Federal Ban on Felons Having a Gun Faces Appeals Court Scrutiny

A defendant convicted under a federal law barring felons from possessing a firearm argued to the Sixth Circuit Tuesday that the law doesn’t hold up under the Supreme Court’s 2022 Bruen decision—but the judges questioned if the issue had been properly preserved for their review.

Oral argument centered around whether the defendant, Robert Burrell, was timely in bringing his Bruen challenge so the US Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit could review it de novo rather than for a plain error in the lower court’s decision dismissing the challenge.

“It’s not quite clear what the law ...