Section 922(g)(4) and Mental-Health Findings

On October 29, 2026, the Sixth Circuit rejected a claim that the federal gun ban after a mental-health adjudication is unconstitutional in every case. In United States v. Laykovich, No. 25-5766, a published opinion, the court held that 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(4) can apply to a person a state court recently found dangerous because of mental illness. Read the decision (PDF). The court also affirmed a 48-month prison sentence.

What happened

In January 2023, paramedics found Alexander Laykovich in a hospital parking lot in St. Louis with a gun. An officer wrote that Laykovich pointed at people who were not there and made statements the officer could not follow. His girlfriend said that, on the drive to the hospital, he took his hands off the wheel, and that he had talked about suicide before. The officer took the gun.

A week later, a Missouri court ordered 21 days of involuntary hospitalization. The court found that his mental illness created a likelihood of serious harm to himself or to others. It also barred him from possessing firearms. He never filed a petition to lift the ban.

On January 25, 2024, a sheriff's deputy stopped him near Stanford, Kentucky, after his car swerved over the lines. He was wearing body armor. Officers found eight firearms, including two rifles, plus ammunition, knives, a gasoline can, marijuana, and a pill that contained fentanyl. He said he was driving to Fort Knox to discuss a security clearance. A later search of a storage unit in Wisconsin found fifteen more firearms and two boxes of explosive devices. Those search results are part of the opinion's account. The count that went to judgment was the gun charge under § 922(g)(4).

The government brought a two-count indictment. Laykovich pleaded guilty to the § 922(g)(4) count. The government dismissed the other count. He reserved the right to appeal the facial constitutional claim and the sentence.

What § 922(g)(4) requires

Section 922(g)(4) makes it a crime to possess a firearm after a person "has been adjudicated as a mental defective" or "has been committed to a mental institution." The Sixth Circuit called "mental defective" an outdated phrase. A federal regulation gives the phrase a working meaning. It includes a determination by a court, board, commission, or other lawful authority that a person, as a result of marked subnormal intelligence, or mental illness, incompetency, condition, or disease, is a danger to himself or to others, or lacks the mental capacity to contract or manage his own affairs. 27 C.F.R. § 478.11.

Laykovich's charge used the adjudication path, not a claim that he was still committed to a hospital. The Missouri court had found a likelihood of serious harm. That finding is the kind of danger determination the regulation describes.

A facial challenge argues that a statute is invalid in every application. An as-applied challenge argues that the statute cannot be used on one person's facts. The Supreme Court has said a person bringing a facial challenge must show that "no set of circumstances exists" under which the statute could be applied constitutionally. United States v. Rahimi, 602 U.S. 680, 693 (2024). Laykovich brought only the facial claim.

Why the facial challenge failed

The Second Amendment protects an individual right to keep and bear arms. District of Columbia v. Heller, 554 U.S. 570 (2008). In New York State Rifle & Pistol Ass'n v. Bruen, 597 U.S. 1 (2022), the Supreme Court set a two-step test. First, does the conduct fall within the amendment's text? Second, if it does, has the government shown that the law fits the nation's historical tradition of firearm regulation?

The government did not dispute the first step. Laykovich remained part of "the people." The guns counted as "arms." The statute stopped him from keeping them.

The claim failed at the second step. The court compared § 922(g)(4) with historical laws that let officials detain people whose mental illness made them dangerous. Detention also kept those people away from guns. The court asked the same "why" and "how" questions the Supreme Court uses when it compares a modern gun law with an older one.

The "why" was public safety. The older detention laws and this statute both respond when mental illness creates a risk of harm.

The "how," at least on these facts, had three shared features.

First, process comes before the loss. The statute applies only after a person has been "adjudicated," which means a formal decision. A Missouri court held a hearing and made the finding.

Second, the ban was not treated as permanent on this record. 18 U.S.C. § 925(c) lets a person ask the Attorney General to lift a federal firearm disability. The Attorney General may grant relief if the applicant will not be likely to act in a manner dangerous to public safety and the relief would not be contrary to the public interest. On August 20, 2026, the Justice Department issued a final rule for that process. 91 Fed. Reg. 54,054. Congress also lets a state run a relief program for a person adjudicated under § 922(g)(4). 34 U.S.C. § 40915. The Sixth Circuit said Missouri has such a program, and that Laykovich never filed a petition.

Third, the burden is lighter than the historical one. The older laws locked people up. Section 922(g)(4) forbids gun possession.

Because the statute could be applied to Laykovich, he could not show that it was unconstitutional in every case. The court affirmed the conviction.

The court said the method it had used in Tyler v. Hillsdale County Sheriff's Department, 837 F.3d 678 (6th Cir. 2016) (en banc), no longer binds. Tyler used a balancing test that Bruen later rejected. Tyler had been committed for a few weeks in 1986 and, decades later, had no path to regain firearm rights. The Sixth Circuit said Laykovich's case was different because a restoration path exists and he had not used it. Heller had described bans on firearm possession by "the mentally ill" as presumptively lawful. This court did not stop at that comment. It did the historical comparison itself.

How this differs from the drug-user ban

In United States v. Hemani, 608 U.S. 772 (2026), the Supreme Court held that § 922(g)(3) was unconstitutional as applied to a man who used marijuana about every other day. Section 922(g)(3) bars gun possession by an unlawful user of a controlled substance. The Sixth Circuit used Hemani as a contrast. That statute can reach someone with no court finding and no hearing. Section 922(g)(4) starts only after an adjudication.

The court said it was not adopting a broad rule that the government may disarm anyone it deems dangerous. It relied on a narrower historical rule: the government may detain, and so disarm, people who have been adjudicated a present risk to public safety because of mental illness. Laykovich did not dispute that the Missouri order put him in that group.

The straw-purchase increase

Laykovich also challenged the sentence. The district court added two offense levels under the 2024 Sentencing Guidelines, § 2K2.1(b)(5)(B)(iii). That clause applied when a defendant received a firearm by inducing someone else to buy it for a person who could not lawfully possess it. The opinion says the increase has since moved to § 2K2.1(b)(6)(B)(iii). The Guidelines Manual effective November 1, 2026 still places that inducing increase at § 2K2.1(b)(6)(B)(iii).

The parties agreed on the ordinary meaning of inducing: to move or prevail upon someone to make the purchase. They disagreed about what happened. The district court found that Laykovich persuaded his girlfriend to buy guns for him. Before the Missouri case, he bought firearms himself, and she had bought none of the guns later found with him. In February 2023, a seller refused to sell him a gun. After that, she bought eight of the firearms found in his possession, including five in the car. She denied buying them for him. The district court did not credit that denial. Her account conflicted with purchase records and with other statements.

The Sixth Circuit treated that dispute as a question of what happened and reviewed it for clear error. Clear error means the appeals court leaves a factual finding in place when the record can support it. The court called the district court's reading plausible. Circumstantial evidence was enough. The government did not need a direct admission. At sentencing the standard is a preponderance of the evidence, meaning more likely than not.

The increase produced a range of 46 to 57 months. The district court imposed 48 months. In the Sixth Circuit, a sentence inside the guideline range is presumed reasonable. The appeals court looks at the length for abuse of discretion under 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a). It said the district court weighed the number and type of weapons against mitigating facts, including military service, and chose a sentence near the bottom of the range. Laykovich asked the appeals court to rebalance those factors. The court declined and affirmed.

From my perspective

The shape of the claim decided the constitutional issue. A facial attack loses if the statute has even one constitutional application. The court used Laykovich's own record as that application: a recent judicial finding of danger, and no request to lift the disability. That is a different problem from Hemani, where the drug-user statute reached someone with no adjudication at all.

The sentencing point is concrete. The two-level increase does not require the buyer to admit the arrangement. A change in who purchased the guns, right after a refused sale, can support the finding when the judge credits that account over a denial.

The opinion affirms this judgment. It does not analyze a different record, such as an old adjudication after the person has already asked a court or the Attorney General to restore firearm rights. Tyler concerned that kind of lasting ban. This court said Tyler's balancing test is no longer the method. It did not decide how Bruen applies to that different record.

Federal gun charges explains the § 922(g) statutes, including who may not possess a firearm. United States v. Youngblood explains how the Ninth Circuit treated Hemani, the Supreme Court decision on the separate ban for unlawful drug users. The federal appeal process covers how an appeal uses the record made in the district court. Book a consultation and tell us what happened.