A federal appeals court on Wednesday upheld the conviction of a Texas man who challenged a federal law barring individuals with domestic violence misdemeanor convictions from possessing firearms.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit rejected arguments from Jeremy Scott Allred, who claimed the federal restriction violated his Second Amendment rights and exceeded congressional authority. The decision marks the first time the Fifth Circuit has ruled on this specific provision since recent landmark Supreme Court decisions overhauled how lower courts evaluate gun regulations.
Allred’s case stems from a 2004 conviction in a Texas state court for assault causing bodily injury to a family member. According to court documents, deputies responded to a domestic violence report where Allred’s wife stated he pushed her during an argument.
When she tried to call 911, Allred attempted to knock the phone out of her hand but instead struck her on the right side of her face.
Following a later federal indictment for possessing a firearm, Allred moved to dismiss the case on constitutional grounds. The district court denied the motion, and Allred subsequently entered a guilty plea that reserved his right to appeal the ruling. He was sentenced to 16 months in prison followed by three years of supervised release.
On appeal, Allred argued that the federal ban could not stand under the Supreme Court’s framework established in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen, which requires the government to prove gun restrictions align with historical traditions from the Founding era. He specifically argued that because his original Texas conviction could have been committed through reckless conduct rather than intentional harm, it did not prove he posed a threat to public safety.
Writing for the court majority, Circuit Judge Leslie H. Southwick rejected that argument. The opinion noted that Allred intentionally used force when he swung at the phone, even if the physical injury itself was reckless. Southwick pointed to the Supreme Court’s decision in United States v. Rahimi, which upheld disarming individuals under domestic violence restraining orders based on historical traditions of disarming dangerous people.
“Taken together, the surety and going armed laws confirm what common sense suggests: When an individual poses a clear threat of physical violence to another, the threatening individual may be disarmed,” Southwick wrote, quoting the high court’s reasoning in Rahimi. The majority concluded that the domestic violence gun ban “comports with the nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation and punishment of people who have been convicted of violent offenses.”
Circuit Judge James E. Graves Jr. concurred in the final judgment to affirm the conviction but differed significantly on the court’s legal approach. In his concurring opinion, Graves argued that the Fifth Circuit should evaluate the specific details of a defendant’s past behavior on a case-by-case basis, rather than applying a blanket rule based solely on the text of the criminal statute.
Graves warned that a purely statutory approach “creates a danger that people who have been convicted under the same statute, even if the conduct underpinning that conviction is wildly different, would be ‘paint[ed] with’ the same ‘broad brush.'” However, Graves agreed that Allred’s specific history justified affirming the conviction.
With this ruling, the Fifth Circuit joins six other federal appellate circuits that have upheld the federal domestic violence firearm restriction.
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