United States v. Alexander Miguel Laykovich

RECOMMENDED FOR PUBLICATION Pursuant to Sixth Circuit I.O.P. 32.1(b) File Name: 26a0293p.06 UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE SIXTH CIRCUIT ┐ UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, │ Plaintiff-Appellee, │ > No. 25-5766 │ v. │ │ ALEXANDER MIGUEL LAYKOVICH, │ Defendant-Appellant. │ ┘ Appeal from the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Kentucky at Lexington. No. 5:24-cr-00035-1—Karen K. Caldwell, District Judge. Argued: June 4, 2026 Decided and Filed: October 29, 2026 Before: GIBBONS, MURPHY, and HERMANDORFER, Circuit Judges. _________________ COUNSEL ARGUED: Benjamin D. Allen, GESS, MATTINGLY & ATCHISON, P.S.C., Lexington, Kentucky, for Appellant. Amanda Harris Huang, UNITED STATES ATTORNEY’S OFFICE, Lexington, Kentucky, for Appellee. ON BRIEF: Benjamin D. Allen, GESS, MATTINGLY & ATCHISON, P.S.C., Lexington, Kentucky, for Appellant. Amanda Harris Huang, Charles P. Wisdom, Jr., UNITED STATES ATTORNEY’S OFFICE, Lexington, Kentucky, for Appellee. _________________ OPINION _________________ MURPHY, Circuit Judge. In a famous case from 1761, James Otis passionately argued that British “writs of assistance” (general search warrants) “violated the natural rights of Englishmen.” David McCullough, John Adams 61–62 (2001). Otis’s advocacy did not just set the stage for the Fourth Amendment. As John Adams would later recall, his advocacy  No. 25-5766 United States v. Laykovich Page 2 represented “the first scene of the first act of opposition to the arbitrary claims of Great Britain[.]” Id. at 62. So “[t]hen and there the child independence was born.” Id. But this case concerns something less well known about Otis. Sadly, he suffered from bouts of insanity in later years. Id. At least one witness once saw him “madly firing . . . guns outside of his window.” Gerald N. Grob, The Mad Among Us: A History of the Care of America’s Mentally Ill 6 (1994). Today, federal law deters this dangerous conduct by making it a crime for someone “who has been adjudicated as a mental defective or . . . committed to a mental institution” to possess a firearm. 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(4). Section 922(g)(4) began to apply to Alexander Laykovich when a state court committed him because his mental illness made him a serious public-safety risk. Yet the police later stopped Laykovich on his way to Fort Knox in full body armor with enough firearms to inflict mass casualties. Laykovich pleaded guilty to violating § 922(g)(4). On appeal, he argues that this provision is facially unconstitutional under the Second Amendment. But the English traditions that our country adopted have long permitted the “forcible civil detainment” of those whose mental illness makes them “a danger” to public safety. Kansas v. Hendricks, 521 U.S. 346, 357 (1997). And at least as applied to Laykovich, § 922(g)(4)’s gun- possession ban is “relevantly similar” to these traditional detention laws because it serves the same public-safety purpose and lasts only until Laykovich proves he no longer poses a threat. See N.Y. State Rifle & Pistol Ass’n v. Bruen, 597 U.S. 1, 29 (2022). His facial challenge under the Second Amendment thus falls short. Because his separate sentencing claims also lack merit, we affirm. I Early in the morning on January 25, 2024, a sheriff’s deputy watched a vehicle repeatedly swerve over the center and edge lines of a road near Stanford, Kentucky. The deputy pulled over the driver, who turned out to be Laykovich. While walking toward the car, the deputy noticed that Laykovich was wearing body armor and a body camera. After Laykovich got out of the car, the deputy also spotted a gun on his seat. A police dog soon alerted to the presence of illegal drugs. A search of the car uncovered eight firearms (including two rifles), a large amount of  No. 25-5766 United States v. Laykovich Page 3 ammunition, knives, a gasoline can, marijuana, and a pill that contained fentanyl. The police arrested Laykovich. They later interviewed him. He claimed that he had been traveling to Fort Knox “to discuss a security clearance matter.” Sent. Tr., R.68, PageID 374. He also admitted that he had been using marijuana. Worried about the suspicious circumstances, the local police contacted the FBI. FBI agents discovered that Laykovich could not possess firearms because he had previously been “adjudicated as a mental defective[.]” 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(4). The events that gave rise to this ban occurred a year earlier in January 2023. At that time, paramedics encountered “an emotionally disturbed” Laykovich in the parking lot of a hospital in St. Louis, Missouri. Police Rep., R.46, PageID 202. The paramedics called the police because Laykovich had a gun. When speaking to an officer in the back of an ambulance, Laykovich “began to point and gesture toward” imaginary people and “made incoherent statements” about them. Id., PageID 203. The officer also interviewed Laykovich’s girlfriend, Juliana Halbrooks. Halbrooks explained that, while the couple had been driving to the hospital to seek treatment for Laykovich’s headache, he took his hands off the steering wheel and held them over his head. Halbrooks had to grab the wheel to avoid a crash. She believed that Laykovich had mental- health problems, as he had expressed suicidal thoughts in the past. So the officer confiscated Laykovich’s firearm, and the paramedics took him to the hospital. A week later, the hospital petitioned a state court for Laykovich’s continued involuntary detention. The court granted the petition, finding that Laykovich might cause “serious harm to himself or to others” because of his mental illness. Judgment, R.20-1, PageID 62. The court ordered his involuntary hospitalization for 21 days so that he could obtain mental-health treatment. It also found that Laykovich was “incompetent for purposes of” Missouri’s concealed-carry laws and barred him from possessing firearms. Id. After discovering this information, the FBI treated Laykovich’s attempt to visit Fort Knox while heavily armed as a narrowly “averted mass casualty event.” Sent. Tr., R.68, PageID  No. 25-5766 United States v. Laykovich Page 4 402. Agents obtained a warrant to search his storage unit in Wisconsin. There, they found fifteen more firearms and two boxes of explosive devices. Ultimately, the federal government brought a two-count indictment against Laykovich. As relevant now, the indictment alleged that Laykovich knowingly possessed a firearm after having “been adjudicated as a mental defective,” in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(4). Laykovich moved to dismiss this charge on the ground that § 922(g)(4) was “facially unconstitutional” under the Second Amendment. Br., R.26-1, PageID 88. The district court rejected his claim. See United States v. Laykovich, 2024 WL 4376265, *4 (E.D. Ky. Oct. 2, 2024). It reasoned that the government could constitutionally disarm at least some individuals whom a court has found to have a mental illness that creates a risk of harm. See id. Once the court rejected Laykovich’s Second Amendment claim, the parties entered into a plea agreement. Laykovich agreed to plead guilty to the § 922(g)(4) charge in exchange for the government’s dismissal of the other count. But he reserved the right to appeal both his facial constitutional challenge and his ultimate sentence. In the plea agreement, the parties also disputed whether the district court should impose a guidelines enhancement that applied if Laykovich had induced Halbrooks to buy him some of the firearms found in his possession. At sentencing, the parties continued to argue over this enhancement. The government presented an FBI agent’s testimony. This testimony showed that Laykovich had tried to buy a firearm in February 2023 but could not do so because of his mental-illness adjudication. After this failed attempt, Halbrooks bought eight of the firearms found in Laykovich’s possession (including five in the car he was driving to Fort Knox). Although Halbrooks denied buying these firearms for Laykovich, she made many inconsistent statements. The district court sided with the government. It found that the “circumstantial evidence”—that Halbrooks bought many of the guns found in Laykovich’s possession after a store refused to sell him one—showed that Halbrooks had acted as a straw purchaser for Laykovich and rebutted her “self-serving statement” to the contrary. Sent. Tr., R.68, PageID 394. The court thus applied the enhancement, which triggered a guidelines range of 46 to 57 months’ imprisonment. It chose a 48-month sentence.  No. 25-5766 United States v. Laykovich Page 5 II On appeal, Laykovich raises one challenge to his conviction and two challenges to his sentence. As for his conviction, he argues that § 922(g)(4) facially violates the Second Amendment. As for his sentence, he argues that the district court misapplied the straw-purchaser enhancement and imposed an excessive prison term. We will consider these arguments in turn. A. Second Amendment Challenge Laykovich first renews his facial challenge to § 922(g)(4) under the Second Amendment. This provision prohibits anyone “who has been adjudicated as a mental defective or who has been committed to a mental institution” from possessing firearms. 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(4). We review Laykovich’s challenge to the prohibition de novo. See United States v. Gailes, 118 F.4th 822, 824 (6th Cir. 2024); United States v. Gore, 118 F.4th 808, 811 (6th Cir. 2024). His arguments address a jurisprudential area that has recently changed. So we will describe the background law before applying the current standards to § 922(g)(4). Under those standards, that provision has at least some constitutional applications. We thus must reject Laykovich’s facial challenge. 1. Background Law The Second Amendment provides: “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.” U.S. Const. amend. II. In District of Columbia v. Heller, 554 U.S. 570 (2008), the Supreme Court read this text to establish an “individual right to possess and carry weapons in case of confrontation.” Id. at 592. Heller reasoned that the Second Amendment “codified a pre-existing right” to possess weapons. Id. This preexisting right arose from what St. George Tucker called “the first law of nature”: the general “right of self defence[.]” 1 St. George Tucker, Blackstone’s Commentaries, app. at 300 (1803); see Heller, 554 U.S. at 584–86, 594, 599. Although the preexisting right to bear arms was not an “unlimited” guarantee that barred all firearm regulations, Heller did not conclusively identify the interpretive method that courts should use to distinguish regulations that pass muster from those that do not under the Second Amendment. 554 U.S. at 626.  No. 25-5766 United States v. Laykovich Page 6 Yet the proper interpretive method cannot rest on the text alone. One might say that most gun regulations “infringe[]” the “right of the people to keep and bear Arms” under a literal meaning of the words. U.S. Const. amend. II. To give one example, a ban on the ability of felons or the mentally ill to possess (that is, to “keep”) firearms would seemingly violate the Second Amendment if courts looked only to the dictionary definitions of the codified text. Id.; see United States v. Williams, 113 F.4th 637, 648–50 (6th Cir. 2024). Yet Heller stated in dicta that courts should not read its opinion as affecting “longstanding prohibitions on the possession of firearms by felons and the mentally ill” (among other traditional laws). 554 U.S. at 626–27 & n.26. This example illustrates the key question: If a firearm regulation ostensibly conflicts with the Second Amendment’s “literal language,” how should courts decide whether it nevertheless falls within the limits on the right that Heller referenced? Wolford v. Lopez, 609 U.S. 185, 196 (2026). The judiciary’s answer to this question has changed over time. Immediately after Heller, the circuit courts used “means-ends scrutiny” to decide which gun regulations survived and which did not. Williams, 113 F.4th at 643 (citing United States v. Greeno, 679 F.3d 510, 518 (6th Cir. 2012)); see Bruen, 597 U.S. at 17–19. Under this policy-laden approach, courts asked whether a regulation served an important enough purpose when balanced against its intrusion on the right to possess and carry a firearm. See Bruen, 597 U.S. at 18–19. Indeed, we used this scrutiny when we previously considered a constitutional challenge to § 922(g)(4). See Tyler v. Hillsdale Cnty. Sheriff’s Dep’t, 837 F.3d 678, 688–99 (6th Cir. 2016) (en banc) (opinion of Gibbons, J.). In Tyler, a Michigan court committed Clifford Tyler to a mental-health facility for a few weeks in 1986 while he went through a contentious divorce. Id. at 683. Tyler’s commitment triggered § 922(g)(4)’s ban on his firearm possession. Id. at 684. In the ensuing decades, though, Tyler showed no signs of mental illness, held a stable job, remarried, and “repaired his relationship with his ex-wife.” Id. at 683–84. He thus sued in 2012, arguing that § 922(g)(4) violated the Second Amendment by indefinitely prohibiting him from possessing firearms. Id. at 684. Applying means-ends scrutiny, our lead opinion held that § 922(g)(4) served a “compelling” interest by seeking to prevent those with mental illnesses from shooting others or attempting suicide. Id. at 693. Yet Tyler had no pathway to restore his right  No. 25-5766 United States v. Laykovich Page 7 to possess arms. Id. at 682–84. So the lead opinion also held that such a permanent ban on gun possession (even after Tyler recovered) did not reasonably fit the compelling interest in preventing those with ongoing mental illnesses from harming themselves or others. See id. at 693–99. After Tyler, however, the Supreme Court in Bruen jettisoned the means-ends scrutiny that circuit courts had used to identify the limits on the Second Amendment’s scope. See 597 U.S. at 19–24. In place of this scrutiny, Bruen adopted a two-part inquiry. Id. at 24. Challengers must first prove that the regulation restricts conduct that falls within the “Second Amendment’s plain text[.]” Id. For example, they must show that they are among the “people” that the “right” protects and that they seek to possess (“keep”) or carry (“bear”) weapons that qualify as “Arms” under the Second Amendment. U.S. Const. amend. II; see Wolford, 609 U.S. at 195. If challengers make this showing, the burden shifts to the government to prove that a regulation does not infringe the right because it comports “with the Nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation.” Bruen, 597 U.S. at 24. This second step exists because, as we have said, the preexisting right that the Second Amendment codified did not authorize every activity that might fall within the amendment’s text. See id. at 20, 25; United States v. Hemani, 608 U.S. 772, 779–80 (2026). To decide whether a modern law comports with this regulatory tradition, courts now must examine “historical materials” relevant to firearm regulation—not policy considerations about whether a particular regulation serves an important purpose. Bruen, 597 U.S. at 27. But not all historical data points are alike. Courts must distinguish between two types of traditional practices. On the one hand, the Framers sometimes placed a right in the Constitution to depart from a past practice. Take the Sixth Amendment. The Framers adopted its right to counsel to jettison the “English common-law rule” barring defendants from consulting counsel in felony cases. United States v. Ash, 413 U.S. 300, 306 (1973). And it would be a strange interpretive rule that narrowed a right’s scope using the common-law practice that the right was meant to eliminate. Likewise, the Supreme Court refused to rely on the “so-called Black Codes” to identify the scope of the right to bear arms incorporated into the Fourteenth Amendment  No. 25-5766 United States v. Laykovich Page 8 because the Framers of that amendment sought to prohibit those codes. Wolford, 609 U.S. at 212. On the other hand, the Framers sometimes placed a right in the Constitution with the understanding that it would not affect well-established legal practices. Take the Free Speech Clause. Even if the ordinary meaning of that clause’s text might prohibit perjury laws or laws banning threats of violence, nobody read the phrase “the freedom of speech” as allowing a witness to lie on the stand or an aggressor to threaten a victim. U.S. Const. amend. I; see Counterman v. Colorado, 600 U.S. 66, 74 (2023); United States v. Dunnigan, 507 U.S. 87, 97 (1993). These examples of entrenched and unchallenged legal prohibitions can help courts determine a right’s “outer limits[.]” See Bruen, 597 U.S. at 22, 26–31. The Supreme Court has thus said that the longstanding (and unquestioned) ban on carrying guns in courthouses shows that the Second Amendment permits modern applications of this old regulation. See id. at 30. It is these second types of “historical analogues” that provide the “best evidence” of the limits on the Second Amendment. Wolford, 609 U.S. at 196. So how should courts use these analogues to identify the legal rules that govern today? Some cases are easy: We may assume that the Second Amendment permits any widespread and “well-accepted” gun restriction in existence at the time of its adoption. Id.; cf. McIntyre v. Ohio Elections Comm’n, 514 U.S. 334, 372 (1995) (Scalia, J., dissenting). A modern law that represents “a ‘dead ringer’ or ‘historical twin’” to such an old restriction would likewise pass muster. Wolford, 609 U.S. at 197 (quoting Bruen, 597 U.S. at 30). Our country, for example, has long banned the possession of stolen goods or the use of firearms to commit crimes. See Gore, 118 F.4th at 812–13 (citing stolen- goods statutes); United States v. Risner, 129 F.4th 361, 369–70 (6th Cir. 2025) (Thapar, J., concurring) (citing firearm crimes). Congress thus could constitutionally make it a crime for a person to knowingly receive a stolen gun or to use a gun in a drug-trafficking crime. See Gore, 118 F.4th at 812–13 (upholding 18 U.S.C. § 922(j)); Risner, 129 F.4th at 368–69 (upholding 18 U.S.C. § 924(c)(1)(A)). That said, the Court has refused to limit the government’s regulatory power to the specific restrictions that existed in 1791 (or 1868). See Wolford, 609 U.S. at 196–97. After all, the lack of a precise analogue might reveal only a democratic choice that the government did not  No. 25-5766 United States v. Laykovich Page 9 need to restrict the practice at that time—not a belief that the practice fell within the right to keep and bear arms and thus could never be restricted. See United States v. Rahimi, 602 U.S. 680, 739–40 (2024) (Barrett, J., concurring); see also McIntyre, 514 U.S. at 373 (Scalia, J., dissenting). The Court thus will uphold modern laws that do not match historical limits if they are “relevantly similar” to those limits. Wolford, 609 U.S. at 196 (quoting Bruen, 597 U.S. at 29). To decide whether a modern law is similar enough to a historical analogue, the Court has asked both “why” and “how” questions. Bruen, 597 U.S. at 29. Why does the modern law restrict the right to keep and bear arms compared to the relevant analogues? See Hemani, 608 U.S. at 780, 783–90. And how does the modern law restrict the right compared to those analogues? See Rahimi, 602 U.S. at 698–99. Ultimately, these questions require courts to “exercise” their legal “judgment” when deciding whether a modern law is “close enough” to a historical limit that it comports with our regulatory tradition. Wolford, 609 U.S. at 197. Courts must not identify those historical limits “at such a high level of generality” that they allow all gun regulations and so eviscerate the underlying “right” to keep and bear arms. Rahimi, 602 U.S. at 739–40 (Barrett, J., concurring). But they also must not identify the historical limits at such a low level of generality that they allow only identical “law[s] trapped in amber” from earlier times. Id. at 691 (majority opinion). We and the Supreme Court have applied Bruen’s approach to several bans in 18 U.S.C. § 922. As a general matter, these cases have relied on various analogues to uphold modern bans on the possession of guns by dangerous individuals whose conduct has shown that they pose a risk of “violence” to others. Rahimi, 602 U.S. at 698. Four examples prove this point. First, the Supreme Court upheld § 922(g)(8)—which bars gun possession by those subject to domestic-violence restraining orders—against a facial challenge. See id. at 702. As relevant here, § 922(g)(8) applies if the court issuing the restraining order has found that the defendant poses “a credible threat to the physical safety of” an intimate partner or a child of the partner or the defendant. 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(8)(C)(i). Rahimi held that this ban “fit[] comfortably within” a regulatory tradition of laws designed to deter the misuse of firearms by those “who threaten physical harm to others[.]” 602 U.S. at 690. Specifically, the Court found § 922(g)(8) similar to two historical analogues: “surety laws” (which required individuals to post  No. 25-5766 United States v. Laykovich Page 10 a bond to carry a firearm if a court found that they posed a risk of misbehavior) and “going armed” laws (which prevented individuals from carrying dangerous weapons in public in a way that caused fear). Id. at 695–98. Starting with the “why” question, the Court highlighted that these laws all served the same purpose: they regulated gun use “to mitigate” the “threats of physical violence” that a party had shown. Id. at 698. Turning to the “how” question, the Court reasoned that the laws imposed similar burdens on the right to possess a gun. See id. at 698–700. They, for instance, all required a judicial finding that a person had threatened (or might threaten) others. Id. at 698–99. Section 922(g)(8) also matched the surety laws in that these gun restrictions applied only for a limited time. Id. at 699. And the section was less burdensome than the going-armed laws because it triggered only temporary firearm dispossession—not prison time. Id. Second, we relied on Rahimi to reject a facial challenge to § 922(g)(1)’s ban on felons possessing firearms. See Williams, 113 F.4th at 648–57. In Williams, we examined the surety and going-armed laws (among other examples) to identify a regulatory tradition of legislatures barring “groups” deemed “dangerous” from possessing firearms unless individuals within the groups proved that they “posed no danger to peace.” Id. at 657. We added that § 922(g)(1) fits this tradition because it sought to “disarm individuals” (felons) who Congress had long deemed dangerous. Id. At the same time, we left open the possibility that some felons could prove their lack of dangerousness in as-applied challenges. See id. at 661; see also Gailes, 118 F.4th at 824– 30. Third, we next explained that § 922(g)(1)’s ban on possessing guns would always (or at least nearly always) pass muster as applied to the temporary period when felons remained on probation, parole, or supervised release. See United States v. Goins, 118 F.4th 794, 802–05 (6th Cir. 2024). To justify this conclusion, we invoked the historical laws authorizing the forfeiture of a convicted criminal’s property (including firearms) during the time when the criminal completed a criminal sentence. See id. at 801–02 (citing United States v. Moore, 111 F.4th 266, 269–72 (3d Cir. 2024)). As Judge Bush added, the historical forfeiture laws applied even when a “convict served out his sentence in a non-custodial setting.” Id. at 807 (Bush, J., concurring in part).  No. 25-5766 United States v. Laykovich Page 11 Fourth, we relied on a different historical analogue to reject a facial challenge to § 922(n)’s ban on the receipt or transport of a firearm by an individual subject to a felony indictment. See Gore, 118 F.4th at 814–17. Gore reasoned that this ban was “relevantly similar to” historical “pretrial detention” laws. Id. at 814. As for the “why” behind the laws, both § 922(n) and the traditional pretrial-detention requirement “further[ed] public safety” by preventing a defendant from harming others between the indictment and the trial. Id. And as for “how” they did so, § 922(n) imposed a “lesser burden” than “detention” because the defendant could remain free. Id. at 815. Section 922(n) also applied only for a limited period and did not even bar the possession of firearms during this period by those who owned them at the time of the indictment. See id. Despite these examples, one should not take this rule (that the government can bar anyone it deems dangerous from possessing a firearm) too far. In Hemani, the Court held that at least some applications of § 922(g)(3)—which bars gun possession by anyone “who is an ‘unlawful user of’ or ‘addicted to’ a ‘controlled substance’”—flunk Bruen’s test. 608 U.S. at 779–95 (quoting 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(3)). The government argued that § 922(g)(3) was similar to traditional laws regulating the behavior of habitual drunkards. See id. at 781–82. The Court disagreed. When examining the “why” question, it saw a mismatch between the purposes of these habitual-drunkard laws and § 922(g)(3). Id. at 783–90. The habitual drunkards subject to the traditional laws were “practically incapacitated and incapable of managing their affairs.” Id. at 785. Yet § 922(g)(3) covered everyone who regularly used a controlled substance—even if this drug use did not have an “incapacitating effect” on them. Id. at 785–86. Next, even if § 922(g)(3) existed to protect society from gun violence, the laws regulating habitual drunkards served a different purpose: to rehabilitate these individuals. Id. at 787–90. Turning to the “how” question, the Court reasoned that the traditional laws regulating habitual drunkards provided for pre-deprivation “process” before they could affect anyone’s liberty. Id. at 790–91. But § 922(g)(3) banned firearm possession without any process. Id. All told, Hemani narrowly rejected the government’s “ambitious” argument that it may disarm anyone who regularly uses illegal drugs. Id. at 794–95. Yet it left open other questions—such as whether § 922(g)(3) could apply to specific drug users whose drug addictions rendered them dangerous. Id. at 794; cf. United States v. VanOchten, 150 F.4th 552, 560–61 (6th Cir. 2025).  No. 25-5766 United States v. Laykovich Page 12 2. Application of Bruen’s Test to § 922(g)(4) This case requires us to address how Bruen’s historical approach applies to § 922(g)(4)’s ban on gun possession by anyone “who has been adjudicated as a mental defective” (the part of the statute that covered Laykovich). 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(4). Before answering that question, we start with three disclaimers. Disclaimer One: We held in Tyler that this part of § 922(g) serves a compelling interest but that it lacks a reasonable fit to this interest for individuals who have long recovered from their mental illnesses. See Tyler, 837 F.3d at 693–99 (opinion of Gibbons, J.). Future panels typically must follow such a published precedent. See RLR Invs., LLC v. City of Pigeon Forge, 4 F.4th 380, 390 (6th Cir. 2021). But we may reassess our decisions when their reasoning conflicts with the Supreme Court’s more recent guidance. See United States v. Fields, 53 F.4th 1027, 1046–47 (6th Cir. 2022). And Tyler’s means-ends scrutiny conflicts with Bruen’s historical approach. So, as we suggested in related cases, Tyler’s mode of analysis no longer binds us. See Williams, 113 F.4th at 645‒48; see also Gailes, 118 F.4th at 825–26. Disclaimer Two: In dictum, Heller described laws that banned “felons and the mentally ill” from possessing firearms as “presumptively lawful” under the Second Amendment. 554 U.S. at 626‒27, 627 n.26. And the Court has often repeated this language. See Wolford, 609 U.S. at 193; Hemani, 608 U.S. at 791 n.6; Rahimi, 602 U.S. at 699. We give “substantial weight” to this type of dicta. Fields, 53 F.4th at 1048 n.13. But the Court has never evaluated § 922(g)’s bans on firearm possession by the mentally ill or felons—let alone engaged in the historical inquiry that Bruen demands. See Williams, 113 F.4th at 648. We thus did not view ourselves as bound by this dictum in Williams when we considered the felon-in-possession ban. See id. And the Court in Heller did not explain what it meant by “mentally ill.” Mental illness is a broad concept that could cover everything from a severe case of schizophrenia to a mild case of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. See United States v. Gould, 163 F.4th 795, 800 (4th Cir. 2026); see also Tyler, 837 F.3d at 708 (Sutton, J., concurring). Besides, § 922(g)(4) does not limit itself to those currently suffering from mental illness; it sweeps in those who were “adjudicated as a mental defective” years ago. 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(4). If anything, then, we have less reason to follow this dictum here than we did in Williams. See Tyler, 837 F.3d at 686–88 (opinion of Gibbons, J.).  No. 25-5766 United States v. Laykovich Page 13 Disclaimer Three: Laykovich chose to challenge § 922(g)(4) on its face. His choice “comes at a cost” because it magnifies his burden when compared to the burden on as-applied challengers. Doe v. Burlew, 165 F.4th 525, 531‒32 (6th Cir. 2026) (quoting Moody v. NetChoice, LLC, 603 U.S. 707, 723 (2024)). Laykovich must show that “no set of circumstances exists” in which the government could prosecute a defendant for violating § 922(g)(4). Rahimi, 602 U.S. at 693 (quoting United States v. Salerno, 481 U.S. 739, 745 (1987)). Laykovich has not met this demanding burden for a simple reason: § 922(g)(4) may apply “to the facts of [his] own case.” Id. We start with a refresher of those facts. In January 2023, a Missouri court ordered Laykovich’s detention for 21 days because his “mental illness” created “a likelihood of serious harm to himself or to others[.]” Judgment, R.20-1, PageID 62. The court also found him “incompetent” under Missouri’s concealed-carry laws and banned him from possessing firearms. Id.; see Mo. Rev. Stat. §§ 571.101.2(8); 571.117.1. Missouri law allows Laykovich to petition a court for the “removal” of this ban on the ground that he no longer poses a threat to public safety. See Mo. Rev. Stat. § 571.092.1, .3(1). Yet Laykovich never filed such a petition. Instead, he drove to Fort Knox wearing body armor and possessing eight guns. Did Laykovich have a Second Amendment right to possess these weapons? He can at least make it past Bruen’s first step because his conduct falls within the “plain text” of the Second Amendment. 597 U.S. at 24; see Wolford, 609 U.S. at 195. The government does not dispute that Laykovich remained part of the “people” protected by the Second Amendment even after he was “adjudicated as a mental defective” by a Missouri court. U.S. Const. amend. II; 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(4); cf. Williams, 113 F.4th at 648–50. It also does not dispute that the guns found in Laykovich’s vehicle qualified as “Arms” under the Second Amendment. U.S. Const. amend. II. And it does not dispute that § 922(g)(4) prohibits Laykovich from “keep[ing]” these firearms, and so it presumptively “infringe[s]” his “right” to possess them. Id. But Laykovich’s facial challenge collapses at Bruen’s second step. Section 922(g)(4)’s ban on gun possession by those who have been “adjudicated as a mental defective” is “relevantly similar” to traditional laws regulating those with severe mental illnesses. 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(4); Bruen, 597 U.S. at 29. Several well-researched opinions have already described these laws. See Gould, 163 F.4th at 802–03; United States v. Veasley, 98 F.4th 906, 913–15 (8th Cir. 2024);  No. 25-5766 United States v. Laykovich Page 14 Tyler, 837 F.3d at 705–06 (Batchelder, J., concurring in most of the judgment). We will summarize them before comparing their “purpose and operation” to § 922(g)(4)’s. Hemani, 608 U.S. at 780–81. a. Historical Analogues In general, society has long recognized that individuals suffering from severe mental illness might pose dangers to themselves and to others. And society has long responded to these dangers by restricting the liberty of these individuals until their mental health has improved. Start with the English traditions that our country inherited. English authorities treated individuals with serious forms of mental illness (whom they described as “lunatics” or “non compos mentis”) as having possessed their mental “understanding” at one time, but as having “lost the use of [their] reason” because of “disease, grief, or other accident[.]” 2 Tucker, supra, at 304. Yet English authorities also viewed these mental illnesses as temporary “accidental misfortunes” that “may be removed” if individuals regained their faculties. Id. That is, they viewed “lunacy” as “a partial derangement of the intellectual faculties, the senses returning at uncertain intervals.” Anthony Highmore, A Treatise on the Law of Idiocy and Lunacy 4 (Am. ed. 1822). As one English source put it, “[a] lunatic is never to be looked upon as irrecoverable[.]” Id. at 73; see Tyler, 837 F.3d at 705–06 (Batchelder, J., concurring in most of the judgment). Under English law, people suffering from mental illness could lose two basic rights if that illness created a risk of violence. For one thing, they could lose their liberty. “On the first attack of lunacy,” Blackstone explained, these individuals were usually “confine[d]” by family members in “private custody” with the hope that they would quickly recover. 2 Tucker, supra, at 305. In 1744, though, England passed an act authorizing two justices of the peace to issue a warrant to “apprehend[]” those whose “lunacy” rendered them “dangerous” and to keep them “locked up in some secure place” as long as their “lunacy or madness shall continue[.]” Vagrancy Act of 1744, 17 Geo. 2 c. 5, §§ 20–21 (Gr. Brit.); see Henry Care, English Liberties, or the Free-Born Subject’s Inheritance 329 (1774); Highmore, supra, at 136–37. For another thing, those with mental illnesses could lose the right to control their property. The King’s representatives would act as their guardians with the authority to decide on the proper use of this  No. 25-5766 United States v. Laykovich Page 15 property. 2 Tucker, supra, at 305; see Highmore, supra, at 13–15. That said, the mentally ill could “petition” to have their liberty and property rights restored by showing that they had recovered. Highmore, supra, at 73. Because the “colonial perceptions of madness did not differ in fundamental ways from those of the mother country,” the same legal framework persisted on this side of the Atlantic. Grob, supra, at 9, 13. In the “predominantly rural” colonial society, the families of the mentally ill or the local towns in which they lived presumptively “handled” their care “on an ad hoc and informal basis” using public funds when necessary. Id. at 5–7, 14–16. If, however, their conduct “appeared to threaten public safety,” colonial laws allowed local officials to detain them and to manage their property. Id. at 16. As early as 1676, Massachusetts passed a law to regulate “distracted persons” who had become “Unruly” and caused “Damage” to others. Act of May 3, 1676, 1676–1683 Mass. Bay Colony Laws & Orders 48, 48. This law authorized local officials “to take Care of all such persons that they do not Damnifie others” and to manage their “Estates in the Times of their Distemperature” for their (and their family’s) benefit. Id. The law also “served as a model for legislation concerning the insane in other New England colonies.” Albert Deutsch, The Mentally Ill in America: A History of Their Care and Treatment from Colonial Times 43 (1937); see, e.g., Act of Mar. 21, 1776, reprinted in Perpetual Laws of the State of New Hampshire, 1776–1788, at 235–37 (1789); Ideots, and Distracted Persons, 1702 Conn. Colony Acts & Laws 54, 54 (1702). During the eighteenth century, the colonies detained the mentally ill in different ways. In rural areas, officials might order the construction of a “one-person asylum” to confine them. Veasley, 98 F.4th at 914; see Deutsch, supra, at 41–43. In urban areas, officials might confine them in jails, poorhouses, or workhouses. Deutsch, supra, at 41, 52–53, 419; Grob, supra, at 43. At first, the colonies imprisoned the dangerously insane solely to incapacitate them; “no thought was given to therapy.” Deutsch, supra, at 419. In the second half of the century, colonies began to establish venues not just for confinement but also for treatment. In 1751, Pennsylvania appropriated funds to build the first hospital that would receive both “lunaticks” and the sick. Act of May 11, 1751, ch. 390, 1745–1759 Pa. Acts 208, 208–11; see Deutsch, supra, at 58–66; Veasley, 98 F.4th at 914–15. In 1769, Virginia passed a law to create the first hospital  No. 25-5766 United States v. Laykovich Page 16 exclusively for “idiots, lunatics, and other persons of insane mind[.]” 2 Tucker, supra, at 305 n.31; 10 Geo. 3 c. 28, at 13 (Va.); Deutsch, supra, at 66, 69–71. Other States followed suit. See, e.g., Act of Jan. 20, 1798, ch. 102, 1797 Md. Laws. The same legal framework continued through the Constitution’s ratification. From the founding, the States have authorized the “forcible civil detainment of people who are unable to control their behavior and who thereby pose a danger to the public h