George Pitsilides v. WILLIAM P. BARR, Attorney General of the United States

PRECEDENTIAL
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE THIRD CIRCUIT
________________
No. 21-3320
________________
GEORGE PITSILIDES,
Appellant
v.
WILLIAM P. BARR, Attorney General of the United States;
THOMAS E. BRANDON, Acting Director, Bureau of
Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives; CHRISTOPHER
WRAY, Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation;
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
________________
On Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Middle District of Pennsylvania
(D.C. No. 3:19-cv-01736)
District Judge: Honorable Malachy E. Mannion
________________
Argued on January 8, 2025
Before: KRAUSE, BIBAS, and AMBRO, Circuit Judges

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(Opinion filed: February 10, 2025)
Richard S. Roberts, Jr. [ARGUED]
Zator Law
4400 Walbert Avenue
Allentown, PA 18104
Counsel for Appellant
Brian M. Boynton
John C. Gurganus
Mark B. Stern
Michael S. Raab
Abby C. Wright
Kevin B. Soter [ARGUED]
United States Department of Justice
Civil Division
950 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W.
Washington, DC 20530
Carlo D. Marchioli
Office of United States Attorney
Middle District of Pennsylvania
Sylvia H. Rambo United States Courthouse
1501 N 6th Street, 2nd Floor
Harrisburg, PA 17102
Counsel for the Appellees

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________________
OPINION OF THE COURT
________________
KRAUSE, Circuit Judge.
In our recent decision in Range v. Attorney General, 124
F.4th 218 (3d Cir. 2024) (en banc) (Range II), we held that 18
U.S.C. § 922(g)(1), the federal felon-in-possession statute, was
unconstitutional as applied to a plaintiff who, after the
completion of his sentence, brought a declaratory judgment
action seeking prospective protection to possess a firearm.
Here, Appellant George Pitsilides seeks identical relief—a
declaratory judgment entitling him to prospectively possess a
firearm. But as we explained in Range II, a felon’s entitlement
to that relief turns on his individual circumstances and conduct.
See 124 F.4th at 232.
Because the parties litigated this case in the District
Court under a Second Amendment framework that has since
been abrogated—and which turned on different
considerations—we conclude that further factual development
is needed to properly consider Pitsilides’ challenge.
Accordingly, we will affirm in part, vacate in part, and remand
to the District Court for further proceedings.
I. Background
Pitsilides is a frequent gambler. While he operates a
successful chain of restaurants in Virginia, North Carolina, and
South Carolina, he has “been a professional poker player for a

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good amount of years,” which he describes as his “hobby.”
App. 38. His poker endeavors have proven quite successful,
so much so that Pitsilides has competed in the World Series of
Poker.
But Pitsilides’ gambling activities extended beyond the
professional. In 1998, he was indicted in Pennsylvania in
connection with placing illegal sports bets—sometimes
consisting of tens of thousands of dollars—with a bookmaker.
He pleaded nolo contendere to one count of criminal
conspiracy to commit pool selling and bookmaking and two
counts of pool selling and bookmaking in Pennsylvania, in
violation of 18 Pa. Con. Stat. §§ 903, 5514(1), and 5514(3).
Pennsylvania classifies each of these offenses as a first-degree
misdemeanor punishable by up to five years’ imprisonment.
See id. §§ 106(b)(6), 1104(1). As such, § 922(g)(1), which
applies to anyone “who has been convicted [of] a crime
punishable by imprisonment for a term exceeding one year,”
bars Pitsilides from possessing a firearm.
Following these convictions, Pitsilides continued to
gamble illegally. Between 2006 and 2011, Pitsilides regularly
organized poker games at his Virginia Beach property that
“were staffed by security, waitresses, and dealers, all of whom
worked for tips.”1 App. 52. In April 2011, a SWAT team
raided one of these games, and Pitsilides was charged with
three felony counts of operating an illegal gambling enterprise.
He ultimately pleaded guilty to two counts of the lesser offense
of owning a place where illegal gambling is occurring, each a
1 These games appear to be a continuation of poker games
Pitsilides originally organized in 1979 that “continued on and
off for the next 27 years.” App. 52.

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Class 1 misdemeanor punishable by up to one year of
imprisonment.2 See Va. Code §§ 18.2-11, 18.2-329.
In October 2019, Pitsilides filed a complaint in the
District Court seeking a declaration that § 922(g)(1) is
unconstitutional as applied to him and an order permanently
enjoining its enforcement against him. He also argued that
§ 922(g)(1) did not apply to him because his predicate offense
fell within 18 U.S.C. § 921(a)(20)(A)’s carveout for “offenses
pertaining to antitrust violations, unfair trade practices,
restraints of trade, or other similar offenses relating to the
regulation of business practices.” After conducting discovery,
which yielded a set of stipulated material facts, the parties
cross-moved for summary judgment.
The District Court granted summary judgment in favor
of the Government, applying the two-step framework from our
decision in Binderup v. Attorney General, 836 F.3d 336 (3d
Cir. 2016) (en banc), abrogated by New York State Rifle &
Pistol Ass’n v. Bruen, 597 U.S. 1 (2022). The Court concluded
that Pitsilides failed to show his convictions were not
“serious,” relying on the “cross-jurisdictional consensus” that
bookmaking, pool selling, and similar crimes are sufficiently
2 These offenses do not serve as predicate offenses for
§ 922(g)(1)’s prohibition due to their maximum term of
imprisonment. See 18 U.S.C. § 921(a)(20)(B) (excluding from
§ 922(g)(1) “any State offense classified by the laws of the
State as a misdemeanor and punishable by a term of
imprisonment of two years or less”). That is not to say,
however, that those convictions must be disregarded in
determining whether Pitsilides poses a continuing danger of
firearm misuse. See infra Section III.B.2.

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serious to make § 922(g)(1) constitutional as applied to him.
Pitsilides v. Barr, No. 19-01736, 2021 WL 5441513, at *6
(M.D. Pa. Nov. 19, 2021). It also rejected Pitsilides’ argument
under § 921(a)(20)(A) because his “bookmaking and pool
selling offenses do not entail an element of economic harm to
competition or consumers.” Id. at *3. This timely appeal
followed.
II. Jurisdiction and Standard of Review
The District Court had jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C.
§§ 1331 and 1343. We exercise jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C.
§ 1291. Summary judgment is appropriate only where there is
no genuine dispute of material fact and the movant is entitled
to judgment as a matter of law. See Lozano v. New Jersey, 9
F.4th 239, 243 (3d Cir. 2021). We review the District Court’s
grant of summary judgment de novo, in each instance viewing
all facts in the light most favorable to the nonmoving party. Id.
III. Discussion
Pitsilides takes two positions on appeal, replaying those
he advanced in the District Court. First, he contends that his
predicate convictions for bookmaking and pool selling fall into
§ 921(a)(20)(A)’s carveout from § 922(g)(1). Second, if
§ 922(g)(1) does apply to him, Pitsilides argues it is
unconstitutional under the Second Amendment. Both
arguments fail.
A. Section 921(a)(20)(A)
We turn first to Pitsilides’ contention that his predicate
convictions fall within 18 U.S.C. § 921(a)(20)(A)’s carveout

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from § 922(g)(1)’s application. While framed as a secondary
argument, prudence and principles of constitutional avoidance
favor deciding statutory issues before constitutional ones, see
Kajmowicz v. Whitaker, 42 F.4th 138, 153–54 (3d Cir. 2022),
so we consider whether that carveout applies to Pitsilides’
convictions before reaching his Second Amendment challenge.
Section 921(a)(20)(A) creates an exception to
§ 922(g)(1) by specifying that “[t]he term ‘crime punishable by
imprisonment for a term exceeding one year’ does not include
. . . offenses pertaining to antitrust violations, unfair trade
practices, restraints of trade, or other similar offenses relating
to the regulation of business practices.” Pitsilides insists that
his Pennsylvania bookmaking and pool selling convictions
qualify as “other similar offenses” included in this section. We
disagree.
Our Court has not previously interpreted the scope of
§ 921(a)(20)(A), but we have little difficulty concluding that it
does not encompass gambling-related crimes like bookmaking
and pool selling. As always, we begin with the text. See Devon
Robotics, LLC v. DeViedma, 798 F.3d 136, 142 (3d Cir. 2015).
The phrase “other similar offenses relating to the regulation of
business practices” follows an enumeration of particular types
of offenses, namely those “pertaining to antitrust violations,
unfair trade practices, [and] restraints of trade.” 18 U.S.C.
§ 921(a)(20)(A). We generally interpret a catchall phrase, like
that contained in § 921(a)(20)(A), “in light of its surrounding
context and read [it] to ‘embrace only objects similar in nature’
to the specific examples preceding it.” Harrington v. Purdue
Pharma L.P., 603 U.S. 204, 217 (2024) (quoting Epic Sys.
Corp. v. Lewis, 584 U.S. 497, 512 (2018)); accord Antonin
Scalia & Bryan Garner, Reading Law 199 (2012). This

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foundational interpretive canon—often called ejusdem
generis—serves the straightforward purpose of “afford[ing] a
statute the scope a reasonable reader would attribute to it.”
Purdue, 603 U.S. at 218.
Here, then, we must read the “other similar offenses”
clause in light of the list of offenses preceding it, which
confines its meaning to those that share common attributes
with “antitrust violations, unfair trade practices, [and]
restraints of trade.” By using the term “offenses,”
§ 921(a)(20)(A) focuses on the “the charged violation of law.”
Dreher v. United States ex rel. U.S. Bureau of Alcohol,
Tobacco & Firearms, 115 F.3d 330, 332 (5th Cir. 1997). And
a charged violation of law consists of “the elements of
the charged offense for the prior conviction.” United States v.
Coleman, 609 F.3d 699, 704 (5th Cir. 2010) (emphasis
omitted). Accordingly, to determine whether a particular
offense qualifies as a “similar offense[] relating to the
regulation of business practices,” we must focus on the
elements of the predicate conviction.
While the statute does not specify the salient element(s),
our sister circuits have converged on the element “that
competition or consumers were affected.” United States v.
Schultz, 586 F.3d 526, 530 (7th Cir. 2009). We find this
reasoning persuasive. So to determine whether a given
predicate constitutes a “similar offense,” we ask whether “the
government would have been required to prove, as an element
of the predicate offense, that competition or consumers were
affected.” Id.; accord Dreher, 115 F.3d at 332–33; United
States v. Stanko, 491 F.3d 408, 416 (8th Cir. 2007).

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Pitsilides’ convictions for bookmaking and pool selling
do not contain such an element. The Pennsylvania Code
provides that a person is guilty of pool selling and bookmaking
if he “receives, records, registers, forwards, or purports or
pretends to forward, to another, any bet or wager upon the
result of any political nomination, appointment or election, or
upon any contest of any nature.” 18 Pa. Con. Stat. § 5514(3).
Thus, in Pitsilides’ case, the elements of the conviction are (1)
registering a bet or wager upon the result of (2) a contest of any
kind. See Pennsylvania Suggested Standard Criminal Jury
Instructions, Pa. SSJI(Crim), § 15.5514. Neither bears on
competition, trade, consumers, or commerce.
Pitsilides attempts to evade this conclusion by
recharacterizing his convictions as “effectively undercut[ting]
the market by participating in gambling activities outside of a
state-sanctioned context” and “creating unfair competition.”
Opening Br. 23. But we examine the elements of predicate
offenses, not arguable effects on or attenuated relationships to
consumers and competition. As the Seventh Circuit observed,
“not all offenses related to the regulation of business practices
fall within [§ 921(a)(20)(A)’s] exclusion,” Schultz, 586 F.3d at
530, and this elements-focused inquiry ensures consistency of
application and avoids inflating the catchall phrase to sweep in
offenses plainly distinct from “antitrust violations, unfair trade
practices, [and] restraints of trade,” 18 U.S.C. § 921(a)(20)(A).
Because Pitsilides’ predicate convictions do not contain
an element that competition or consumers were affected, they
do not qualify for § 921(a)(20)(A)’s carveout, and Pitsilides
falls within the scope of § 922(g)(1)’s prohibition.

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B. Section 922(g)(1)
Having concluded that § 922(g)(1) applies to Pitsilides,
we next consider whether that application is constitutional.
Pitsilides contends it is not because, he argues, there is “no
historical tradition of permanent disarmament for gambling
related offenses,” Appellant’s Second Suppl. Letter Br. 1, and
he does not pose “a credible threat to a person or society,”
Appellant’s Third Suppl. Letter Br. 4.
We recognize that Pitsilides brought this declaratory
judgment action in October 2019, so this case was litigated and
decided under our decision in Binderup. But much has
changed since then. After the District Court rejected Pitsilides’
Second Amendment challenge, the Supreme Court decided
Bruen, which effected a sea change in Second Amendment
law. Last term, the Supreme Court decided United States v.
Rahimi, 602 U.S. 680 (2024), which refined and clarified
Bruen’s methodology. And our Court has since issued its en
banc decision in Range II, addressing an as-applied challenge
to § 922(g)(1) under Bruen and Rahimi. Below, we discuss,
first, the teachings of these cases and, second, how those
lessons affect the disposition of this case.
1. Intervening Developments in the Law
While contemporary Second Amendment jurisprudence
in many ways begins with District of Columbia v. Heller, 554
U.S. 570 (2008), the Supreme Court’s seminal decision in
Bruen provides the governing methodology for assessing
whether modern firearm regulations comport with the Second
Amendment. There, the Court explained that this analysis
proceeds in two steps: First, we must ask whether “the Second

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Amendment’s plain text covers an individual’s conduct.”
Bruen, 597 U.S. at 24. If it does, “the Constitution
presumptively protects that conduct,” id., and we proceed to
the second step. At that point, “[t]he government must then
justify its regulation by demonstrating that it is consistent with
the Nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation.” Id. To
measure consistency with traditional firearm regulations, we
must ask whether a modern regulation is “relevantly similar”
to historical predecessors, id. at 29 (quoting Cass Sunstein, On
Analogical Reasoning, 106 Harv. L. Rev. 741, 773 (1993)),
considering “how and why the regulation[] burden[s] a law-
abiding citizen’s right to armed self-defense,” id. Importantly,
though, finding a contemporary regulation to be “relevantly
similar” to a historical restriction does not require a “historical
twin” or “dead ringer.” Id. at 30. Instead, the government need
only produce a “representative historical analogue.” Id.
(emphasis omitted). So even where modern-day restrictions
are not identical to historical analogues, they “still may be
analogous enough to pass constitutional muster.” Id.
Rahimi further clarified the extent to which modern
firearm restrictions need to match historical analogues. There,
the Supreme Court explained that, when conducting Bruen’s
history-and-tradition inquiry, “the appropriate analysis” is not
whether the challenged regulation sufficiently matches up to a
historical one, but instead “whether the challenged regulation
is consistent with the principles that underpin our regulatory
tradition.” Rahimi, 602 U.S. at 692. By confirming that our
focus is “the principles underlying the Second Amendment,”
id., the Court eschewed the notion that our search for historical
analogues portends “a law trapped in amber,” id. at 691. And
in measuring modern regulations’ fit and justification with
historical principles, we remain vigilant not to “assume[] that

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founding-era legislatures maximally exercised their power
to regulate” conduct. Id. at 739–40 (Barrett, J., concurring).
Rahimi itself helpfully illustrated this approach. There,
while it “did not ‘undertake an exhaustive historical analysis
. . . of the full scope of the Second Amendment,’” id. at 702
(quoting Bruen, 597 U.S. at 31), the Supreme Court examined
historical surety statutes requiring individuals to post a bond
before “going armed” if a magistrate determined that they
“would do . . . harm or breach the peace” and affray laws
preventing people from “going armed” to “terrify the good
people of the land,” as that could lead to public disorder and
violence, id. at 696–97 (cleaned up) (quoting 4 William
Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England 149 (10th
ed. 1787)). In short, “surety laws provided a mechanism for
preventing violence before it occurred,” while affray laws
“provided a mechanism for punishing those who had menaced
others with firearms.” Id. at 697.
“Taken together,” these dissimilar measures yielded the
general principle that “[w]hen an individual poses a clear threat
of physical violence to another, the threatening individual may
be disarmed,” id. at 698, confirming the constitutionality of the
firearm regulation at issue in that case, which prohibited
anyone found to “‘represent[] a credible threat to the physical
safety’ of another” from possessing a firearm, id. at 699
(quoting 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(8)(C)(i)). So while § 922(g)(8)
was “by no means identical to these founding era regimes,” it
“d[id] not need to be” because it “fit[] neatly within the
tradition” of firearm regulation in this country. Id. at 698.
Most recently, our en banc Court decided Range II,
which involved an individual who the government agreed had

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committed a non-violent felony ($2,600 in food stamp fraud)
over thirty years earlier, had lived an essentially law-abiding
life since that time, had no history of violence, had never
knowingly violated § 922(g)(1)’s prohibition while subject to
it, posed no risk of danger to the public, and then filed a
declaratory judgment action seeking authorization to bear arms
prospectively. See 124 F.4th at 222–24. In those
circumstances, we held § 922(g)(1)’s categorical prohibition
was unconstitutional as applied to that petitioner and
admonished that our decision was “a narrow one” tied to the
record evidence unique to Range. Id. at 232.
The upshot of these cases is threefold: First, as Bruen
and Rahimi make clear, our inquiry into principles that
underlie our regulatory tradition does not reduce historical
analogizing to an exercise in matching elements of modern
laws to those of their historical predecessors. Instead, we must
consider whether the principles embodied in different strands
of historical firearm regulations, “[t]aken together,” Rahimi,
602 U.S. at 698, support contemporary restrictions, all the
while remaining vigilant “not to read a principle at such a high
level of generality that it waters down the right,” id. at 740
(Barrett, J., concurring).
Second, whatever other recourse may or may not be
available, felons seeking to challenge the application of
§ 922(g)(1) at least may bring declaratory judgment actions.
But to grant such relief, the record must be sufficient for a court
to make an individualized determination that the applicant does
not presently pose the kind of danger envisioned by Rahimi and
Range II. In keeping with Heller’s conclusion that “the Second
Amendment confers an individual right to keep and bear

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arms,” 554 U.S. at 622, that determination necessarily
demands individualized fact-finding.
Third, while Rahimi and Range II did not purport to
comprehensively define the metes and bounds of justifiable
burdens on the Second Amendment right, they do, at a
minimum, show that disarmament is justified as long as a felon
continues to “present a special danger of misus[ing firearms],”
Rahimi, 602 U.S. at 698, in other words, when he would likely
“pose[] a physical danger to others” if armed, Range II, 124
F.4th at 232. Indeed, as Judge Bibas presciently observed even
before Bruen, “[a]s an original matter, the Second
Amendment’s touchstone is dangerousness,”3 Folajtar v. Att’y
3 To be sure, because the “dangerousness” principle cannot
operate “at such a high level of generality that it waters down
the right,” United States v. Rahimi, 602 U.S. 680, 740 (2024)
(Barrett, J., concurring), a special danger of firearm misuse
justifies disarmament when the harm at risk is relevantly
similar to the kinds of harm that history shows justify
disarmament, see id. at 698 (observing that “[s]ection
922(g)(8) restricts gun use to mitigate demonstrated threats of
physical violence, just as the surety and going armed laws do”);
Range v. Att’y Gen., 124 F.4th 218, 276 (3d Cir. 2024) (en
banc) (Range II) (Krause, J., concurring in the judgment)
(“[We cannot] blindly defer to a categorical presumption that
a given individual permanently presents a special risk of
danger.”). At the same time, however, a danger posed by
firearm misuse today need not match a historically recognized
danger with precision. See Rahimi, 602 U.S. at 698
(recognizing as a matter of “common sense” that “[w]hen an
individual poses a clear threat of physical violence to another,

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Gen., 980 F.3d 897, 924 (3d Cir. 2020) (Bibas, J., dissenting);
see also Kanter v. Barr, 919 F.3d 437, 451 (7th Cir. 2019)
(Barrett, J., dissenting) (“[L]egislatures have the power to
prohibit dangerous people from possessing guns.”), and our
sister circuits have articulated the principle similarly in light of
Rahimi, see United States v. Bullock, 123 F.4th 183, 185 (5th
Cir. 2024) (per curiam) (“The historical record demonstrates
‘that legislatures have the power to prohibit dangerous people
from possessing guns.’” (quoting Kanter, 919 F.3d at 451
(Barrett, J., dissenting))); United States v. Williams, 113 F.4th
637, 657 (6th Cir. 2024) (“[O]ur nation’s history and tradition
demonstrate that Congress may disarm individuals they believe
are dangerous.”); United States v. Jackson, 110 F.4th 1120,
1128 (8th Cir. 2024) (“Legislatures historically prohibited
possession by categories of persons based on a conclusion that
the category as a whole presented an unacceptable risk of
danger if armed.”).
2. Implications for this Appeal
Given the intervening developments in our Second
Amendment law, we conclude that the record here is
insufficient to determine whether § 922(g)(1) is
unconstitutional as applied to Pitsilides—a felon who was
convicted of bookmaking and pool selling years ago and who
seeks prospective restoration of his firearm rights.
the threatening individual may be disarmed”); id. at 705
(Sotomayor, J., concurring) (noting that the Court upheld a law
disarming individuals subject to domestic violence restraining
orders even though the “law at the founding . . . protect[ed]
husbands who abused their spouses”).

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As evidenced by our opinion in Range II, the
determination that a felon does not currently present a special
danger of misusing firearms may depend on more than just the
nature of his prior felony. While some offenses may offer
conclusive evidence that someone poses such a danger, see,
e.g., Bullock, 123 F.4th at 185; Williams, 113 F.4th at 663, at
least with predicate offenses like Range’s that did not plausibly
involve the use of force or physical injury, courts must consider
all factors that bear on a felon’s capacity to possess a firearm
without posing such a danger.4 Thus, in Range II, we
elaborated on Range’s post-conviction conduct reflecting a
special danger of misusing firearms and the absence of any
facts in the record indicating he presently posed a danger to the
public. See 124 F.4th at 232. As the Sixth Circuit similarly
observed, at least one principle underlying the Second
Amendment—that a legislature may disarm those who pose a
physical danger to others—calls for examination of “each
individual’s specific characteristics,” which “necessarily
4 In a position that echoes our now-abrogated decision in
Binderup, the Government urged at oral argument that we need
look no further than a felon’s predicate conviction because
history demonstrates that “legislatures may disarm persons
who have been convicted of serious crimes.” Gov’t Third
Suppl. Letter Br. 3; see also Oral Arg. Tr. 29:21–30:5; 34:6–
13, 16–20. But such an amorphous test for constitutional
applications of § 922(g)(1) does not align with our decision in
Range II. There, we rejected the notion that legislative
designation of a particular offense as sufficiently “serious” to
be punished by more than one year’s imprisonment sufficed to
support § 922(g)(1)’s application. See Range II, 124 F.4th at
230. We will not entertain the recycling of that argument under
a new label.

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requires considering the individual’s entire criminal record—
not just the predicate offense for purposes of § 922(g)(1).”
Williams, 113 F.4th at 657–58; see also Kanter, 919 F.3d at
468 (Barrett, J., dissenting) (instructing courts to look beyond
the “conviction” and assess whether the felon’s “history or
characteristics make him likely to misuse firearms”).
To that extent at least, we agree with the Sixth Circuit:
Courts adjudicating as-applied challenges to § 922(g)(1) must
consider a convict’s entire criminal history and post-conviction
conduct indicative of dangerousness, along with his predicate
offense and the conduct giving rise to that conviction, to
evaluate whether he meets the threshold for continued
disarmament. As Range II illustrated, consideration of
intervening conduct plays a crucial role in determining whether
application of § 922(g)(1) is constitutional under the Second
Amendment. See 124 F.4th at 232. Indeed, such conduct may
be highly probative of whether an individual likely poses an
increased risk of “physical danger to others” if armed. Id.
Here, the Government contends the record is sufficient
for us to conclude, in contrast to Range, that Pitsilides poses a
danger if re-armed. Among other things, it points to the
parties’ stipulation that, following Pitsilides’ 1998
bookmaking and pool selling convictions—crimes that do not
necessarily involve violent conduct—he also pleaded guilty to
two misdemeanor counts of owning a place where illegal
gambling was occurring in Virginia. These convictions
stemmed from his regular operation of poker games at his
Virginia Beach property that, among other things, “were
staffed by security,” and ultimately were raided by a SWAT
team. App. 52.

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For his part, Pitsilides counters that gambling itself is
not an inherently dangerous activity and that there is a dearth
of Founding-era restrictions on firearm possession as a result
of illegal gambling. While he concedes that “nearly all states
and the federal government regulated gambling and several
states prohibited games entirely,” Pitsilides insists that the
Government cannot demonstrate that his disarmament is
consistent with our Nation’s tradition of firearm regulations
because “the punishments [for those offenses] . . . did not
include disarmament.” Appellant’s Second Suppl. Letter Br.
9. He also maintains that history and tradition limit
disarmament to those “found to be a credible threat to a person
or society,” and his gambling-related offenses do not evince
such a threat. Appellant’s Third Suppl. Letter Br. 4.
But that mistakes the relevant inquiry. Our
consideration of history is not a hunt for “historical twin[s],”
Bruen, 597 U.S. at 30 (emphasis omitted), or “a doomed quest
for historical dead ringers,” Range II, 124 F.4th at 278 (Krause,
J., concurring in the judgment). Instead, we look to the
principles underlying our regulatory tradition, and the question
here is whether Pitsilides may be disarmed consistent with the
historical principle that legislatures may disarm a person who
poses a danger to the physical safety of others. See Rahimi,
602 U.S. at 693 (“From the earliest days of the common law,
firearm regulations have included provisions barring people
from misusing weapons to harm or menace others.”); Range II,
124 F.4th at 232 (concluding § 922(g)(1) was unconstitutional
as applied when “the record contains no evidence that Range
poses a physical danger to others”); see also Bullock, 123 F.4th
at 185 (recognizing legislatures may prevent “dangerous
people from possessing guns” (quoting Kanter, 919 F.3d at 451
(Barrett, J., dissenting))); Williams, 113 F.4th at 662 (holding

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“Congress may disarm individuals they believe are
dangerous”); Jackson, 110 F.4th at 1128 (concluding
disarmament is constitutional for people who would pose an
“unacceptable risk of danger if armed”).
And contrary to Pitsilides’ constricted view of what
makes a person a sufficient danger to remain disarmed, both
history and common sense reflect that this “dangerousness”
includes not only direct involvement in physical violence. For
instance, “though residential burglary and drug dealing are not
necessarily violent, they are dangerous because they often lead
to violence.” Folajtar, 980 F.3d at 922 (Bibas, J., dissenting);
see also Williams, 113 F.4th at 659 (observing that legislatures
may disarm those convicted of drug dealing or burglary
because, while “[t]hese crimes do not always involve an
immediate and direct threat of violence,” they “may
nonetheless pose a significant threat of danger,” warranting
disarmament).
But as Bruen, Rahimi, and Range II teach, we may not
paint with such a broad brush when evaluating an individual
felon’s as-applied challenge. So while bookmaking and pool
selling offenses may not involve inherently violent conduct,
they may nonetheless, depending on the context and
circumstances, involve conduct that endangers the physical
safety of others. That assessment necessarily requires
individualized factual findings.
Here, we know that Pitsilides committed additional
gambling offenses in 2011—themselves a continuation of his
illegal gambling activities that began in 1979—but we know
nothing of his other post-conviction conduct indicative of
dangerousness or gambling activity since then. We know his

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illegal gambling business was “staffed by security, waitresses,
and dealers,” App. 52, consistent with a large-scale, cash-based
criminal activity, such as organized crime, see United States v.
Williams, 124 F.3d 411, 417 n.7 (3d Cir. 1997) (observing
Congress has “recogni[zed] that gambling has historically
provided a major source of revenue for organized crime
groups”), that could carry a heightened risk of violence, but we
do not know the actual scale of those operations. And we know
that Pitsilides employed “security,” which could imply a
known risk of danger and the prospect of violent confrontation,
but we know no specifics about those security guards,
including whether they were armed.5
Given the gaps in this record, we will remand to the
District Court to permit the parties to pursue additional
discovery of facts probative to the prevailing Second
Amendment analysis, including whether Pitsilides poses a
special danger of misusing firearms in a way that would
endanger others.
IV. Conclusion
For the foregoing reasons, we will affirm in part and
vacate in part the District Court’s judgment and will remand
for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
5 We make these observations only to illustrate how little the
record here has been developed. We do not suggest that these
particular questions must be answered or that other findings by
the District Court may or may not be sufficient for that Court
to deny declaratory relief.

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