UNITED STATES OF AMERICA v. WOOTEN

IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE MIDDLE DISTRICT OF GEORGIA
ALBANY DIVISION
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 	:
:
v. 	: 	Case No. 1:26-mj-33-ALS
:
ARCHIE WOOTEN, 	:
:
Defendant. 	:
ORDER
Pending before the Court is Defendant Archie Wooten’s Motion to Dismiss the
information charging him with violating 18 U.S.C. § 930(a) for being unconstitutional as
applied to him. (Doc. 10.) The Government has filed a motion in opposition. (Doc. 13.)
The Defendant did not file a reply in further support of the Motion. Neither party
requested oral argument, and this matter is now ripe for consideration. Having reviewed
the parties’ submissions, for the reasons set forth below and for good cause having been
shown, the Motion to Dismiss is DENIED.
I. 	Factual Basis
The material facts are not in dispute for purposes of this motion. On April 16, 2025,
Defendant drove to the main gate of Marine Corps Logistics Base Albany (“MCLB”) and
presented his military retiree identification card.1 (Doc. 10 at 1); (Doc. 13 at 1.) The card
1 The parties differ on why Defendant was entering the base. Defendant states that he was “going
to work.” (Doc. 10 at 3.) The Government states that he was “attempting to enter the base for a
purported VA appointment.” (Doc. 13 at 1.) The difference is immaterial for the purposes of this
Order. Section 930(a) reaches the attempt to bring a firearm into a federal facility without regard
to the reason for the visit, and neither the Second Amendment analysis nor the vagueness analysis
depends on it. To the extent Defendant’s purpose may bears on the exemptions in § 930(d), that
is a factual matter reserved for trial.
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revealed an outstanding warrant, and Defendant was detained. (Doc. 10 at 1); (Doc. 13 at
2.) Officers searched his vehicle and found a bag containing a .38 Special revolver and
ammunition. (Doc. 10 at 1); (Doc. 13 at 2.) He is charged under § 930(a), which punishes
whoever “knowingly possesses or causes to be present a firearm or other dangerous
weapon in a Federal facility . . . , or attempts to do so.”
II. 	Motion to Dismiss
Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(1) allows a party to file a pretrial motion to
dismiss the criminal charges pending against him and seek dismissal on the grounds that
the statute is unconstitutional. Fed. R. Crim. P. 12(b)(1). Rule 12(b) states that a party may
submit a pretrial motion based on “any defense, objection, or request that the court can
determine without a trial on the merits.” Id.
III. 	The Parties Contentions
Defendants contends that the statute, as applied to him, violates the Second
Amendment and is void for vagueness under the Fifth Amendment, and that the rule of
lenity places him within the exemptions in § 930(d). (Doc. 10). Specifically, Defendant
contents that having a gun in his vehicle while entering a federal facility violates his
individual Second Amendment right to carry a firearm in his vehicle for self-defense. Id.
Defendant further argues that “the Government cannot prove a “historical analog
regulating the possession of firearms within personal vehicles.” Id. at 1. Defendant urges
the Court to adopt the reasoning set forth in United States v. Ayala, 711 F. Supp. 3d 1333
(M.D. Fla. 2024) and to dismiss the Government’s Information. Defendant explains that
in Ayala, the court dismissed a § 930(a) charge as applied to a postal employee who
carried a handgun in a post office, finding no historical tradition of banning firearms in
post offices and rejecting the argument that government ownership of property removes
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it from Second Amendment scrutiny. The Government counters that the regulation at
issue does not apply to an individual’s right to possess a firearm in a private vehicle.
Instead, the regulation at issue here serves the purpose of maintaining safety and order
on Government property, “an active United States military installation.” (Doc. 13 at 1).
The Government further argues the tradition of prohibiting arms in sensitive places. Id.
at 3.
IV. 	The Second Amendment
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. However, the individual right secured by the Second
Amendment is “not unlimited, just as the First Amendment’s right of free speech [is] not”.
District of Columbia v. Heller, 554 U.S. 570, 595 (2008); see, e.g., Greer v. Spock, 424
U.S. 828 (1976) (upheld regulations barring First Amendment political speeches and
requiring approval to distribute literature on a military installation).
The United States Supreme Court has applied a two-step framework to evaluate
challenges under the Second Amendment. First, a challenging party must establish that
“the Second Amendment’s plain text covers an individual’s conduct”. N.Y. State Rifle &
Pistol Ass’n v. Bruen, 597 U.S. 1, 17 (2022). The first inquiry is confined to the text:
whether the challenger is among “the people,” whether the weapon is among the “Arms,”
and whether the law restricts keeping or bearing them. Wolford v. Lopez, 609 U.S. ___,
No. 24-1046 at 7 (June 25, 2026). Here, the Government does not dispute that Defendant
is among the people the Second Amendment protects or that a revolver is an arm, and §
930(a) restricts the carrying of it. (See Doc. 13). Thus, Defendant has carried his burden
of showing that the Second Amendment’s plain text covers the challenged conduct. The
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Court thus turns its attention to step two of the Bruen analysis.
When the Second Amendment’s plain text covers an individual’s conduct, “the
Constitution presumptively protects that conduct,” and the burden then shifts to the
Government to “justify its regulation by demonstrating that it is consistent with the
Nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation.” Id. at 24. At step two, a court “must
ascertain whether the [challenged] law is relevantly similar to laws that our tradition is
understood to permit, applying faithfully the balance struck by the founding generation
to modern circumstances.” United States v. Rahimi, 602 U.S. 680, 692 (2024).
The Government may carry its burden by showing that the regulation is “relevantly
similar” to laws our tradition is understood to permit, and “[w]hy and how the regulation
burdens the right are central to this inquiry.” Id. Crucial to this inquiry is “[w]hy and how
the regulation burdens the right.” Id. at 680. No “historical twin” is required. Id. But
“[t]he more closely a contemporary law mirrors a well-established historical analogue in
purpose and operation, the more likely it is to be upheld.” United States v. Hemani, 608
U.S. ___, No. 24-1234, at 5 (June 18, 2026). The question is whether the historical rule
and the modern one are close enough to permit a court to say: “Because this historical law
was understood to be compatible with the right codified by the Second Amendment, we
can infer that the restriction imposed by the modern law is likewise consistent with that
right.” Wolford, 609 U.S. ___, at 8.
V. 	Discussion & Analysis
The Court must decide whether a closed military installation is analogous to the
places that tradition covers. Neither party has identified case law that is relevant to the
precise question presented here. The undersigned has conducted a thorough search of
case law involving gun control regulations on federal facilities but has not found a single
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case involving a military installation and the “right to bear arms” secured by the Second
Amendment. Despite the lack of authority directly on point with the issue here, the Court
recognizes 	that 	the 	absence 	of 	an 	exact 	historical 	comparator 	is 	not 	necessarily
determinative of an analysis under the Second Amendment.
For 	example, 	Bruen 	identified 	“legislative 	assemblies, 	polling 	places, 	and
courthouses” as places where weapons were historically prohibited, observed that it was
“aware of no disputes regarding the lawfulness of such prohibitions,” and explained that
“courts can use analogies to those historical regulations of ‘sensitive places’ to determine
that modern regulations prohibiting the carry of firearms in new and analogous sensitive
places are constitutionally permissible.” Bruen, 597 U.S. at 30. Heller also gave helpful
examples of spaces where sensitive place restrictions are likely constitutional. Neither the
list in Bruen nor Heller is exhaustive.2
The Court finds that the challenged regulation here, the prohibition against
weapons inside MCLB, is within the well-established tradition and history of regulating
firearms in sensitive places. The prohibitions that Bruen treated as settled share two
features that the Court has taken into consideration here. Each protected a place where
the Government carries out a function that belongs to it alone, and each operated only
within the bounds of that place, leaving the right intact everywhere else. Section 930(a),
as applied here, has the same purpose and operates in the same way. It is undisputed that
MCLB is “an active military installation with controlled access.” (Doc. 13 at 5). Thus, the
2 Although this is not a Fourth Amendment matter, the Court notes the logical corollary that
individuals have historically had a decreased expectation of privacy in “sensitive areas” such as
courthouses, airports, military installations, prisons, gun free school zones, public parks,
playgrounds, stadiums, etc.
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regulation at issue in this case is far more limited in application in that it applies only to
the confines of MCLB, which is a properly noticed military installation. Providing for the
common defense is as much a function of the sovereign as legislating, conducting
elections, and adjudicating. Further, the ban does not prohibit the Defendant from
traveling with a weapon in his vehicle. The regulation only prohibits the Defendant’s
ability to travel through the gated confines of MCLB’s property with a weapon.
The record of how the United States has governed its military posts further
confirms the analogy. From the beginning, persons who were not soldiers but came within
the Army’s lines were placed under military authority. The Articles of War of 1775
provided that “all persons whatsoever, serving with the continental army in the field,
though not [enlisted] soldiers, are to be subject to the articles, rules, and regulations of
the continental army.” Articles of War of 1775, art. XXXII. Congress carried the rule
forward in 1776 and again in 1806. Articles of War of 1776, § XIII, art. 23; Act of Apr. 10,
1806, ch. 20, art. 60, 2 Stat. 359, 366 (“All suttlers and retainers to the camp, and all
persons whatsoever, serving with the armies of the United States in the field, though not
enlisted soldiers, are to be subject to orders, according to the rules and discipline of war.”).
Entry was by leave. The 1775 Articles punished any person who should “make known the
watch-word to any person who is not entitled to receive it.” Id. art. XXVI. The Army’s
regulations later directed that the countersign “is given to such persons as are entitled to
pass during the night,” and that a sentinel “will suffer no person to come nearer than
within reach of his bayonet, until the person has given the countersign.” Revised United
States Army Regulations of 1861 ¶¶ 401, 424, at 61, 64 (1863). A person approaching a
guard post at night was halted “until examined by a non-commissioned officer of the
guard.” Id. ¶ 427, at 65. Guards were posted over magazines. Id. ¶ 562, at 83. The
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commander of an intrenched post “permits no flags of truce, deserters, or strangers to
enter.” Id. ¶ 648, at 93.
The places where the United States made and stored arms were governed the same
way. The Ordnance Department “has charge of the arsenals and armories,” and the officer
in charge of each was to “make and publish the rules for its internal government.” Id. ¶¶
1406, 1429, at 396, 399. The national armory at Harpers Ferry was placed under the
Ordnance Department in 1815. Its superintendent in 1829 “posted meticulous rules
forbidding loitering, gambling, and drinking on the armory’s premises,” and by the 1850s
the musket factory was “enclosed by a six to nine ft.-high wall” with gates and a guard
room for night watchmen. Andrew S. Lee, Nat’l Park Serv., The U.S. Armory at Harpers
Ferry: Historic Resource Study 27, 43, 49, 52 (2006).
The Court does not overstate these materials. None of them, in terms, forbade a
civilian to bring a private firearm onto a post, and several governed armies in the field.
They are not offered as analogues that would sustain § 930(a) by themselves. However,
they show what kind of place a military post has been throughout the Nation’s history: a
place a civilian entered only by the commander’s permission and subject to his orders,
kept under guard, where the Government held its arms and powder. That is the
Government’s point when it invokes the military’s “obvious and longstanding authority
to control who enters its installations and what they may bring with them.” Doc. 13 at 5;
see also United States v. Apel, 571 U.S. 361–62, 368–69 (2014); Greer, 424 U.S. at 838.
A place with that character is at least as sensitive as a courthouse or a legislative chamber.3
3 The Supreme Court’s most recent decisions do not alter this conclusion. The analogues in
Hemani failed because they “targeted different kinds of people, did so for different purposes, and
operated in different ways.” Hemani, 608 U.S. ___, at 7. Section 930(a) singles out no class of
persons, and its purpose and operation match those of the prohibitions Bruen accepted. The law
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III. Vagueness
A criminal statute is void for vagueness if it “fails to give ordinary people fair notice
of the conduct it punishes, or [is] so standardless that it invites arbitrary enforcement.”
Johnson v. United States, 576 U.S. 591, 595 (2015). In an as-applied challenge the
question is whether the statute gave fair notice that Defendant’s own conduct was
prohibited. See Holder v. Humanitarian Law Project, 561 U.S. 1, 18–20 (2010).
The Court finds that § 930 gave Defendant fair notice that attempting to bring a
firearm onto a military installation was prohibited. Section 930(a) prohibits knowingly
possessing a firearm in a federal facility, or attempting to do so, and the Eleventh Circuit
has described it as defining a “perfectly cogent offense.” United States v. McArthur, 108
F.3d 1350, 1354 (11th Cir. 1997). Defendant’s argument is directed at the exemptions in §
930(d)(2) and (d)(3). (Doc. 10 at 4–5.) That Congress did not define “Federal official,”
“authorized by law,” or “other lawful purposes” does not make those terms vague;
undefined terms take their ordinary meaning. Read in their ordinary sense, those terms
gave Defendant fair notice that his retiree identification card and a state statute on
firearms did not exempt him from § 930(a).4
IV. Section 930(d) and the Rule of Lenity
Defendant also argues that lenity places him within § 930(d)(2) or (d)(3). (Doc. 10
in Wolford reached “retail establishments that residents of cities and suburbs frequent as part of
their daily routines.” Wolford, 609 U.S. ___, at 21. A gated military base is not such a place. Nor
does this case approach the limit Bruen drew when it refused to let New York “declare the island
of Manhattan a ‘sensitive place’ simply because it is crowded and protected generally by the New
York City Police Department.” Bruen, 597 U.S. at 31. The installation is bounded, closed to the
public, and devoted to a governmental function.
4 Defendant does not argue that the place where he was stopped falls outside the definition of
“Federal facility” in § 930(g)(1), and the Court expresses no view on that question.
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at 5.) Lenity applies only where, after the ordinary tools of interpretation are exhausted,
a “grievous ambiguity” remains. Muscarello v. United States, 524 U.S. 125, 138–39
(1998). None does. Whether Defendant’s possession was “authorized by law” or was
“lawful carrying . . . incident to hunting or other lawful purposes” turns on facts to be
determined at trial, not on a Rule 12 motion.
VI. 	Conclusion
In sum, the Second Amendment does not secure any individual’s fundamental
right to bear arms when they are occupying a sensitive place, such as a federal facility,
where the regulations banning the possession of, carrying, or storing a firearm on the
premises are duly noticed. The Supreme Court in Heller has said that “nothing in [its]
opinion should be taken to cast doubt on longstanding . . . laws forbidding carrying of
firearms in sensitive places such as . . . government buildings[.]” Heller, 554 U.S. 570, at
626 . Because the Supreme Court’s listing is not exhaustive, Defendant’s Motion to
Dismiss the Information (Doc. 10) is DENIED.
SO ORDERED, this 13th day of October, 2026.
s/ ALFREDA L. SHEPPARD
UNITED STATES MAGISTRATE JUDGE
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