UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE SIXTH CIRCUIT

┐ UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, │ Plaintiff-Appellee, │ > No. 23-5928 │ v. │ │ SYLVESTER GAILES, │ Defendant-Appellant. │ ┘ Appeal from the United States District Court for the Western District of Tennessee at Memphis. No. 2:22-cr-20250-1—Thomas L. Parker, District Judge.

Argued: September 10, 2024

Decided and Filed: October 10, 2024

Before: MOORE, McKEAGUE, and GRIFFIN, Circuit Judges.

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COUNSEL ARGUED: Unam Peter Oh, OFFICE OF THE FEDERAL PUBLIC DEFENDER, Memphis, Tennessee, for Appellant. Regina Brittenum, UNITED STATES ATTORNEY’S OFFICE, Memphis, Tennessee, for Appellee. ON BRIEF: Unam Peter Oh, Brian Daniel Mounce, OFFICE OF THE FEDERAL PUBLIC DEFENDER, Memphis, Tennessee, for Appellant. Regina Brittenum, UNITED STATES ATTORNEY’S OFFICE, Memphis, Tennessee, for Appellee. No. 23-5928 United States v. Gailes Page 2

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OPINION _________________

GRIFFIN, Circuit Judge.

Each year, millions of acts of domestic violence, and over 1,500 deaths from domestic violence, occur in this country.1 While the law has long prohibited felons from possessing firearms, many domestic-violence offenders are convicted of mere misdemeanors. So, in 1996, Congress prohibited domestic-violence misdemeanants from possessing firearms in order “to close a dangerous loophole in the gun control laws,” given that “firearms and domestic strife are a potentially deadly combination.” United States v. Castleman, 572 U.S. 157, 159–60 (2014) (internal quotation marks and brackets omitted). In Stimmel v. Sessions, 879 F.3d 198, 201 (6th Cir. 2018), we previously upheld this proscription, 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(9), as constitutional. But the Supreme Court’s decision in New York State Rifle & Pistol Ass’n v. Bruen, 597 U.S. 1 (2022), requires us to reconsider our precedent. We now hold that, even though Bruen abrogated Stimmel, the result remains the same: 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(9) is facially constitutional.

I.

Gailes is a serial perpetrator of domestic violence. In 2012, he struck his girlfriend in her face with a closed fist. Two years later, he dragged the same woman—with their children present—“by her hair, pulling out clumps of her hair in the process . . . [and] then pushed her to the ground and kicked her in the head.” And in 2018, he entered a different ex-girlfriend’s residence uninvited and demanded that she cook him something to eat; when she refused, Gailes pulled her “off the couch by her arms,” “grabbed [her] around the neck with his forearm choking her,” said “‘I can end it here[]’ and pulled out a handgun,” and then “began to hit [her] about her

1 Jason Zenor, If You See Something, Say Something: Can Artificial Intelligence Have a Duty to Report Dangerous Behavior in the Home?, 98 Denv. L. Rev. 839, 848 (2021) (citing Martin R. Huecker, Kevin C. King, Gary A. Jordan & William Smock, Domestic Violence, Nat’l Inst. of Health, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/N