SAF and NRA Tell Fifth Circuit: Only Dangerous People Lose Guns
The Second Amendment Foundation and the National Rifle Association filed an amicus brief on October 21, 2026, in United States v. Cordova, asking the Fifth Circuit to limit lifetime federal firearm bans to people who are actually dangerous. SAF announced the filing from its Bellevue, Washington headquarters. The Fifth Circuit has agreed to rehear the case en banc and has vacated the earlier panel opinion, so the full court will decide the question. SAF and NRA want a clear rule: dangerousness controls, not the mere existence of a felony conviction. Their brief argues that a person who committed a nonviolent crime and finished the sentence should not lose the right to keep and bear arms for life.
Key Details
The brief lays out the core arguments and the authority behind them. Its main points:
- Case: United States v. Cordova, returned to the Fifth Circuit after en banc rehearing was granted.
- Filers: Second Amendment Foundation and National Rifle Association.
- Requested standard: Disarm only dangerous persons, meaning those with a proven proclivity for violence or those who threaten the government.
- Historical evidence: Colonial and Founding-era restrictions targeted dangerous people. Militia laws required able-bodied men to keep arms and included no exemption for prior nonviolent convictions. Some statutes expressly protected criminals' arms from seizure.
- Target of the brief: A metric from an earlier Fifth Circuit decision that treats a lifetime ban as justified whenever the predicate offense was punishable by death at the Founding.
- Counterpoint on felonies: Many Founding-era felonies were not capital crimes. Offenders who finished their sentences were often required to bear arms under militia acts.
- Quoted: SAF Director of Legal Research and Education Kostas Moros said, "History disarmed the dangerous, not the peaceable."
- Quoted: SAF Executive Director Adam Kraut said peaceable Americans who have paid their debt should not surrender their rights for the rest of their lives.
SAF's argument rests on one structural point. Under the capital-felony metric, a historical eligibility for death becomes a proxy for permanent disarmament. The brief says no other Bill of Rights guarantee is forfeited on that basis.
Background
Federal law under 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1) bars anyone convicted of a crime punishable by more than one year in prison from possessing firearms or ammunition. Courts have struggled with whether that ban is constitutional for everyone it covers. The Supreme Court's 2022 decision in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen required the government to justify gun regulations by pointing to historical analogues. That shifted the fight from interest balancing to founding-era history.
In 2024, the Supreme Court decided United States v. Rahimi and upheld a federal ban on gun possession for people under domestic violence restraining orders. The majority emphasized that the law targeted individuals found to pose a credible threat. Gun rights advocates have since pointed to Rahimi as support for a dangerousness test. The Fifth Circuit's 2024 decision in United States v. Diaz took a different route, tying the lifetime ban to felonies that carried capital punishment at the Founding. The Third Circuit, in Range v. Attorney General, took a narrower view and allowed as-applied challenges for people whose offenses were nonviolent. Courts across the country now split on this question, and the Supreme Court has not resolved it.
Why It Matters for Gun Owners
This case reaches anyone with a prior felony conviction in Texas, Louisiana, or Mississippi, the three states inside the Fifth Circuit. Most people in that group never committed violent crimes. They include people convicted of drug possession, fraud, theft, or other nonviolent offenses decades ago. Under current federal law, a conviction that carried more than a year of possible prison time can strip firearm rights permanently, regardless of how long ago it happened or how the person has lived since.
If the Fifth Circuit adopts a dangerousness standard, challenges by nonviolent offenders could gain real traction across the circuit. If it stays with the capital-felony metric, the ban stays broad. Either outcome will shape how prosecutors charge 922(g)(1) cases in those three states. Watch the en banc briefing schedule and any oral argument date. Also track the Justice Department's rights-restoration process under 18 U.S.C. § 925(c), which gives some applicants a federal path to relief. Anyone with an old felony should check their state's restoration rules, because state law often differs from federal law. Do not possess a firearm while your federal status remains unresolved. A possession charge will not be dismissed because a case is pending in a court of appeals.
DownRange Analysis
The SAF and NRA argument is strong on history. Militia statutes that compelled able-bodied men to arm themselves did not carve out nonviolent offenders, and that is hard for the government to explain under Bruen. The capital-felony metric is the weaker target for the government to defend. Using a death-eligibility test from 1791 to decide who loses a constitutional right today makes no sense, and the Fifth Circuit should say so. A dangerousness test fits Rahimi and gives judges a workable framework.
The market impact will stay small in the short term. Prohibited persons cannot legally buy guns, so this ruling changes the legal exposure of gun owners who were never supposed to have them. The real gains come for people whose records show a single nonviolent conviction from decades ago. If you are in that group, gather your court records and check your restoration options now. If you are not, support the amicus effort and watch how your state's courts apply Rahimi. The next decision will matter for years.
