Man Convicted of Nonviolent Crime Can Own Gun, U.S. Court Rules

A federal appeals court ruled on Tuesday that a man who committed a nonviolent crime cannot be legally prevented from owning a firearm — a potential setback to gun regulations spurred by a Supreme Court ruling last year that vastly expanded the right to bear arms.

In an 11-to-4 ruling, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit in Philadelphia overturned court decisions against Bryan Range, a Pennsylvania resident who had sued the state after being blocked from buying a shotgun over a conviction for lying on a benefits application in the 1990s.

In a majority opinion, Judge Thomas M. Hardiman repeatedly cited the Supreme Court ruling last June, written by Justice Clarence Thomas, in which the majority established a new standard that dictated that gun laws conform to “historical tradition” dating to the 18th and 19th centuries.

“In sum, we reject the government’s contention that only ‘law-abiding, responsible citizens’ are counted among ‘the people’ protected by the Second Amendment,” wrote Judge Hardiman, a George W. Bush appointee who was on President Donald J. Trump’s short list to serve on the Supreme Court after the death of Justice Antonin Scalia in 2016.

It is unclear whether the ruling applies to similar cases involving people who have committed low-level crimes, or whether it will have broader impact. Mr. Range’s lawyer, Michael P. Gottlieb, said he had brought the case for the “benefit of my client only” and said he believed it would make its way to the Supreme Court if the Justice Department is “unwise enough to appeal.”

A spokesman for the department did not immediately reply to a request for comment.

The judges who sided with Mr. Range sought to play down the decision’s significance.

Judge Hardiman wrote that his opinion was narrow, pertaining only in cases involving nonviolent crime convictions with relatively lengthy potential prison sentences. Three judges concurring with the majority wrote that the decision “does not spell doom” for a section of federal law that strips gun ownership from anyone “convicted in any court of a crime punishable by imprisonment for a term exceeding one year.”

Eric Tirschwell, the executive director of Everytown Law, a gun control organization that filed a brief supporting the lifetime gun ban imposed on Mr. Range, also said that the decision was likely to have a limited impact. He cited an opposing decision last week by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit in St. Louis reaffirming the government’s right to deny guns to convicted felons.

“We expect that the vast majority of those convicted of felonies will continue to be prohibited from possessing firearms — as another federal court of appeals ruled just days ago,” he said.

But in a sharply worded dissent, Judge Patty Shwartz, an Obama appointee to the Third Circuit, predicted the majority opinion would set a broad and dangerous precedent.

“While my colleagues state that their opinion is narrow, the analytical framework they have applied to reach their conclusion renders most, if not all, felon bans unconstitutional,” she wrote.

No matter the sweep of the ruling, Judge Hardiman’s opinion directly addressed many of the core issues raised in the Supreme Court’s decision last June, in expansive language that seemed to suggest that the constitutional foundation of many gun laws was eroding.

The judge wrote that punishing Mr. Range by revoking his gun rights for an offense that did not involve violence gave lawmakers too much power “to manipulate the Second Amendment” by labeling as a criminal someone like Mr. Range, who led an otherwise law-abiding life.

Under federal laws, people convicted of state or federal crimes that are punishable by more than a year in prison are barred from buying weapons. In some states, including Pennsylvania, such a ban takes effect after conviction on a misdemeanor that has a potential sentence of at least a year. In his welfare fraud conviction, Mr. Range faced a maximum penalty of five years in prison but received probation.

Judge Hardiman went on to argue that Justice Thomas’s opinion for the majority in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen, had, essentially, flipped the script. The onus was no longer on Mr. Range to show why his gun rights should be restored, the judge said, but rather on the government, which now must justify what he described as its attempt to infringe on someone’s Second Amendment rights.

The case, which national groups on both sides of the firearms debate have been closely following, is the latest to join a succession of federal court rulings that roll back existing gun regulations.

Among those waiting to see how broadly Tuesday’s decision will be interpreted — Hunter Biden and his legal team.

Mr. Biden’s lawyers have told Justice Department prosecutors, who are investigating whether to charge him in connection with lying about his drug use on a federal gun permit, that a prosecution of him could be ruled moot by court decisions like the Range case, which was decided in the circuit court that includes Delaware.

Christopher Clark, a lawyer for Mr. Biden, did not respond to a request for comment.

Charlie Savage and Michael S. Schmidt contributed reporting.