U.S. District Judge Carlton Reeves, who was appointed to the bench by then-President Barack Obama back in 2010, is using a case involving a convicted felon caught with a gun to complain about the Supreme Court’s decision in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen, arguing that the Court’s decision has left him wondering if he needs to appoint an historian to help him determine the legality of the federal prohibition on felons owning firearms.

“This court is not a trained historian,” Reeves wrote in an order released last week.

“The justices of the Supreme Court, as distinguished as they may be, are not trained historians,” he continued.

“And we are not experts in what white, wealthy and male property owners thought about firearms regulation in 1791,” he said.

The Bruen decision, he said, requires him to “play historian in the name of constitutional adjudication.”

Reeves, who sits on the United States District Court for the Southern District of Mississippi, ordered the parties, including the Justice Department, to brief him on whether he should appoint a historian within 30 days.

“Not wanting to itself cherry-pick the history, the Court now asks the parties whether it should appoint a historian to serve as a consulting expert in this matter,” he said.

The challenger to the felon possession law, Jesse Bullock, says the regulation cannot withstand the Supreme Court’s latest decision interpreting the Second Amendment.

“Founding era legislatures did not strip felons of the right to bear arms simply because of their status as felons,” Bullock argued.

In sum, Heller identified the right to keep and bear arms as held by “members of the political community.” And in doing so, Justice Scalia stated that all constitutional provisions mentioning “the people” were consistent. Through the historical analogies above, the Court’s inquiry is clear—this Nation has a historical tradition of excluding felons and those who abuse their rights to commit violence from the rights and powers of “the people.” Consistent with Heller’s definition, if groups have been categorically excluded under other constitutional provisions bestowing rights to “the people,” logic demands that society could also exclude those groups from under the Second Amendment.

This is also consistent with the founders’ idea of popular sovereignty: giving “the people” the right to govern themselves. Put differently, it’s the right within the Constitution’s structure to exclude those who abuse the rights of “the people.” And the people have wielded this right constitutionally under provisions declared equal by the Supreme Court—so exercising that right under the Second Amendment should be no different. Thus, § 922(g)(1) is constitutional on its face and as applied to Defendant.