Two Third Circuit hearings could reshape nation’s Second Amendment rights

PHILADELPHIA (CN) — An en banc Third Circuit panel on Wednesday heard two cases involving firearms that could each have significant implications for the future of gun rights in the United States.

Koons v. Attorney General New Jersey

First, the panel questioned whether a series of New Jersey gun laws — which prohibit firearms in “sensitive places” such as parks, zoos and libraries — violate the Second Amendment.

The state laws in question were introduced following the Supreme Court’s paradigmatic ruling in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen, which requires all firearm regulations to be consistent with “historical tradition” rooted in the nation’s founding era.

After New Jersey enacted a series of post-Bruen limitations on public carrying of arms, several gun rights advocates and organizations sued, arguing no such historical tradition existed.

Representing New Jersey, attorney Angela Cai vehemently disagreed.

“The totality of this nation’s history … confirms that legislatures could ban firearms at such locations,” Cai told the appeals court. “Where history and tradition only point in one direction, as they do here, we must accept the destination.”

Pressing Cai, the judges questioned how the state came to determine what qualifies as a “sensitive place” deserving of Second Amendment restrictions under federal law.

“It’s never been defined, right?” asked U.S. Circuit Judge Paul Matey, a Donald Trump appointee. “And I understand at least one example of what it means could be places where government provided comprehensive security, right? And so, we would know that a courthouse, a military base — these are places where going armed was severely restricted. Isn’t that a helpful way of thinking about this?”

“That argument has to be based on the history, and the history is just not there,” Cai replied.

When questioned by U.S. Circuit Judge Jennifer L. Mascott — also a Trump appointee — on why New Jersey would consider zoos and libraries as sensitive places but not bakeries, Cai referred to historical traditions of restricting the former two locations but not the latter, adding that zoos and libraries “were understood as locations where people gathered for literary and scientific purposes” at the nation’s founding.

Representing several of the gun rights advocates, attorney Erin E. Murphy argued the Garden State had improperly defined “almost the entirety of New Jersey” as sensitive places, describing the state’s description as “the epitome of a definition so broad as to eviscerate” the constitutional right to publicly carry arms.

“What we very much take issue with is that firearms may be prohibited essentially anywhere where people congregate.”

However, Murphy conceded that the state could limit public carrying of firearms in certain places like schools, locations containing a physical safety hazard, such as power plants, and locations dedicated to individuals considered dangerous, such as mental health and correctional facilities.

Still, U.S. Circuit Judge Cheryl Ann Krause, a Barack Obama appointee, appeared to oppose Murphy’s restrictive definition of a safety hazard.

“We have firearms now that, for example, in Dayton, Ohio, killed nine people and injured 17 in 32 seconds,” Krause said. “Why, in that circumstance, is it unreasonable for a legislature to make the determination that the presence of firearms — where it terrorizes people, where the public that’s there may overreact or law enforcement may overreact, leading to violence — to use those locations as sensitive locations? Why doesn’t that fit into your category of those locations that have the attributes that would make a safety hazard?”

Murphy replied, suggesting that such limitations would effectively nullify the right to carry arms in public entirely.

“Once you start defining it the way you’ve suggested, I’m not sure if there’s any limiting principle,” Murphy told Krause. “You necessarily end up reaching any place where people congregate in large numbers. … It can’t be that ‘sensitive places’ is a concept so broad that it covers everywhere outside the home that people actually go.”

Williams v. Attorney General United States of America

After discussing concerns over the public carrying of firearms, the en banc panel set its sights on who can have the right to carry a firearm at all.

In 2005, the U.S. government stripped Pennsylvania man Edward Williams of his Second Amendment rights following a 2005 state DUI conviction. Despite only receiving 90 days of house arrest, his conviction could have resulted in up to five years’ imprisonment, overcoming the one-year threshold for disarmament.

Williams sued the federal government in 2017 and was granted summary judgment in federal court in 2023 after a federal judge ruled there was no historical tradition of disarming nonviolent drunk drivers. 

The government promptly appealed.

Representing the United States, attorney Vivek Suri focused his argument on 18 U.S.C. Section 925(c) — a federal statute allowing individuals with federal firearms disabilities to apply to the Justice Department for restoration of their Second Amendment rights.

Inactive since 1993, the Trump administration began the revival of the program in 2025, with an online application process anticipated to open this year.

With the revival of Section 925(c), Suri argued, Williams must now first request relief from the executive branch’s program before making any such argument in court.

U.S. Circuit Judge Peter J. Phipps, a Trump appointee, did not appear eager to grant the Justice Department that authority.

“Isn’t that very akin to relying on the pardon power?” Phipps asked Suri.

“I appreciate that concern,” Suri replied. “And if it were a matter of grace like the pardon power, then our argument would not work.”

“But isn’t it really close to a matter of grace?” Phipps asked.

“No,” Suri replied. “There’s judicial review on the back end. There’s no judicial review in the context of pardons.”

Still, Phipps appeared unconvinced.

“We typically think of judicial review of agency decisions as confined to the agency record, and now you’re saying, ‘No no no, [this is] something completely new.’ And so it feels to me that you don’t really have traditional judicial review of agency action, but kind of a separate judicial process with a whole new record that parties can create, leaving the 925(c) process much more like the pardon power.”

Representing Williams, attorney Joshua Prince argued that Section 925(c) doesn’t even apply to Williams, as an individual must first state that they are prohibited from owning a firearm in order to obtain relief via the program — a position that Williams denies.

“This challenge is in relation to whether, constitutionally, the government can even deny them to begin with,” Prince said.

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