Published September 17, 2026 at 10:39 PM ET · Updated September 18, 2026 at 12:29 AM ET
1 independent outlet is covering this story, first reported here by Reason. Verification: Watching (how we verify). Every headline links to the original reporting.
The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals will rehear challenges to the federal law that bans gun possession by people with felony convictions. The case will determine whether the ban survives constitutional challenges under the Second Amendment.
Patriot Watch first flagged this story 13 d ago, when Reason reported it. So far this remains a single-source report. The most recent report came 13 d ago from Reason.
⚖ The Constitutional Angle
Heller recognized an individual right but called longstanding felon possession bans presumptively lawful. Bruen requires the government to justify gun laws with historical tradition, and United States v. Rahimi sustained disarming those a court found dangerous by grounding it in surety and going armed laws. Whether that presumption survives the Bruen history test is unsettled; these challenges are still pending.
District of Columbia v. Heller 554 U.S. 570 (2008)
Vote: 5-4 · Opinion: Scalia
The Second Amendment protects an individual right to possess a firearm unconnected with service in a militia and to use it for traditionally lawful purposes such as self-defense within the home. The right is not unlimited: the Court noted that longstanding prohibitions (e.g., possession by felons and the mentally ill, carrying in sensitive places, conditions on commercial sale) remain presumptively lawful. D.C.'s ban on handgun possession in the home and its requirement that lawful firearms in the home be kept nonfunctional violate the Second Amendment.
New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Kevin P. Bruen, Superintendent of New York State Police 597 U.S. 1 (2022)
Vote: 6-3 · Opinion: Thomas
New York's requirement that applicants demonstrate 'proper cause' — a special need for self-protection distinguishable from the general community — to obtain an unrestricted public-carry license violates the Fourteenth Amendment by preventing law-abiding citizens with ordinary self-defense needs from exercising their Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms in public. The Court held the Second Amendment protects a right to carry handguns publicly for self-defense, and rejected the two-step means-end framework lower courts had applied after Heller.
United States v. Zackey Rahimi 602 U.S. 680 (2024)
Vote: 8-1 · Opinion: Roberts (C.J.)
When an individual has been found by a court to pose a credible threat to the physical safety of another, that individual may be temporarily disarmed consistent with the Second Amendment. 18 U.S.C. §922(g)(8), which bars firearm possession by persons subject to a domestic-violence restraining order containing such a judicial finding, is facially constitutional. The Court grounded the statute in the combined tradition of surety laws and 'going armed' laws, which permitted preventing individuals who threaten physical harm to others from misusing firearms.
Precedent facts from the PW Law Library — primary-source verified & independently audited
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