The Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals in United States v, Rozier upheld laws charging possession of a weapon by a convicted felon against Second Amendment claims.

Eenie Austin, the mother of Christopher Rozier’s child arrived at his house in time to see his current girl friend holding a butcher knife to Rozier’s neck. Austin joined the fray and threw a concrete statute, hitting him in the face. At this point he pulled out a gun to protect himself. The decision does not say who called the police but they arrived later in the day with a search warrant. They searched the residence and found crack cocaine, marijuana, and ammunition. A gun was found buried in the yard.

Rozier was charged with possession of a gun and ammunition by a convicted felon in violation of 18 United States Code Section 922(g)(1) and since he had three major prior drug convictions he was sentenced under the Armed Career Criminal Act to 210 months in prison.

In District of Columbia v. Heller the Supreme Court held that “the Second Amendment conferred an individual right to keep and bear arms.” But Heller also said, “nothing in our opinion should be taken to cast doubt on longstanding prohibitions on the possession of firearms by felons . . . .” Based on this language the Eleventh Circuit found that certain classifications of people, include convicted felons may be denied Second Amendment rights.

The First Circuit Court of Appeals found the Federal ban on juveniles possessing firearms to be constitutional despite claims that it violates the Second Amendment under Heller and that it is unconstitutional under the Commerce Clause.

The Court found that the prohibition in 18 U.S.C. Section 922(x)(2)(A) which limits possession of handguns by juveniles, with the exception of their use for hunting, self defense, and national guard duty, not to violate the Second Amendment. It points out that the Federal government has prohibited juveniles from possessing handguns since 1994 and that some states limited the sale of guns to juveniles as early as the latter part of the Nineteenth Century. Furthermore the founding generation limited the possession of guns by certain groups, in particular convicted criminals and the insane. From these examples the Court draws the conclusion that the founders would have approved of Section 922(x)(2)(A) and that therefore it does not violate the Second Amendment.

The Court also found that Congress did not violate the Commerce Clause when it passed the Youth Handgun Safety Act. Citing United States v. Lopez, 514 U.S. 549 (1995) the Court found that the Commerce Clause provided Congress with three types of power.

First, Congress may regulate the use of the channels of interstate commerce. Second, Congress is empowered to regulate and protect the instrumentalities of interstate commerce, or persons or things in interstate commerce, even though the threat may come from intrastate activities. Finally, Congress’ commerce authority includes the power to regulate those activities having a substantial relation to interstate commerce, i.e., those activities that substantially affect interstate commerce.

Furthermore in United States v. Cardoza, 129 F.3d 6 (1st Cir. 1997) the First Circuit upheld the Youth Handgun Safety Act on the grounds that sales of firearms to juveniles affected interstate commerce and the power to ban the possession of firearms by juveniles is a correlated power. The First Circuit found that nothing in Heller affected Cardoza which remains good law.

Thus the court found that the limited ban on possession of firearms by juveniles in Section 922(x)(2)(A) to be constitutional.