## Facts

- A confidential informant reported that Michael Marzzarella was selling stolen handguns in Pennsylvania.
- An undercover state trooper bought a .25 caliber Titan pistol from Marzzarella; the pistol’s serial number was partially obliterated.
- A later purchase involved another handgun, and Marzzarella indicated its serial number could also be obliterated.
- A federal grand jury indicted Marzzarella for possessing a firearm with an obliterated serial number, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 922(k); he was not charged with the gun sales.
- After the district court denied his motion to dismiss on Second Amendment grounds, Marzzarella entered a conditional guilty plea preserving his right to appeal the statute’s constitutionality as applied.

## Issues

1. Whether 18 U.S.C. § 922(k), which criminalizes possession of a firearm with an obliterated serial number, violates the Second Amendment as applied to Marzzarella.

## Decision

- The Third Circuit affirmed the denial of the motion to dismiss and affirmed the conviction.
- The court adopted a two-step framework for Second Amendment challenges: (1) determine whether the regulated conduct is within the Second Amendment’s historically understood scope; (2) if so, apply an appropriate level of means–end scrutiny.
- The court assumed, without deciding, that possession of a firearm with an obliterated serial number falls within the Second Amendment’s scope and proceeded to step two.
- The court applied intermediate scrutiny because § 922(k) does not severely burden the core right of law-abiding, responsible citizens to possess arms for self-defense in the home.
- The government’s interests in firearm tracing and curbing illicit gun markets were substantial, and § 922(k) was a reasonable fit because it targets a narrow subset of firearms made untraceable by serial-number obliteration.

## Legal Principles

- Second Amendment challenges may be analyzed by (1) historical-scope inquiry and, if protected conduct is implicated, (2) means–end scrutiny calibrated to the degree the law burdens the right.
- Rational basis review is not an appropriate standard for evaluating Second Amendment restrictions.
- Intermediate scrutiny may apply where a firearm regulation does not meaningfully interfere with the core self-defense right, such as when it regulates a narrow category of weapons or conditions of lawful possession rather than broadly limiting ownership or use.
- A categorical prohibition on possession of firearms with obliterated serial numbers can be justified by substantial governmental objectives, including enabling tracing and facilitating enforcement of firearms laws, so long as there is a reasonable fit between the prohibition and those objectives.

## Conclusion

The Third Circuit held that § 922(k)’s ban on possessing firearms with obliterated serial numbers does not violate the Second Amendment because it does not substantially burden the core right of armed self-defense and is reasonably tailored to substantial law-enforcement interests in firearm traceability and suppressing unlawful gun markets.


United States v. Marzzarella, 614 F.3d 85 (3d Cir. 2010)