DOJ Declines To Seek SCOTUS Certiorari In Range v. Bondi

Another roadblock for Democrats seeking ultimate authority to disarm Americans

May 02, 2025 By Darwin Nercesian, News Field Editor

The Department of Justice (DOJ) has decided not to seek certiorari in Range v. Bondi, declining to pursue a reversal of a Third Circuit Court of Appeals decision that restores the right to purchase and possess firearms to Bryan David Range, a Pennsylvania man who pleaded guilty in 1995 to one count of making a false statement to obtain food stamp assistance. Brought during the Biden administration, the case was formerly known as Range v. Garland. While this is a victory for the Second Amendment, it is a narrow one that only applies to the Third Circuit, consisting of Delaware, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania. The ruling even more narrowly applies to Range himself, creating precedent without adopting a more definite standard of dangerousness as the “touchstone” for rights removal, kicking the indeterminacy can of the history-and-tradition test down the road.

In 1995, when Range was earning approximately $300 per week, his wife applied for food stamp assistance, failing to list her husband’s income. Range took responsibility for the omission, which, under Pennsylvania law, at the time qualified as a first-degree misdemeanor punishable by a maximum of five years’ imprisonment. Although he never went to prison, the conviction triggered the application of § 922(g)(1), which Range claimed he had not been made aware of by the prosecutor or judge at the time of pleading. This would result in a lifetime firearms and ammunition possession ban. He only discovered this after researching two denials of subsequent attempts to purchase a gun.

The problem with § 922(g)(1) is that it makes it “unlawful for any person... who has been convicted in any court, of a crime punishable by imprisonment for a term exceeding one year” to “possess in or affecting commerce, any firearm or ammunition.” § 922(g)(1) applies this standard without respect to non-violent offenders who have not been deemed a danger to society, a disparity in the law that Range correctly asserted as a violation of his Second Amendment rights when he filed suit in the District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania in 2020.

The lawsuit did not vindicate Range, as the late Judge Pratter applied Binderup v. Attorney General, the Third Circuit’s test to determine whether a crime is serious enough to warrant a ban on firearms possession, granting summary judgment to the government and dismissing Range’s challenge. Range appealed later that year to the Third Circuit Court of Appeals. Between filing and the Third Circuit hearing the case, the United States Supreme Court issued the landmark ruling in New York Rifle & Pistol Association, Inc. v Bruen, which established a history-and-tradition test that abrogated the seriousness standard in Binderup. Nonetheless, a three blind mice panel of “judges” unanimously used a perversion of Bruen to affirm the district court’s ruling that the application of § 922(g)(1) as applied to Range was Constitutional.

Range then petitioned for an en banc hearing in front of the full Third Circuit Court of Appeals, which was granted and ultimately resulted in the decision being reversed and remanded on June 6, 2023, so the district court could grant declaratory judgment in Range’s favor. The decision held that Range was one of “the people” protected by the Second Amendment, and that the government did not meet the burden of establishing that § 922(g)(1), as applied to Range, was consistent with the history and tradition of firearms regulation in the United States.

Under then-Attorney General Merrick Garland, the DOJ petitioned the Supreme Court for a writ of certiorari on October 5, 2023, after Justice Alito granted a one-month extension on the deadline. The government requested a plenary review to determine whether the lower court's conclusion on the law is correct, but added that if such a review were declined, the High Court should Grant, Vacate, and Remand (GVR) the case back to the Third Circuit Court of Appeals. That’s precisely what happened, as the Supreme Court granted the petition, vacated the judgment, and remanded the case back to the Third Circuit Court of Appeals on July 2, 2024, for further consideration in light of United States v. Rahimi.

On December 23, 2024, the Third Circuit Court of Appeals upheld its previous ruling, this time with an overwhelming 13-2 majority of Republican and Democrat appointees. Only judges Patty Shwartz and L. Felipe Restrepo, both Democrats, dissented. Shwartz wrote an astonishingly terse dissent, citing a historical tradition of disarming “Native Americans, Blacks, Catholics, Quakers, loyalists, and others” because they were thought to be disloyal.

“No matter how repugnant and unlawful those bans are under contemporary standards, the founders categorically disarmed the members of those groups because they were viewed as disloyal to the sovereign,” Shwartz wrote, not realizing that she was trying to justify a history and tradition argument using precedent she ironically referred to as “repugnant and unlawful.”

Regardless, the en banc panel concluded that Rahimi had granted the government authority to disarm only those people deemed "physically dangerous,” a category in which Range had never been adjudicated or charged with. This is the real question: whether vague and arbitrary standards allow perverse interpretations of the law to grant government authority to disarm citizens, or whether the law is backed by logic and accountability. Of course, none of this means anything to Democrats who have never seen a gun control measure they weren’t in love with, as, for them, the disarmament agenda far exceeds any obligation to reason, the law, or the Constitution.

Right around that time, the nation was preparing for the second inauguration of President Donald Trump, who initially caused concern among conservatives with his appointment of Pam Bondi as United States Attorney General. While Bondi was Florida’s attorney general during Trump’s first administration, her backing of the state’s “stand your ground” and “castle doctrine” laws was heavily overshadowed by her support of red flag laws and banning 18-to-20-year-olds from purchasing firearms as a knee-jerk reaction to mob backlash after the Parkland shooting. But let’s face it, both Trump and Bondi have had a tenuous history with the Second Amendment, which has caused them to be on the wrong side of the debate more times than not.

With President Trump recommitting to Americans on the Second Amendment, and Bondi seemingly walking in lockstep, the current administration had a slow start out of the gate, but has been dialing up the pressure in recent months after the President’s February 7 Executive Order, Protecting Second Amendment Rights. While we await Bondi’s report on the status of the Second Amendment and analysis of government infringement upon the Constitutionally enumerated right to bear arms, the DOJ has taken steps that indicate it is working to that end, including repealing the Biden-era zero-tolerance policy with FFLs, re-opening the rights restoration process for individuals to petition for restored gun rights, opening investigations into states and agencies accused of gun rights violations, and establishing a Second Amendment Task Force.

The DOJ struck again with Range, allowing an April 22 deadline to file for certiorari to pass, letting stand the Third Circuit Court of Appeals' latest reaffirmation of its ruling. The result is a precedent in favor of non-violent offenders not automatically being stripped of their Second Amendment protections for life. The precedent does not alter cases in outside jurisdictions, and while it may apply to similar cases that arise within the Third Circuit, the ruling does not define dangerousness as a standard for the application of § 922(g)(1) across the country, as it creates a circuit split by conflicting with rulings on the same issue in other circuits. Unfortunately, it would take a legislative change or a ruling from the Supreme Court to turn that corner, neither of which I am confident Congress or the sitting Justices will take on to the satisfaction of Second Amendment supporters.