The full Third Circuit has ruled that Edward Williams, who lost his gun rights after a second DUI conviction, is entitled to a declaratory judgment that the federal prohibition violates the Second Amendment as applied to him. Writing for the en banc court, Judge Paul Matey applied the history-and-tradition framework and concluded that permanently disarming all felons is not a longstanding American practice.
The court noted that the Federal Firearms Act of 1938 initially barred only those convicted of violent crimes, and that Congress did not expand the prohibition to all felony convictions until 1961. That late development, the opinion said, cannot show the kind of enduring custom needed to justify restricting a constitutional right. The court also distinguished Williams's conduct from historical examples of disarmament tied to capital offenses or civil death, finding that a high-BAC DUI with a prior offense lacks threatening or violent elements.
The government had compared Williams to "common drunkards" and "habitual drunkards," but the court found that analogy insufficient. While some historical laws targeted habitual drunkards, the opinion reasoned that the modern felony label sweeps in too much conduct to serve as a faithful historical analogue for permanent loss of Second Amendment rights.