Jason Levasseur had a hunting rifle wrapped in a blanket on the back seat of his truck when a Maine state trooper stopped him at a gas station in November 2022. He also had eight grams of methamphetamine in the console, a felony arrest warrant, and six prior felony convictions. He was charged under the federal felon-in-possession statute, 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1), and argued the statute was unconstitutional as applied to him under the Second Amendment. On September 16 the First Circuit, which hears every federal appeal from Massachusetts, said no.
The interesting part is how narrowly it said it. The court relied on a single one of his convictions, possession of methamphetamine, and treated the case as turning on whether that offense places a person in a category that poses “a special danger of misusing firearms.” Levasseur argued he had never been violent and no court had found him a threat to anyone. The court held that was the wrong question, and that failing to address the right one was “fatal to his case.”
The facts the court used
The trooper knew Levasseur had an active felony warrant for a probation violation and was reputed to carry firearms. He took a large knife from Levasseur’s belt, then found the rifle, loaded with two rounds in the magazine and one in the chamber. Levasseur said he had been hunting, without a license, and planned to shoot a deer because he was hungry. He admitted using one to three grams of methamphetamine a day.
His Maine record included three felony convictions for illegal firearm possession, one of them for a machine gun and another for trading a gun with an obliterated serial number for methamphetamine, plus convictions for driving after habitual-offender revocation, methamphetamine possession, and violating bail conditions. All six were felonies.
The district court denied his motion to dismiss on the basis of the drug conviction alone and did not reach the others. Levasseur pleaded guilty, preserved the issue, renewed the motion after the Supreme Court’s 2024 decision in United States v. Rahimi, 602 U.S. 680, lost again, and was sentenced to time served and three years of supervised release. The First Circuit, following the district court, considered only the methamphetamine conviction and only its elements, not the underlying conduct.
What Levasseur conceded
Two things, and they shaped the outcome. He did not argue that § 922(g)(1) is unconstitutional on its face. The Supreme Court has said since District of Columbia v. Heller, 554 U.S. 570 (2008), that “longstanding prohibitions on the possession of firearms by felons” are “presumptively lawful,” and repeated it in Rahimi. He also conceded that the government may disarm categories of dangerous people consistent with the nation’s history and tradition.
His argument was that he is not in any such category. He said dangerousness historically meant violence, that only individuals shown to pose a specific threat to another person could be disarmed, and that a methamphetamine possession conviction is not a violent felony under any reading of its elements.
The court’s answer
Judge Rikelman, writing for a panel that included Chief Judge Barron and Judge Aframe, applied the two-step framework from New York State Rifle & Pistol Ass’n v. Bruen, 597 U.S. 1 (2022). At step one the court assumed without deciding that people with felony convictions are among “the people” the Second Amendment protects. The government argued they are not. The court noted in a footnote that most circuits have held they are, and that the phrase appears in the First and Fourth Amendments too, so it declined to decide a question it did not need to.
At step two the government must show the restriction is consistent with the nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation. The district court had pointed to colonial laws disarming Loyalists, Catholics, Native Americans and others. None of those groups was disarmed for being violent criminals. The common thread, the district court found, was that governments disarmed persons “seen as too dangerous to possess a firearm” because they plausibly threatened the orderly functioning of society if armed. Massachusetts appears in that history. The panel cites a 1776 Massachusetts act disarming Loyalists, and notes those disarmed could “receive their arms again” by order of a committee or the General Court.
The court also relied on proposals from the ratification debates. A Pennsylvania minority proposed that no one be disarmed “unless for crimes committed, or real danger of public injury from individuals.” A motion at the Massachusetts convention would have protected the arms of “peaceable citizens.” The proposals were not adopted, but the court treated them as evidence of what the founding generation understood the right to be.
Against that, Levasseur argued from surety laws and “going armed” laws, which the Supreme Court discussed in Rahimi and which addressed people who posed a clear threat of physical violence. The First Circuit’s response was that the district court had not relied on those laws, so distinguishing them proved nothing. He had to show the analogues the court did rely on were not “relevantly similar” to § 922(g)(1) in why and how they burden the right. He did not try until his reply brief.
The standard: special danger of misuse, not violence
The sentence that will be quoted from this opinion is about the test. Levasseur’s argument that his drug conviction was nonviolent “is not enough on its own to explain why that conviction does not place him into a category of people who pose a special danger of misusing firearms.” The court cited the Supreme Court’s decision this year in United States v. Hemani for the point that the inquiry “centers on whether the individual poses ‘a special danger of misuse,’ not necessarily a danger of physical violence,” and for the observation that “drugs and guns can sometimes make for a dangerous mix.”
The First Circuit has said since United States v. Torres-Rosario, 658 F.3d 110 (1st Cir. 2011), that there may be “some felonies so tame and technical” that people who commit them pose no special danger. Levasseur did not explain why methamphetamine possession is one of them. The district court’s reasoning was that a person who possesses the drug generally has to buy it from someone, and that the connection between drug transactions and firearms is well known. That reasoning was never refuted.
Is the ban permanent
Levasseur’s best argument was about duration. Loyalists could regain their arms by swearing an oath. Section 922(g)(1) disarms for life. The court gave two answers. Legislatures may disarm a person for as long as the person retains the status that marks him as dangerous, which is how the Loyalist laws worked. And it is not clear the federal ban is permanent. Under 18 U.S.C. § 921(a)(20), a conviction for which civil rights have been restored does not count, and only the convicting jurisdiction can restore them. A separate provision, § 925(c), lets a person apply to the Attorney General for relief from the disability, with judicial review of a denial. That program was defunct when Levasseur was convicted, and the court did not analyze it further.
Where this leaves the circuits
The opinion’s footnotes are a map of a split the Supreme Court has so far declined to resolve. Four circuits, the Fourth, Eighth, Ninth and Second, foreclose as-applied challenges to § 922(g)(1) entirely. Three, the Third, Fifth and Sixth, permit them, with the Sixth holding that a person disarmed on a class-wide basis “must have a reasonable opportunity to prove that they don’t fit the class-wide generalization.” The First Circuit assumed in Levasseur’s favor that an as-applied challenge is available and rejected his on the merits, which means the question of whether such a challenge can ever succeed in this circuit remains open.
What it means in Massachusetts
Federal prosecutions in Boston, Worcester and Springfield are governed by this decision. A defendant charged under § 922(g)(1) in the District of Massachusetts who wants to argue the statute is unconstitutional as to him now has to do what Levasseur did not: engage with the dangerousness analysis on its own terms and explain why his predicate offense is one of the “tame and technical” felonies, not merely a nonviolent one. A drug conviction will not get there on the strength of being nonviolent.
State law runs on a separate track and is stricter. Massachusetts does not have a felon-in-possession statute in the federal sense. It has a licensing system, and a person cannot lawfully possess a firearm without a license or firearm identification card. Under G.L. c. 140, § 121F, a person is a “prohibited person” who cannot be issued either if he has ever been convicted of a felony, a misdemeanor punishable by more than two years, a violent crime, any firearms offense carrying possible imprisonment, or any drug offense under chapter 94C or a similar law elsewhere. For the misdemeanor, firearms and drug categories the disqualification from a firearm identification card lasts five years after conviction or release from supervision. For a felony it does not expire. Possessing a firearm without the required license is punished under G.L. c. 269, § 10.
The Second Amendment argument Levasseur made is available against the state scheme too, and it will fare no better on the same reasoning. What the opinion does not say is that every felony conviction is enough. It says the argument has to be about the risk of misuse, and that the one felony the court looked at here was not close.
What did the First Circuit decide in United States v. Levasseur?
That the federal felon-in-possession statute is constitutional as applied to a defendant whose predicate felony was methamphetamine possession, because he failed to show the district court erred in finding he belongs to a category of people who pose a special danger of misusing firearms.
Does a felon have to be violent to be disarmed?
No. The court held the inquiry is whether the person poses a special danger of misusing firearms, not whether he has a history of violence or has been found a specific threat to another person.
Can a felon ever get gun rights back under federal law?
A conviction for which civil rights have been restored by the convicting state does not count under 18 U.S.C. § 921(a)(20). A separate application process to the Attorney General exists under § 925(c) but was not funded at the time of this case.
Can a felon get a gun license in Massachusetts?
No. A felony conviction anywhere makes a person a prohibited person under G.L. c. 140, § 121F, with no expiration. Some lesser disqualifications expire after five years.
Does this decision bind Massachusetts courts?
It binds the federal district court in Massachusetts. State courts are not bound by First Circuit decisions on federal constitutional questions, though they treat them as persuasive.
Opinion read in full: United States v. Levasseur, No. 24-1687 (1st Cir. Sept. 16, 2026) (Rikelman, J.). Heller, Bruen, Rahimi, Torres-Rosario and Kanter v. Barr verified on CourtListener. United States v. Hemani (2026) and the First Circuit’s 2026 decisions in Vizcaíno-Peguero and Minor are cited as the panel cited them; they postdate the citation databases used here. G.L. c. 140, § 121F and c. 269, § 10 read at malegislature.gov. Mr. Levasseur’s convictions are matters of record. General information about federal and Massachusetts law, not legal advice.