Fifth Circuit upholds gun ban for drug trafficker at home

In federal court, the Fifth Circuit said Curtis Squire could be barred from keeping a gun in his home because of a prior drug-trafficking conviction. The panel affirmed his conviction under 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1), the federal felon-in-possession law, and left his 52-month sentence intact.

Squire had argued that the Second Amendment should protect possession inside the home, where the right to armed self-defense has its strongest footing. The judges said the location did not control the outcome. What mattered was whether historical firearm regulation supports disarming a convicted drug trafficker.

Why the home did not change the result

The court treated the case as a history question. Under the Supreme Court's Bruen and Rahimi decisions, judges look to whether today's gun law fits the nation's historical tradition of firearm regulation. Here, the Fifth Circuit said it does.

That tradition, the panel said, reaches people whose convictions put them in a dangerous category. Squire's drug-trafficking record was enough, in the court's view, to place him within the class the law can reach, even though the gun was kept at home.

What the ruling leaves standing

The decision gives prosecutors another firm answer in cases where a defendant tries to carve out a home-possession exception from the felon-in-possession ban. It does not resolve every Second Amendment challenge to § 922(g)(1), but it leaves this one far from successful.

For Squire, the result is simple. The conviction stands, the sentence stands, and the Fifth Circuit said the Constitution did not require the government to leave a gun in the hands of a convicted drug trafficker just because it was inside his house.