IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE FIFTH CIRCUIT
No. 97-20474
Summary Calendar
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Plaintiff-Appellee,
versus
RONALD WAYNE SAPP,
Defendant-Appellant.
Appeal from the United States District Court for the
Southern District of Texas
(H-96-CR-22501)
February 25, 1998
Before GARWOOD, DeMOSS and PARKER, Circuit Judges.*
PER CURIAM:
Ronald Wayne Sapp appeals his guilty plea conviction for being
a felon in possession of a firearm in violation of 18 U.S.C. §
922(g)(1). Sapp argues that the federal government cannot,
consistent with the Interstate Commerce Clause, the Tenth
Amendment, and in the wake of United States v. Lopez, 514 U.S. 549,
*
Pursuant to 5TH CIR. R. 47.5 the Court has determined that this
opinion should not be published and is not precedent except under
the limited circumstances set forth in 5TH CIR. R. 47.5.4.
567-68 (1995), punish a felon’s mere possession of a firearm that
has traveled in interstate commerce at some unspecified time in the
past because such possession lacks a sufficient nexus with
interstate commerce.1 Section 922(g)(1) has been upheld
consistently as constitutional. See United States v. Kuban, 94
F.3d 971-973 (5th Cir. 1996), cert. denied, 117 S.Ct. 716 (1997);
United States v. Rawls, 85 F.3d 240, 242 (5th Cir. 1996).
AFFIRMED
1
Here, Sapp apparently never traveled interstate with the
weapon and did not obtain it through interstate channels; his
possession of it was in Texas in 1994 and 1995, and it apparently
had been in Texas, owned by his father and subsequently his mother,
continuously for more than forty years. At some unspecified time
prior to Sapp’s father’s acquisition of the weapon (apparently in
Texas)——which seems to have been before Sapp was born——it had been
manufactured outside of Texas; no other connection or relation to
interstate commerce is alleged or even suggested by the record.
2