USCA11 Case: 24-11730 Document: 30-1 Date Filed: 06/23/2025 Page: 1 of 8

[DO NOT PUBLISH] In the United States Court of Appeals For the Eleventh Circuit ____________________ No. 24-11730 Non-Argument Calendar ____________________ UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Plaintiff-Appellee, versus KELVONTAE BROWN,

Defendant-Appellant.

____________________ Appeal from the United States District Court for the Southern District of Alabama D.C. Docket No. 1:23-cr-00196-CG-MU-1 ____________________ USCA11 Case: 24-11730 Document: 30-1 Date Filed: 06/23/2025 Page: 2 of 8

2 Opinion of the Court 24-11730

Before BRANCH, KIDD, and WILSON, Circuit Judges.

PER CURIAM: Defendant-Appellant Kelvontae Brown appeals his convic- tion for possession of a firearm by a convicted felon, arguing that 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1) is unconstitutional facially and as applied to his case considering New York State Rifle & Pistol Ass’n, Inc. v. Bruen, 597 U.S. 1 (2022), and United States v. Rahimi, 602 U.S. 680 (2024).

He argues that the statute proscribes conduct protected by the Sec- ond Amendment and is inconsistent with this nation’s tradition of firearms regulations. Under both Bruen and Rahimi, § 922(g) is con- stitutional both facially and as applied to Brown. As a result, we affirm.

I.

On March 27, 2023, Mobile Police responded to several 9-1- calls stating that there was a Black male with a handgun—later identified as Brown—running around at an intersection. Officers observed the individual as described, and saw a black object tucked into the front of his pants. An officer observed Brown bend down near some branches and dirt and appear to put something into the pile. The officer pulled up next to Brown. When asked, Brown ad- mitted to placing the gun down in the dirt. Brown informed the officer that he was being chased, and people were shooting at him.

The investigation revealed that there was no sign that there was anyone else shooting or chasing Brown. Brown volunteered to an officer that he was going to jail because he was a felon and not USCA11 Case: 24-11730 Document: 30-1 Date Filed: 06/23/2025 Page: 3 of 8

24-11730 Opinion of the Court 3 supposed to be around guns. Officers recovered the firearm. Brown was previously convicted of felony offenses, including domestic vi- olence by strangulation or suffocation, and theft of property in the first degree. In October 2023, a federal grand jury indicted Brown with possession of a firearm by a convicted felon, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1).

Brown moved to dismiss the indictment, arguing that the Supreme Court’s recent decision in Bruen rendered § 922(g)(1) un- constitutional on its face and as applied to him. The district court denied Brown’s motion to dismiss, ruling that our precedent in United States v. Rozier, 598 F.3d 768 (11th Cir. 2010), foreclosed Brown’s challenge. After the court’s denial of his motion to dismiss, Brown pleaded guilty. The district court sentenced Brown to 30 months’ imprisonment, followed by 3 years’ supervised release.

Brown timely appealed.

II.

Section 922(g)(1) makes it a crime for any person convicted of a felony to possess firearms or ammunition. 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1). Brown argues on appeal that his § 922(g)(1) conviction is unconstitutional in violation of the Second Amendment, given the Supreme Court’s decisions in Bruen and Rahimi. We generally review the constitutionality of a statute de novo. United States v. Gruezo, 66 F.4th 1284, 1292 (11th Cir. 2023) (per curiam).

III.

In District of Columbia v. Heller, the Supreme Court first rec- ognized that the Second Amendment protects an individual’s right USCA11 Case: 24-11730 Document: 30-1 Date Filed: 06/23/2025 Page: 4 of 8

4 Opinion of the Court 24-11730 to possess and carry weapons for lawful self-defense, unconnected with militia service. 554 U.S. 570, 635 (2008). The Court then con- cluded that “on the basis of both text and history,” D.C.’s law pro- hibiting the possession of handguns in homes violated the Second Amendment. Id. at 595. But the Heller Court also acknowledged that the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms was “not unlimited,” emphasizing that “nothing in [its] opinion should be taken to cast doubt on longstanding prohibitions on the possession of firearms by felons.” Id. at 626. The Supreme Court labeled these restrictions as “presumptively lawful.” Id. at 627 n.26. It specifically ruled that Heller only had a right to register his handgun and carry it in his home if he was “not disqualified from the exercise of Sec- ond Amendment rights.” Id. at 635.

After Heller, we considered and rejected a constitutional challenge to § 922(g)(1)’s prohibition on felons possessing firearms.

See Rozier, 598 F.3d at 770–71. We explained, “the first question to be asked” under Heller “is whether one is qualified to possess a fire- arm.” Id. at 770. When making this determination, a convicted felon’s Second Amendment right to bear arms “is not weighed in the same manner as that of a law-abiding citizen.” Id. at 771. In- stead, Heller recognized that prohibiting felons from possessing fire- arms was a “presumptively lawful longstanding prohibition.” Id. (quotation marks omitted). And this language from Heller “sug- gest[ed] that statutes disqualifying felons from possessing a firearm under any and all circumstances do not offend the Second Amend- ment.” Id. We concluded that § 922(g)(1) was a “constitutional USCA11 Case: 24-11730 Document: 30-1 Date Filed: 06/23/2025 Page: 5 of 8

24-11730 Opinion of the Court 5 avenue to restrict the Second Amendment right of certain classes of people,” including those with felony convictions. Id. We rejected Rozier’s argument that the statement from Hel- ler about “longstanding prohibitions on the possession of firearms by felons” was “merely dicta” for two reasons. Id. at 771 n.6. First, to the extent that the statement “limit[ed] the Court’s opinion to possession of firearms by law-abiding and qualified individuals,” it was necessary to the decision reached. Id. Second, even if the state- ment was superfluous to Heller’s holding, we would still afford it “considerable weight,” as dicta from the Supreme Court is not to be lightly ignored. Id. Because Rozier, as a convicted felon, fell within a class of people who could be excluded from firearm pos- session, Rozier’s purpose for possessing a handgun and the fact that he only used the gun in his home for purposes of self-defense were “irrelevant.” Id. at 770.

Several years later, the Supreme Court in Bruen introduced a new framework to correctly apply “Heller’s text-and-history standard.” 597 U.S. at 39. At the first step, the court must decide whether the challenged law burdens conduct protected by the plain text of the Second Amendment. Id. at 17, 32. If the law bur- dens protected conduct, the government must demonstrate the re- striction burdens the Second Amendment right in a way that is “consistent with this Nation’s historical tradition of firearm regula- tion.” Id. at 17.

Applying its historical test, the Court invalidated New York’s licensing law, which required applicants to demonstrate a USCA11 Case: 24-11730 Document: 30-1 Date Filed: 06/23/2025 Page: 6 of 8

6 Opinion of the Court 24-11730 “special need for self-defense” before obtaining a permit to carry firearms in public. Id. at 38. Bruen relied on two main principles.

First, a total or near-total ban on carrying weapons outside the home would infringe the Second Amendment right. Id. Second, the state failed to identify a “historical tradition limiting public carry only to those law-abiding citizens who demonstrate a special need for self-defense.” Id. at 38–39.

Applying Bruen, we rejected a defendant’s Second Amend- ment challenge to § 922(g)(1) in United States v. Dubois, 94 F.4th 1284, 1291–93 (11th Cir. 2024), vacated, 145 S. Ct. 1041 (2025), rein- stated by -- F.4th --, 2025 WL 1553843 (11th Cir. June 2, 2025). We found the challenge was foreclosed by Rozier, which “interpreted Heller as limiting the [Second Amendment] right to ‘law-abiding and qualified individuals’ and as clearly excluding felons from those categories by referring to felon-in-possession bans as presump- tively lawful.” Id. at 1293 (quoting Rozier, 598 F.3d at 771 & n.6).

We also rejected the defendant’s argument that Bruen abrogated Rozier, observing that “Bruen, like Heller, repeatedly described the right as extending only to ‘law-abiding, responsible citizens.’” Id. (quoting Bruen, 597 U.S. at 26). Because Rozier stood as binding, it foreclosed the defendant’s Second Amendment challenge to § 922(g)(1). Id. Then, in Rahimi, the Supreme Court rejected a Second Amendment challenge to 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(8), which prohibits in- dividuals subject to a domestic violence restraining order from pos- sessing a firearm. 602 U.S. at 684–85, 693. The Court again declared USCA11 Case: 24-11730 Document: 30-1 Date Filed: 06/23/2025 Page: 7 of 8

24-11730 Opinion of the Court 7 that prohibitions on “the possession of firearms by ‘felons and the mentally ill,’ are ‘presumptively lawful.’” Id. at 699 (quoting Heller, U.S. at 626–27 & n.26).

The Court observed that in Heller and Bruen, it “used the term ‘responsible’ to describe the class of ordinary citizens who un- doubtedly enjoy the Second Amendment right.” Id. at 701–02.

Even in holding that the statute was not unconstitutional as ap- plied, the Court rejected the government’s argument that a person could be disarmed “simply because he is not ‘responsible.’” Id. at 701. It reasoned that the term was too vague to impose a meaning- ful limitation. Id. But, unlike individuals merely deemed irrespon- sible, “[a]n individual found by a court to pose a credible threat to the physical safety of another may be temporarily disarmed con- sistent with the Second Amendment.” Id. at 702 (emphasis added).

In January 2025, the Supreme Court vacated our decision in Dubois and remanded the case for further consideration after Rahimi. See Dubois, 145 S. Ct. at 1041. We reinstated our previous opinion in June 2025, concluding “that Rahimi—like [Bruen]—did not abrogate our holding in Rozier that section 922(g)(1) is consti- tutional under the Second Amendment.” Dubois, 2025 WL 1553843, at *1. We reasoned that “[t]he only time that the Rahimi majority mentioned felons was to reiterate Heller’s conclusion that prohibitions on the possession of firearms by felons and the men- tally ill are presumptively lawful.” Id. at *5 (internal quotation marks omitted and alterations adopted). We stated in explicit terms that “Rahimi reinforced—not undermined—Rozier.” Id. USCA11 Case: 24-11730 Document: 30-1 Date Filed: 06/23/2025 Page: 8 of 8

8 Opinion of the Court 24-11730 Because Rozier remains binding precedent, it continues to foreclose Brown’s Second Amendment challenge to his conviction under § 922(g)(1). Therefore, we affirm.

AFFIRMED.