Post-Bruen Stability in Federal Firearms Law: The Sixth Circuit Re-Affirms the Constitutionality of 18 U.S.C. §§ 922(o) and 922(g)(1)

Introduction

In United States v. Greely, Branch & Burnett (consolidated on appeal, Sixth Circuit, 2025), the court confronted a trio of Second Amendment challenges lodged against federal firearms statutes that, together, prohibit (i) possession or transfer of machineguns (§ 922(o)), (ii) possession of any firearm by a convicted felon (§ 922(g)(1)), and (iii) possession of a firearm by an unlawful user of controlled substances (§ 922(g)(3)). The appellants—members or associates of the “My Brother’s Keeper” gang—had pleaded guilty to the underlying weapons offenses yet sought to vacate their convictions or reduce their sentences by attacking the statutes’ validity and the district court’s sentencing rationale.

Against the backdrop of the Supreme Court’s landmark decisions in District of Columbia v. Heller (2008), New York State Rifle & Pistol Ass’n v. Bruen (2022), and United States v. Rahimi (2024), the Sixth Circuit’s opinion is significant for what it does not do: it declines to broaden the right to keep and bear arms and instead re-affirms pre-existing circuit precedent upholding longstanding categorical prohibitions. The decision therefore supplies an early appellate signal that post-Bruen and post-Rahimi litigation, while reshaping aspects of gun regulation, will not necessarily unsettle Congress’s bans on machineguns and on gun possession by felons.

Summary of the Judgment

• Greely: The court held that § 922(o)’s ban on machineguns is facially constitutional. Relying on its earlier published decision in Hamblen v. United States (2010) and the Supreme Court’s explicit dicta in Heller, the panel found no grounds to revisit the prohibition under Bruen’s “history and tradition” test.
• Branch: The panel reaffirmed that § 922(g)(1)—the “felon-in-possession” statute—remains valid. The court cited its own post-Bruen precedent in United States v. Williams (2024), which exhaustively applied Bruen to uphold the statute.
• Burnett: Having waived his constitutional attack on § 922(g)(3) at sentencing, Burnett could not revive it on appeal. His claim that the 60-month sentence was procedurally and substantively unreasonable likewise failed; the court found the district judge’s explanation thorough and the term within the advisory Guidelines range, thereby conferring a presumption of reasonableness.

Consequently, the Sixth Circuit affirmed all three district-court judgments.

Analysis

Precedents Cited and Their Influence

1. District of Columbia v. Heller, 554 U.S. 570 (2008)
   • Established that the Second Amendment protects an individual right.
   • But also declared certain “longstanding prohibitions,” including bans on felon possession and “dangerous and unusual” weapons, to be “presumptively lawful.”
   • Described it as “startling” to suggest the National Firearms Act’s machinegun restrictions are unconstitutional—language pivotal to both Greely’s and Branch’s challenges.
2. New York State Rifle & Pistol Ass’n v. Bruen, 597 U.S. 1 (2022)
   • Replaced the two-step “means-end scrutiny” with a single inquiry focused on the amendment’s text alongside historical tradition.
   • Appellants argued Bruen demands fresh consideration, but the panel answered that the existing machinegun and felon prohibitions comfortably fit within history & tradition and that circuit precedent remains binding.
3. United States v. Rahimi, 602 U.S. 680 (2024)
   • Clarified how courts should conduct historical analogical reasoning.
   • Reiterated Heller’s note that felon-in-possession bans are “presumptively lawful,” undercutting Branch’s position.
4. Hamblen v. United States, 591 F.3d 471 (6th Cir. 2010) – bound the panel on § 922(o).
5. United States v. Williams, 113 F.4th 637 (6th Cir. 2024) – bound the panel on § 922(g)(1).
6. Additional Sixth Circuit cases on sentencing reasonableness, Rayyan and Vonner, reinforced deferential review of within-Guidelines sentences.

Legal Reasoning

• Machineguns Are Outside Core Second-Amendment Protection. Because automatic weapons were historically subject to strict federal control (e.g., the 1934 National Firearms Act, 1986 Hughes Amendment), the panel considered them “dangerous and unusual” and hence unprotected. Even under Bruen’s historical analogue test, no founding-era tradition of ordinary citizens’ machinegun possession exists.
• Felons May Be Disarmed Consistent with Historical Tradition. The opinion, leaning on Williams, concluded that colonial and early-Republic legislatures routinely disarmed individuals considered dangerous or lacking in “civic virtue”—including rebels, non-citizens, or those convicted of serious crimes. The modern felon-in-possession ban is a logical descendant of that practice.
• Waiver Doctrine Foreclosed Burnett’s § 922(g)(3) Claim. By withdrawing his objection at sentencing, Burnett “intentionally relinquished” the argument—distinguishing waiver from mere forfeiture and eliminating plain-error review.
• Sentencing Explained and Reasonable. The district court invoked multiple § 3553(a) factors: seriousness of the offense, need for deterrence, protection of the public, and the defendant’s role in a sophisticated scheme importing conversion devices (“switches”). The Sixth Circuit emphasized that length-of-sentence challenges are judged under a highly deferential standard, particularly when the sentence sits squarely within the Guidelines.

Impact of the Judgment

Although the decision breaks no new doctrinal ground, its precedential resonance is nonetheless important:

1. Post-Bruen Consolidation. Litigants nationwide have launched sweeping challenges against federal gun laws on the theory that Bruen narrowed permissible regulation. The Sixth Circuit’s refusal to disturb §§ 922(o) and (g)(1) suggests that some categorical prohibitions remain firmly entrenched, thereby providing other circuits a roadmap for similar challenges.
2. Evidentiary Hearings Generally Unnecessary for Facial Attacks. The court’s disposition clarifies that when the operative facts are uncontested—e.g., the technical nature of machineguns—constitutional questions can be resolved on the pleadings.
3. Sentencing Practice. The ruling reinforces that district judges retain wide latitude to contextualize firearm offenses within local conditions (here, “a community in which gun violence is a very, very serious problem”) without running afoul of procedural-reasonableness constraints.
4. Strategic Lesson on Waiver. Defense counsel must preserve constitutional arguments at sentencing; once withdrawn, they are gone. The distinction between forfeiture and waiver remains outcome-determinative on appeal.

Complex Concepts Simplified

• Machinegun vs. Semiautomatic: A machinegun fires multiple rounds with a single trigger pull; a semiautomatic requires a separate pull for each round. A “switch” is a small conversion device that transforms the latter into the former.
• Facial vs. As-Applied Challenge: A facial challenge seeks to invalidate the statute in all conceivable applications; an as-applied challenge targets a specific factual scenario. Greely and Branch brought facial challenges—viewed by courts as “strong medicine” and therefore harder to win.
• Bruen’s “History & Tradition” Test: If the conduct is covered by Second-Amendment text, the government must show a sufficiently analogous historical regulation. The test focuses on the how (burden level) and the why (justification) rather than on exact technological matches.
• Sentencing Guidelines “Enhancement” § 2K2.1(a)(4)(B): Raises the base offense level when the defendant possessed a weapon capable of accepting a large-capacity magazine or was a prohibited person. Here, Burnett was deemed prohibited as an unlawful drug user.

Conclusion

United States v. Greely, Branch & Burnett underscores a stabilizing theme in Second-Amendment jurisprudence: not every firearms restriction is in jeopardy after Bruen. The Sixth Circuit’s adherence to its own precedent and to the Supreme Court’s consistent guidance confirms that bans on machineguns and on felon possession remain constitutionally sound. Additionally, the case illustrates the continued vitality of sentencing discretion, the doctrinal weight of waiver, and the minimal role of evidentiary hearings in pure questions of law. For practitioners, the opinion offers a clear blueprint on how constitutional firearms claims will likely fare when they collide with longstanding categorical prohibitions—namely, they will fail absent a compelling historical argument that the Sixth Circuit (and, by extension, most federal courts) has yet to see.