRM the judgment of conviction and sentence.
What it means going forward
The decision confirms that Section nineteen eighty-two, subsection nine hundred twenty-two, paragraph one applies to convicted drug traffickers possessing firearms in their homes, rejecting the argument that the home provides a special exemption from disarmament for this class of offenders.