Third Circuit Rules Felon Gun Ban Can’t Reach Two Old DUIs

Last updated October 2026 · By Nick Hall, tracks federal firearms prohibitions and Second Amendment cases in the federal appeals courts for USA Gun Shop readers

Quick take: The full Third Circuit ruled on October 13 that the federal felon gun ban can’t be applied to Edward Williams, a Pennsylvania man disarmed over two DUIs from the early 2000s. The same court upheld the ban that day for a man convicted of terroristic threats, and the line between the two runs through what each man was actually convicted of.

• Ruling: In Williams v. Attorney General (No. 24-1091) the en banc court voted 8-6 that 18 U.S.C. 922(g)(1) is unconstitutional as applied to Williams, and in United States v. Bost (No. 24-1719) it voted 12-2 to affirm Bost’s conviction under the same law.
• Court: The full U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, which hears federal appeals from Delaware, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and the Virgin Islands.
• Why it matters: Courts there now start with the elements of the old conviction, and a predicate crime with no threat or violence in it is, in the majority’s words, “likely never disarmable.”
• What’s next: The same day the Supreme Court denied review in Johnson v. United States (No. 26-270), a nonviolent-felon case, so the circuit split stays open.

Most felon-in-possession rulings either uphold the ban for everyone with a felony (the Tenth Circuit’s rule) or help one plaintiff and stop there (Range, and its food-stamp fraud conviction). This pair is different. I read both opinions, all seven separate writings and the Supreme Court’s order list. Here’s what’s actually in them.

Table of Contents

What Edward Williams Was Actually Convicted Of

Williams has two drunk-driving cases, both in Pennsylvania. In 2000 he was charged with driving with a blood alcohol level above 0.10% and went into the state’s Accelerated Rehabilitative Disposition program. In 2005 he was convicted of driving at Pennsylvania’s highest rate of alcohol, 0.16% or more.

Because it was his second offense, that conviction carried up to five years in prison. Pennsylvania calls it a first-degree misdemeanor. Federal law ignores the label: a state misdemeanor punishable by more than two years counts under Section 922(g)(1), and the statute sets no end date.

He got 90 days to two years, served in home confinement, and the record shows no property damage or injury to anyone. In 2015 his own lawyer told him the DUI made him a prohibited person, so he got rid of every gun he owned. Later he applied for a Pennsylvania license to carry firearms and was denied when the FBI’s background check flagged the 2005 conviction.

But the record isn’t spotless, and one of the separate opinions says so. Judge Freeman points out that in 2007 Williams answered “no” on a Pennsylvania State Police form asking about any conviction punishable by more than a year, and kept about twenty guns until 2014 after his carry license had been revoked over the DUI.

He sued in 2017. The district court ruled for him in November 2023, the government appealed, and the full court reheard the case en banc on February 11, 2026.

How the Third Circuit Built the Felon Gun Ban Test in Williams

Judge Matey wrote for the court, joined by Judges Hardiman, Bibas, Porter, Phipps, Bove and Mascott. Chief Judge Chagares joined all but the section on rights restoration, plus the judgment, which made eight votes to affirm.

Until 1961 the federal ban covered people convicted of a “crime of violence,” not every felony, so the majority would not take the label on faith: “simply pointing to Williams’s felony because it is labeled ‘felony’ does not do.” Instead the court looks at the elements of the old offense. The key sentence: “If the predicate offense lacks threats or violence, then the predicate crime was likely never disarmable.”

Williams’s DUI, the court said, “plainly does not contain threatening or violent elements.” The Justice Department compared it to old laws against “habitual drunkards,” but the Supreme Court’s Hemani decision had already read those laws as aimed “to protect habitual drunkards from themselves and their families from financial devastation.” And most of those commitments were capped at months or a few years.

The court also had a line I expect to see quoted for years. “Someone who swerves in and out of lanes on an electric scooter in Philadelphia is acting dangerously,” it wrote, but the judges would be “surprised to learn that senseless scootering could trigger the loss of the right to speak.” Dangerous driving is not the same thing as a danger with a gun.

As for today, the majority found Williams “has done nothing violent, let alone dangerous, for over twenty years,” and the Justice Department did not challenge his testimony about how little he drinks now.

Why James Bost Lost the Same Day

Bost is the other half of the picture. In 2002 he carjacked a woman, threatening to kill her unless she gave him money, and pleaded guilty to terroristic threats and criminal conspiracy, along with false imprisonment and simple assault.

Years later he skipped a court date while out on bail, and U.S. Marshals found him next to a couch with a stolen .38 caliber pistol on it. The opinion says police caught him with a pistol “not once, but twice.”

Judge Bibas wrote the opinion. Twelve judges voted to affirm, some joining only parts of it or only the judgment, and Judges Phipps and Bove dissented.

The holding is short. Some predicate crimes, “like Bost’s conviction for terroristic threats,” show “a prima facie risk of physical violence from misusing guns,” and people convicted of them “may presumptively be disarmed based on those convictions alone.” Pennsylvania’s law requires “a threat to commit any crime of violence with intent to terrorize another,” and that was enough.

The court also retired its 2025 Pitsilides approach, which it said “is no longer our touchstone.” And it left a middle category open on purpose: crimes that “may not involve immediate violence” but “may fuel it” are closer calls, and “we need not draw them today.”

The Section 925(c) Fight Inside the Williams Opinions

The government’s fallback was rights restoration under Section 925(c). The majority noted that process sat unfunded from 1992 until the Attorney General revived it in 2025, and called it “a slow trickle of relief available only upon invitation.” The DOJ rights restoration rule took effect September 21, but the majority said its duty is to decide the case “based on present facts, not future promises.”

That’s where the court splintered. Chief Judge Chagares would make future challengers go through Section 925(c) first, but excused Williams after nine years in court. Judge Freeman, joined by Judges Montgomery-Reeves and Chung, would have sent Williams back for fact-finding on whether he is dangerous now.

Judge Shwartz, joined by Judges Krause and Restrepo, went furthest the other way. That opinion calls a recidivist DUI the type of crime that should lead to disarmament, and would have dismissed the case so Williams could apply to the Justice Department instead.

What the Williams Ruling Does Not Do

It does not strike down the federal felon gun ban. Section 922(g)(1) is still law everywhere, the same court applied it to Bost the same day, and the Williams judgment covers one man and the record in his case.

It does not reach past the Third Circuit. By the Johnson petition’s count, six other circuits bar as-applied challenges like this regardless of the old offense, so a man with the same DUI record in Colorado or Florida faces a different answer.

It does not settle the middle cases either. For anyone in Pennsylvania, New Jersey or Delaware with an old record, the practical takeaway is small and unhappy: a court or the Justice Department has to say so first, and Williams got there after nine years. Talk to a lawyer before you touch a gun.

The Supreme Court Passed on Johnson the Same Morning

The October 13 order list puts Johnson v. United States, No. 26-270, under certiorari denied, with no dissent noted. Johnson was the nonviolent felon gun ban petition brought by a man whose only felony is a 2015 Colorado marijuana cultivation conviction.

A denial is not a ruling on the merits. But the national question Johnson asked stays unanswered, while the Williams opinion and the Bost opinion keep the Third Circuit on the side that allows these challenges, now with a written test.

Either case can still go up. Any party in a court of appeals case can petition the Supreme Court, and the Court’s Rule 13 sets the usual deadline at 90 days after the judgment. Neither opinion says what the losing side will do.

Two old DUIs. One terroristic threats plea. Same court, same day, opposite answers, and in four jurisdictions the crime on the paperwork now matters more than the word felony on top of it.

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