Felon in Possession of a Firearm: Bruen, Rahimi, and the Circuit Split

Under federal law, a felon in possession of a firearm faces up to 15 years in prison, and that ban remains fully enforceable across the country in 2026 despite a wave of constitutional challenges following the Supreme Court’s decisions in Bruen and Rahimi. The core rule, in 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1), makes it a crime for anyone convicted of an offense punishable by more than one year in prison to possess a firearm or ammunition.¹

Who the Ban Covers

The trigger is the potential sentence, not the time actually served. If the offense carried a possible sentence of more than a year, the ban applies whether or not the conviction involved violence. That sweeps in a wide range of non-violent crimes, including fraud, drug possession, and tax evasion. The statute carves out a few categories: state misdemeanors punishable by two years or less don’t count, and neither do federal or state offenses related to antitrust violations or business regulation.²

To convict, prosecutors must prove three things: a prior qualifying conviction, knowing possession of a firearm, and that the firearm at some point traveled in interstate or foreign commerce.³ The interstate-commerce element sounds demanding but is almost always met, because nearly every commercially manufactured firearm has crossed a state line.

Constructive Possession Is the Trap

Possession comes in two forms. Actual possession is the gun on you or within your immediate control. Constructive possession is broader: you know the firearm exists and have the ability to control it, even if you never touch it.³ A gun in your nightstand, your car’s glove compartment, or a shared closet can support a charge if prosecutors show you knew it was there and could reach it.

That creates real risk in households where someone else legally owns guns. The safe practice is to keep firearms locked in a container only the legal owner can open. Some states go further and make it a crime for a gun owner to leave an unsecured firearm accessible to a prohibited household member.

Penalties

The standard maximum is 15 years in federal prison and a fine of up to $250,000.⁴⁵ The 15-year cap is relatively new; before the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act of 2022, it was 10 years.

The stakes climb sharply for repeat offenders. Under the Armed Career Criminal Act, a defendant with three or more prior convictions for violent felonies or serious drug offenses committed on separate occasions faces a mandatory minimum of 15 years with no probation or suspended sentence available.⁴ A first-time gun charge stacked on a long criminal history can effectively become a life sentence.

What Bruen and Rahimi Changed

In 2022, the Supreme Court rewrote how courts evaluate firearm laws. Under New York State Rifle & Pistol Association, Inc. v. Bruen, the question is no longer whether a regulation strikes a reasonable balance between gun rights and public safety. It is whether the regulation is consistent with the nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation.⁶ If the challenged conduct falls within the Second Amendment’s plain text, the government must point to historical analogues to justify the modern law.

Two years later, United States v. Rahimi (2024) clarified that Bruen does not require a “historical twin.” The correct question is whether the modern law is “relevantly similar” to historical regulations in why and how it restricts the right to bear arms.⁷ Rahimi upheld a different subsection of § 922(g), the ban on possession by someone subject to a domestic-violence restraining order. It did not decide whether the felon-in-possession ban is constitutional, and it expressly limited its holding to people found by a court to pose a credible threat of violence.

The Circuit Split

More than a thousand challenges to the felon-in-possession ban have been filed since Bruen, making it the most contested gun law under the new standard.⁸ Results have diverged sharply.

The Third Circuit produced the most prominent ruling against the ban in Range v. Attorney General. Bryan Range’s disqualifying conviction was a 1995 Pennsylvania misdemeanor for making a false statement to obtain food stamps, a non-violent offense that happened to carry a possible sentence of up to five years. The court held the ban unconstitutional as applied to him, finding no historical tradition of disarming someone in his position, though it did not strike the statute down on its face.⁹

The Eighth, Tenth, Eleventh, Sixth, and First Circuits have upheld the ban in various cases. Reasoning varies. Some found sufficient historical support for disarming people convicted of serious crimes. Others relied on pre-Bruen precedent they concluded Bruen didn’t overrule. The Sixth Circuit drew a line around dangerousness, upholding the ban as applied to people convicted of violent offenses or still on probation.

The deeper disagreement is methodological: does the government need to justify the ban person by person, or can it categorically disarm everyone with a qualifying felony? Courts have not agreed.

Where the Supreme Court Stands

The Supreme Court has been cautious about deciding the felon-in-possession question head-on. After Rahimi, it vacated and remanded several pending challenges, including Range, telling the circuit courts to reconsider under the new framework.¹⁰

As of early 2026, the Court has declined multiple petitions asking it to weigh in directly and has not added any new felon-in-possession cases to its docket for the 2026-2027 term. The practical effect for anyone facing charges is straightforward: the ban is enforced everywhere. Whether a Second Amendment challenge succeeds depends heavily on the circuit, and even in the Third Circuit the relief has generally been as-applied rather than facial. The statute remains a live prosecutorial tool while the constitutional question sits unresolved.

The Antique Firearm Exception

Federal law defines “firearm” to exclude antique firearms, and that exclusion applies to people otherwise prohibited from possessing guns. An antique firearm includes any gun manufactured in or before 1898, replicas of such firearms that don’t use conventional fixed ammunition, and muzzle-loading rifles, shotguns, and pistols designed to use black powder that cannot accept fixed ammunition.²

The exception has limits. A firearm frame or receiver converted into a muzzleloader doesn’t qualify, and neither does any muzzle-loading weapon that can be readily converted to fire fixed ammunition by swapping the barrel or bolt.² This is a federal exception only. Many states define “firearm” more broadly under their own felon-in-possession laws, and some explicitly include black-powder weapons. Check state law before relying on it.

Restoring Firearm Rights

The ban is not necessarily permanent, but the paths out are narrow.

The most common route runs through state relief. Under federal law, a conviction that has been expunged, set aside, or pardoned does not count as a disqualifying conviction, and a state’s restoration of civil rights removes the federal firearms disability, unless the pardon or restoration expressly says the person still may not possess firearms.² Read the order carefully. Language like “except for firearms” keeps the federal ban in force.

For federal convictions, the practical option is a presidential pardon, again provided it does not expressly prohibit firearm possession.² Presidential pardons are rare.

Federal law also allows an application to the Attorney General for relief from firearms disabilities under 18 U.S.C. § 925(c). The applicant must show they are not likely to act dangerously and that relief would not be contrary to the public interest. Congress had blocked funding for this program through annual appropriations riders for decades, but as of February 2026 the government has published notices of relief being granted through this process.¹¹ Whether this signals a permanent reopening or a limited exception is not yet clear.

State restoration processes vary widely in cost and timeline, from no filing fee to a few hundred dollars and from months to years. An attorney familiar with the specific state’s process is worth the investment if you are pursuing this route.

1
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 18 USC 922 – Unlawful Acts
2
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 18 US Code 921 – Definitions
3
U.S. District Court District of Massachusetts. Possession of a Firearm or Ammunition in or Affecting Commerce by a Convicted Felon
4
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 18 USC 924 – Penalties
5
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 18 US Code 3571 – Sentence of Fine
6
Legal Information Institute. New York State Rifle and Pistol Association Inc v Bruen
7
Supreme Court of the United States. United States v Rahimi
8
The Gun Violence Data Hub. Court Decisions Based on Bruen Dataset
9
United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit. Range v Attorney General
10
Supreme Court of the United States. Petition for Writ of Certiorari – Martin v United States
11
Federal Register. Granting of Relief Federal Firearms Privileges