Kenneth Karwacki v. JOSH KAUL, Attorney General of Wisconsin

In the
United States Court of Appeals
For the Seventh Circuit
____________________
No. 25-2361
K ENNETH K ARWACKI ,
Plaintiff-Appellant,
v.
JOSH K AUL, Attorney General of Wisconsin,
Defendant-Appellee.
____________________
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Eastern District of Wisconsin.
No. 24-cv-1639-bhl — Brett H. Ludwig, Judge.
____________________
A RGUED F EBRUARY 26, 2026 — DECIDED A PRIL 2, 2026
____________________
Before EASTERBROOK, S CUDDER , and S T. EVE, Circuit Judges.
EASTERBROOK, Circuit Judge. A special court martial con-
victed Kenneth Karwacki of delivering peyote to fellow sol-
diers. He received a bad-conduct discharge. Later he applied
for a permit to carry a concealed firearm in Wisconsin. The
state denied his application, relying on Wis. Stat.
§941.29(1m)(b), which prohibits possession of firearms by a
person who “has been convicted of a crime elsewhere that
would be a felony if committed in this state.” Delivering pe-

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2 No. 25-2361
yote is a Class E felony in Wisconsin. Wis. Stat. §§ 939.50(3)(e),
961.14(4)(m), 961.41(1)(a). Relying on the fact that the court
martial called his offense a misdemeanor, Karwacki contends
in this federal suit that the Constitution entitles him to a con-
cealed-carry permit. The district court, however, entered
judgment in the state’s favor. 2025 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 130081
(E.D. Wis. July 9, 2025).
Karwacki maintains that the state’s treatment of his mili-
tary misdemeanor conviction as equivalent to a state-law fel-
ony conviction violates the Full Faith and Credit Clause, Art.
IV §1. This clause reads:
Full Faith and Credit shall be given in each State to the public Acts,
Records, and judicial Proceedings of every other State. And the
Congress may by general Laws prescribe the Manner in which
such Acts, Records and Proceedings shall be proved, and the Ef-
fect thereof.
The constitutional language reveals one problem with
Karwacki’s position: a federal court martial is not a “judicial
Proceeding[ in any] other State”. See Derrickson v. Danville,
845 F.2d 715, 720 (7th Cir. 1988), which concludes that the
Clause does not apply to federal judgments. Nor has Con-
gress enacted a statute, parallel to 28 U.S.C. §1738, specifying
what consequences a court martial’s decision must or may
have in the states.
What is more, we do not see how Wisconsin has deprived
the court martial’s decision of “Full Faith and Credit” in any
sense. The tribunal sentenced Karwacki to a bad-conduct dis-
charge; Wisconsin has not tried to deprive that ruling of its
effect. The main function of this Clause is to ensure that judg-
ments retain their primary effects, often via rules of issue or

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No. 25-2361 3
claim preclusion. See Baker v. General Motors Corp., 522 U.S.
222, 233 (1998).
Implementation of the military conviction is not at stake
here. Instead the question is what collateral consequences it
carries under state law. Every state must answer questions for
all convictions—federal civilian, federal military, those of
other states, those of other nations—such as whether a person
with a given conviction can vote, hold public office, practice
law, or carry firearms. No one would say (well, no one should
say) that Wisconsin must grant, to a person convicted in New
York of fraud, a right to serve as Comptroller of Milwaukee,
on the theory that any domestic consequence of an out-of-
state conviction violates the Full Faith and Credit Clause. The
Clause does not prevent states from specifying domestic civil
consequences of foreign judgments, which is why we held in
Rosin v. Monken, 599 F.3d 574 (7th Cir. 2010), that Illinois could
require a person with a particular conviction to register as a
sex offender, even though New York, which rendered the
criminal judgment, did not. Firearms disabilities are no differ-
ent.
Every state has a statute similar to Wis. Stat.
§941.29(1m)(b) that identifies domestic consequences of con-
victions in other jurisdictions. The federal definition for fire-
arms disabilities is in 18 U.S.C. §921(a)(20), which excludes
from the scope of §922(g)(1) offenses related to the regulation
of business practices and also excludes state offenses called
misdemeanors under state law—but only if the maximum
term of imprisonment is two years or less. Some states draw
the line between felonies and misdemeanors at three or even
five years, so firearms disabilities under §922(g)(1) can follow
misdemeanor convictions in state courts. See, e.g., 101 Pa.

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4 No. 25-2361
Code §15.66(a)(5) (five years); S.C. Code §16-1-20(A)(7) (three
years). Section 922(g)(9) adds a further wrinkle, prohibiting
firearms possession by anyone “who has been convicted in
any court of a misdemeanor crime of domestic violence”. See
also United States v. Castleman, 572 U.S. 157 (2014). Instead of
using a system such as §921(a)(20) plus §922(g)(9), Wisconsin
looks to the punishment that could be imposed in its domestic
courts. Many other systems of classification are imaginable,
but we are confident that neither the federal system nor Wis-
consin’s offends the Full Faith and Credit Clause.
This leaves Karwacki’s argument that Wisconsin’s refusal
to issue a concealed-carry license violates the Second Amend-
ment.
To the extent Karwacki is arguing that the Constitution en-
titles all convicted persons to possess and carry firearms—in
other words, that Wis. Stat. §941.29(1m)(b) is invalid “on its
face”—it suffices to cite United States v. Prince, No. 23-3155
(7th Cir.), and United States v. Watson, No. 24-2432 (7th Cir.),
both of which are being issued today. Prince and Watson reject
contentions that §922(g)(1) is invalid on its face (that is, in all
possible applications).
To the extent Karwacki is arguing that Wis. Stat.
§941.29(1m)(b) is invalid as applied to him, in particular, he
loses because of the nature of his military conviction: distrib-
uting a prohibited drug. The relation between drug distribu-
tion and firearm-related violence is too well established to call
for elaboration. See, e.g., United States v. Williams, 113 F.4th
637, 659, 663 (6th Cir. 2024); United States v. Fife, 624 F.3d 441,
447 (7th Cir. 2010); United States v. Hromada, 49 F.3d 685, 689
(11th Cir. 1995). Governments may “disarm individuals who
present a credible threat to the physical safety of others.”

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No. 25-2361 5
United States v. Rahimi, 602 U.S. 680, 700 (2024). Accordingly,
many courts of appeals have rejected as-applied challenges by
people with drug-distribution convictions on their records.
See, e.g., United States v. Kimble, 142 F.4th 308, 312–14 (5th Cir.
2025); United States v. Mancilla, 155 F.4th 449, 452 (5th Cir.
2025); United States v. Taylor, 165 F.4th 1029, 1035–36 (6th Cir.
2026). We agree with these decisions. Our opinion in Watson
reaches the same conclusion for a person convicted of distrib-
uting cocaine. As far as we can tell, none of the federal courts
of appeals has accepted an as-applied challenge to §922(g)(1)
or a similar state law by a convicted drug distributor.
Prince and Watson observe that it is an open question in
this circuit whether any as-applied challenge to §922(g)(1) is
tenable. That is equally true of state statutes attaching fire-
arms restrictions to criminal convictions. But if an as-applied
challenge ever is possible, a person with a conviction for dis-
tributing unlawful drugs cannot be the beneficiary.
A FFIRMED

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