2LT International News
US appeals court upholds federal ban on felons owning guns
May 16, 2025
PASADENA, California: A U.S. appeals court late last week upheld a federal law that stops felons from owning guns. The court rejected a challenge from a California man, Steven Duarte, who argued the rule shouldn’t apply to non-violent felons like him.
The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in Pasadena said the government had shown that permanently banning felons from having guns fits with U.S. history and the Second Amendment. Judge Kim McLane Wardlaw said the law helps keep the public safe from people who have committed serious crimes and may misuse weapons.
Duarte had five past convictions for non-violent crimes, such as vandalism and running from police. He was later caught with a gun and sentenced to more than four years in prison.
The case comes as courts across the U.S. try to apply recent Supreme Court rulings about gun rights. In 2022, the Bruen decision expanded gun rights, stating that courts should consider history when evaluating new gun laws. In 2024, the Rahimi ruling said that courts don’t need a perfect historical match to support some gun restrictions.
In Duarte’s case, he was in a car that ran a stop sign. Police saw him throw a gun out the window. They later found a loaded magazine in the car that matched the gun.
A smaller panel of judges had thrown out Duarte’s conviction last year, but the latest decision by all 11 judges reversed that. Five other courts have also upheld the gun ban for all felons, although two courts have stated that it may not apply in every case.
In one case, a court ruled that the ban was unconstitutional for a man who had lied to obtain food stamps. In Duarte’s case, all 11 judges agreed to uphold his conviction, though three did so for technical reasons.
One judge, Lawrence VanDyke, disagreed with the legal reasoning. He said the court was giving lawmakers too much power to take away people’s gun rights and treating the Second Amendment as less important than other rights.
The case is U.S. v. Duarte, 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, No. 22-50048.
