Background
A Maine state trooper arrested Jason Levasseur in November 2022 while Levasseur was subject to an active felony arrest warrant. The trooper found a loaded hunting rifle in Levasseur’s pickup truck and eight grams of methamphetamine in its center console. Levasseur had six prior Maine felony convictions, including convictions for unlawful firearm possession and methamphetamine possession.
A federal grand jury charged Levasseur with possessing a firearm as a felon under 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1). He moved to dismiss the indictment, arguing that the statute was unconstitutional as applied to him under the Second Amendment. The district court rejected that challenge, reasoning that Levasseur’s felony methamphetamine-possession conviction placed him within a category of people sufficiently dangerous to be disarmed. Levasseur pleaded guilty while preserving his right to appeal and received time served plus three years of supervised release.
The Court’s Holding
The First Circuit affirmed. It assumed without deciding that Levasseur was among “the people” protected by the Second Amendment and that an as-applied challenge to § 922(g)(1) was available. The court therefore proceeded to the historical-tradition step of the framework established by New York State Rifle & Pistol Ass’n v. Bruen.
The court held that Levasseur failed to demonstrate error in the district court’s conclusion that the Nation’s historical tradition permits disarming categories of people who pose a special danger of misusing firearms. His arguments focused on the absence of a violent predicate felony or a finding that he posed a specific threat of violence, but did not meaningfully confront the district court’s broader dangerousness analysis or explain why felony methamphetamine possession could not mark a special danger of firearm misuse. That omission was fatal to his appeal.
Key Takeaways
- The court did not decide whether all people with felony convictions fall within the Second Amendment’s protected “people” or whether every defendant may bring an as-applied challenge to § 922(g)(1).
- The relevant dangerousness inquiry was not limited to prior violence or a specific threat of future violence; it could encompass a special danger of misusing firearms.
- Because Levasseur did not squarely challenge the historical analogues and dangerousness reasoning on which the district court relied, he failed to carry his appellate burden of showing error.
Why It Matters
The decision leaves broader questions about the constitutionality of § 922(g)(1) unresolved while illustrating how briefing choices can determine the outcome of an as-applied Second Amendment appeal. A defendant must engage directly with the district court’s historical analysis and its stated basis for finding that the defendant falls within a constitutionally disarmable category.
The opinion also signals that, in the First Circuit, firearm-related dangerousness need not be confined to convictions formally classified as violent. A drug-possession felony may support disarmament when the defendant fails to refute the conclusion that the offense identifies a special danger of firearm misuse.