Far too often, we see cases where the person at the heart of a Second Amendment challenge isn't a particularly good person. The Rahimi case is a prime example of this. Mr. Rahimi was, by most accounts, a terrible person, but his rights appeared to have been trampled on. I, personally, think the Supreme Court got that one wrong, but alas...
Now, we've got the case of a man who was arrested following his firing of several shots outside of the CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia.
It seems that in addition to apparently popping off a couple of shots outside one of the most secure buildings in the world, he was under indictment for being a felon in possession of a firearm, and that's somehow the crux of his entire Second Amendment argument. He says that being a felon in possession shouldn't be illegal, and he's not necessarily out of line.
An attorney told Fourth Circuit panel Wednesday the federal government violated the Second Amendment rights of their client, who was arrested and indicted after firing several gunshots outside of the CIA’s headquarters last year.
The federal appellate court panel heard oral arguments Wednesday for Robert Scofield’s attempt to dismiss an indictment stemming from a March 2025 gun-related charge in Fairfax County. Scofield is asking the appeals court to send the case back to a federal district court.
Scofield was charged with transporting a firearm and ammunition in “interstate commerce while knowingly under federal indictment,” according to the federal district court’s ruling.
Prior to traveling to Virginia, Scofield had been indicted in Oregon in February 2025 on a charge of being a felon in possession of a firearm. Shortly after the Oregon indictment, Scofield shipped a disassembled gun from Washington state to a Washington D.C. hostel, where he received and reassembled the gun, prosecutors say.
...Scofield’s defense has repeatedly cited a Supreme Court involving Ali Danial Hemani, a Texas man who was indicted in 2022 on charges of breaking a federal law that keeps illegal drug users from possessing a gun.
Although Hemani admitted to being a regular marijuana user, he fought the charges by invoking his Second Amendment rights. The Supreme Court ruled earlier this year that his prosecution was unconstitutional, and Justice Neil Gorsuch questioned whether marijuana use could be considered as dangerous as the use of other illegal drugs.
The problem is, as was noted in the original piece, there's a difference between being a felon in possession who pops off a few shots at the grounds of the CIA headquarters and a guy who smoked a joint every now and then. One is behavior that is, more and more often, considered less than harmful to anyone except maybe the user. The other is a violent crime in and of itself.
It's not rocket science to see the difference.
That said, the behavior here that was the problem was the shots themselves, not that Scofield was a convicted felon.
I mean, I think we can all agree that taking shots at a secure intelligence facility, even if he couldn't see it from where he was — I don't know whether he could or not, as that wasn't mentioned anywhere in the article — is a no-no. We're never going to give a pass to that, and while I can't say there won't ever be a time when it's justified, because I can't see the future, it's not here and now.
But the felon in possession case is interesting, particularly if Scofield's initial felony was non-violent. It shouldn't matter, but it likely will, which means that this could be the case that restores gun rights to millions of convicted felons.
Or Scofield could be such a terrible example that they refuse to find for him out of spite.
