Prohibition on a person who has been adjudicated as a mental defective or committed to a mental institution possessing a firearm (18 USC § 922(g)(4)); Second Amendment facial challenge; NY State Rifle & Pistol Ass’n v Bruen; District of Columbia v Heller; Wolford v Lopez; United States v Rahimi; United States v Williams; United States v Gore; Sentencing; Procedural reasonableness; The straw-purchaser enhancement (formerly USSG § 2K2.1(b)(5)(B)(iii); now § 2K2.1(b)(6)(B)(iii)); Circumstantial evidence; Substantive reasonableness; Denial of a downward variance; Within-guidelines sentence presumption

Rejecting defendant-Laykovich’s facial Second Amendment challenge to the statute prohibiting someone who has been adjudicated as a mental defective or committed to a mental institution from possessing a firearm (§ 922(g)(4)), the court affirmed his conviction. It also rejected his sentencing challenges, holding that (1) “‘overwhelming circumstantial evidence’” supported application of the straw-purchaser enhancement, and (2) he failed to overcome the presumption that his within-guidelines sentence was reasonable. A state court had previously committed Laykovich “because his mental illness made him a serious public-safety risk.” He pled guilty to violating § 922(g)(4) after he was stopped “on his way to Fort Knox in full body armor with enough firearms to inflict mass casualties.” With the application of the two-level enhancement under then-§ 2K2.1(b)(5)(B)(iii) on the basis he induced his girlfriend (H) to buy him guns, he had a guidelines range of 46 to 57 months. The district court sentenced him to 48 months. On appeal, the court concluded that Laykovich’s “facial challenge collapses at Bruen’s second step.” It found that “laws detaining the mentally ill have been ‘open, widespread, and unchallenged.’ They thus count as one of the ‘old legal rules’ that represent the ‘best evidence’ of the Second Amendment’s meaning.” The court then considered “whether the challenged statute is ‘relevantly similar’ to this” historical analogue. It determined that “§ 922(g)(4) has a similar ‘purpose and operation’ when compared to the historical analogue of civil confinement for the group of individuals whose mental illness rendered them dangerous. So it passes Bruen’s test—at least as a facial matter.” As to his sentencing arguments, the court first held that circumstantial evidence showed “the district court plausibly found that Laykovich convinced [H] to buy guns for him.” Finally, the district court’s refusal to grant him a downward variance did not render his sentence substantively unreasonable. It “thoughtfully balanced the competing factors in play” when it imposed “a sentence at ‘the lower end’” of the guidelines. Affirmed.