Below the Supreme Court: felon bans, waiting periods, age limits and body armor

Felon-in-possession: the next big question

Challenges to the federal ban on gun possession by people with felony convictions, 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1), are now the most common Second Amendment cases reaching the Supreme Court. The justices denied several in October, including Landrum v. United States on October 19, but twelve more challenges to the federal ban or state equivalents are listed for the Court’s November 6 conference.

In the courts of appeals, the full Third Circuit on October 13 upheld the conviction in United States v. Bost, holding that a Pennsylvania terroristic-threats conviction justified disarmament; the judges split several ways on the reasoning. The Fifth Circuit has agreed to rehear United States v. Cordova en banc, with argument tentatively set for January 2027, on whether a dangerousness standard should apply.

Waiting periods

The First Circuit upheld Maine’s 72-hour waiting period for gun purchases in Beckwith v. Frey, reversing an earlier injunction and holding that waiting periods do not regulate conduct covered by the Second Amendment’s text. The Supreme Court declined to review the case on October 19. In New Mexico, a coalition including the National Shooting Sports Foundation, the NRA and the Second Amendment Foundation filed a new federal suit on October 19 against the state’s seven-day waiting period.

Age limits

On October 20, Massachusetts’ Supreme Judicial Court ruled 5–2 in Commonwealth v. Thomson that the state’s minimum age of 21 for a license to carry does not violate the Second Amendment, affirming the conviction of a 20-year-old who carried a handgun without a license. The court found the age rule consistent with historical tradition and noted he had never applied for a license. Courts around the country remain divided on restrictions for adults under 21.

Body armor

On October 21, a federal judge in western New York, John L. Sinatra Jr., ruled in Heeter v. James that defensive body armor falls within the Second Amendment’s text and that New York had not shown a historical analogue for its limits on who may buy it. The judge paused his order for 14 days to allow an appeal, so the restrictions remain in effect for now.

Afterlight analysis

Four years after Bruen, the lower courts are sorting gun laws into two piles: rules that regulate how and when people acquire or carry guns, which states keep winning, and outright prohibitions on categories of people or arms, which face tougher scrutiny. The Supreme Court’s choice of which felon-ban case to hear, and its AR-15 decision next year, will decide where that line settles.