Facing Felon-in-Possession Firearm Charges What You Need to Know

During FY 2024, federal courts documented 7,419 cases under the federal law title 18 U.S.C. § 922(g). In the following fiscal year, 2025, 97.7% of offenders were sentenced to prison and served an average term of 72 months. Similarly, convicted offenders whose criminal history triggered application of the Armed Career Criminal Act (ACCA), which is regarded as habitual criminal violence, incurred an average sentence of 192 months.

These numbers show why a Section 922(g) charge demands a defense strategy that’s built from the specific details of the case, not some generic approach to firearms accusations. The elements of the offense, how possession is defined, the impact of earlier convictions and the constitutional challenges opened up by recent Supreme Court rulings. These factors can pressure and cause the results of a case to shift.

Criminal charges that pertain to a gun are acted on with utmost regard due to the consequences that come with them, such as fines and possible jail time. Here’s what to expect if you're facing felony possession of firearm charges. When one understands the elements of this offense and how charges arise, one becomes more cautious in their decisions and actions.

What Section 922(g) prohibits

According to Title 18, section 922(g)(1), most of the American population cannot purchase, possess or handle a firearm or any form of ammunition if he or she has been previously tried for any crime that is punishable by more than one year behind bars. What counts are the highest penalties prescribed by the law, not how long someone has been sentenced to jail in reality. In other words, a person on probation can still get punished with the prohibition from bearing firearms given that the crime had a likelihood of imprisonment beyond one year.

Section 922(g) is not limited to just firearms either. The statute also covers ammunition, not just the weapon itself. In practice, having a single round of ammunition while you’re prohibited can be enough for a charge.

The statute also requires prosecutors to show that the firearm or ammunition traveled in or affected interstate commerce. In most cases, this requirement is relatively easy to satisfy because many firearms and ammunition have crossed state lines at some point before the alleged possession. As a result, the interstate commerce element is rarely a successful defense.

What counts as possession

Actual possession means the firearm was physically on the defendant's person. Constructive possession is broader. In that case, a defendant should not be in possession of the firearm. Further, it should not be in the presence of the defendant. Under federal law, a person is considered in constructive possession of a firearm just by knowing of its presence, having the ability to exercise control over it, and having the intention to do so.

This doctrine creates significant charging risk in shared spaces. A firearm found in a shared bedroom can support a charge against multiple occupants. A firearm found in a vehicle can support a charge against the driver no matter their claims of being ignorant to its presence. The government need only prove that the defendant knew of the firearm and had access to it.

The government must prove that the defendant knowingly possessed the firearm. This is not simply a mental state technicality. It is a disputed factual element in numerous instances.

A defendant who genuinely did not know a firearm was in a vehicle, apartment, or storage space has a factual basis to contest the knowing possession element. The government's ability to establish knowledge depends heavily on circumstantial evidence. That evidence can be contested.

The ACCA enhancement and what prior convictions qualify

The Armed Career Criminal Act ends up putting a 15-year mandatory minimum in front of defendants who get convicted under Section 922(g) and who have three or more earlier convictions that count as violent felonies or serious drug offenses. Having prior crimes tends to push average sentences well past 190 months for those affected.

Keep in mind that ACCA cases are not straightforward. Not every old conviction is automatically useful, and judges have been tightening up what counts as a qualifying predicate offense. In Borden v. United States (2021), the Supreme Court decided that crimes built on a reckless state of mind do not count as violent felonies for ACCA purposes. Since then, lower courts have been using Borden to reject predicate offenses that had previously qualified. Courts identified some state assault convictions, certain burglary convictions, and other types of offenses to fall short of the established federal definition.

Every single court uses what is referred to as the categorical approach to determine whether a previous conviction is an ACCA predicate. In this approach, courts check what the main elements of the earlier state crime were and compare them to the federal definitions of both violent felonies and serious drug offenses.

A closer examination of the activities of the offender is not called for by the courts. When the outlawed conduct is broader in scope than the federal category, courts may no longer account for the prior conviction. A prior conviction from decades ago can still be challenged as a non-qualifying predicate.

Second Amendment challenges after Bruen and Rahimi

The Supreme Court’s 2022 decision in New York State Rifle & Pistol Assoc. v. Bruen changed how lower courts deal with Second Amendment claims. It told the government to demonstrate that a firearms rule is consistent with the nation’s past tradition of firearm regulation. That overall setup unlatched constitutional fights over several parts of Section 922(g), which courts had earlier viewed as settled.

Then, in United States v. Rahimi (2024), the Supreme Court upheld Section 922(g)(8) and proceeded to bar people under domestic violence protective orders from owning firearms.

The Rahimi approach still continues to fuel as-applied challenges to Section 922(g)(1). Here defendants bring the argument that, since they have older, non-violent prior convictions, the statute can’t be applied to them in their own specific situation. This legal dispute may still occur in some courts.

In the case of United States v. Rahimi (2024), the Supreme Court supported the lawfulness of Section 922(g)(8) and translated it into a ban on allowing guns anywhere near people who were covered by domestic violence protection orders. The approach in Rahimi has led to continued as-applied challenges against Section 922(g)(1).

These challenges succeed in a small percentage of cases as outright dismissals, but they have strategic value in a larger proportion. Prosecutors have offered better plea terms, dropped ACCA enhancements, and agreed to sentencing variances in cases where a credible constitutional challenge created uncertainty about the outcome. A defendant with an old non-violent prior, who has been otherwise law-abiding for years, is the profile that fits most strongly for this type of challenge. Anyone wondering whether this challenge fits their case may want to discuss it with a Rhode Island firearms offense lawyer, who is familiar with how local federal courts have been applying Bruen and Rahimi so far.

The Fourth Amendment as the starting point

The primary challenge in countless instances of felon-in-possession is not a matter of the statutory provision or the constitutional issue but rather the inquiries made under the Fourth Amendment. These questions focus on the procedure the government used to seize the firearm.

A weapon that was among the property of an individual picked up at an unlawful checkpoint, an individual not in a police uniform barging into a house without a warrant of any kind, or evidence that was not part of the original search warrant may be determined inadmissible under the exclusionary rule. When the firearm is the primary evidence and it is suppressed, the charge often cannot proceed.

Courts have found Fourth Amendment violations in felon-in-possession cases involving pretextual stops, searches based on anonymous tips without independent corroboration, and searches of vehicles following arrests where the search occurred after the defendant was secured and there was no safety justification. A successful motion to suppress ends the case before the parties need to make any statutory or constitutional arguments.

Why criminal history is as important as the current charge

A Section 922(g) case is, in practice, a case about the defendant's entire criminal history. The base offense level under the sentencing guidelines, whether the ACCA enhancement applies, and whether constitutional challenges are viable depend on which predicate convictions are involved, what their elements are under the relevant state law, and how courts have analyzed offenses that look similar in the same circuit. 

The split between a non-ACCA case and an ACCA case is basically that the average sentence lands at 71 months versus about 199 months. Whether specific prior convictions qualify as ACCA predicates after Borden and the circuit-level applications of Rahimi are the single most consequential questions in many of these cases. It requires the categorical approach analysis that determines what the prior conviction covered under state law at the time of the offense.