The Supreme Court on Friday upheld a federal law banning people under domestic violence restraining orders (DVROs) from possessing guns, in the Court’s first major review of the Second Amendment this term.
In an 8-1 opinion written by Chief Justice Roberts, the Court majority stated:[W]We concluded simply that “individuals determined by a court to pose a credible threat to the physical safety of others may be temporarily disarmed under the Second Amendment.” Justice Clarence Thomas was the lone dissenter.
Both the liberal and conservative justices agreed with the Biden administration that while there may not have been a specific ban when the Constitution was written in the 1790s, there was a history and tradition of keeping firearms away from dangerous people.
Case, United States v. RahimiIt will be the first major test of the Second Amendment since a 2022 Supreme Court ruling that expanded the right of law-abiding citizens to carry handguns outside the home for defense and could have major implications for the legal system and several gun control bills pending in state legislatures.
Supreme Court likely to hand Biden Justice Department victory in challenge to gun control laws
The Supreme Court in Washington, DC on June 29, 2022. (AP Photo/Jacqueline Martin)
The conservative majority in the case, known as “Bruen,” argued that gun laws must be consistent with and similar to the “historic tradition of the nation’s gun laws” to withstand current constitutional scrutiny.
Also, Current Cases The question is whether current and former drug users, like Hunter Biden, can be similarly denied gun ownership. The president’s son is scheduled to challenge this month his conviction for lying about his drug addiction on a federal registration form when buying a gun in 2018.
The case stemmed from a lawsuit involving a Texas man, Zackie Rahimi, who argued that he had the right to own a gun for self-defense under a DVRO. Rahimi was charged with separate state crimes for assaulting a former girlfriend and then another woman with a gun in 2019.
Read the Supreme Court decision – App users click here:
A Texas judge found Rahimi had committed a “domestic violence offense” in a civil lawsuit and issued a protective order against his ex-girlfriend, including suspending his gun license, and warned her that possessing a gun under the protective order was a violation of federal law, according to court records.
Rahimi is accused of repeatedly violating the order, including by approaching and threatening his victims, as well as discharging a gun in public at five different locations over the course of several weeks. Police searched his residence and found a handgun, a rifle and ammunition.
While he contested some of the charges against him, he later pleaded guilty to violating federal law for possessing a handgun despite an earlier restraining order, but later appealed the conviction.
The 5th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in Rahimi’s favor, finding the federal regulations unconstitutional because there was no historical parallel to justify the burden on an individual’s right to self-defense.
The big question was whether there is currently an exact analogue to 18th-century legal concepts about domestic violence and gun rights, namely, whether they give modern legislatures and courts discretion to restrict gun ownership from people deemed dangerous or irresponsible.
Friday’s ruling in the DVRO case was narrow in scope, focusing only on whether the Second Amendment protects people deemed a danger to society.
“When a restraining order contains a finding that an individual poses a credible threat to the physical safety of an intimate partner, that individual may be prohibited from possessing a firearm for the duration of the order, pursuant to the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution,” the Chief Justice wrote in the majority opinion.
“Since the founding of our nation, our firearms laws have included provisions that prohibit individuals from misusing firearms if they pose a threat of physical harm to others. When applied to the facts of this case: [the statute] It fits perfectly into this tradition,” he wrote.
The six justices each filed separate concurring opinions, agreeing with the decision but differing on the scope of the majority opinion and expressing some reservations about Roberts’ reasoning in the majority opinion.
These were Justice Sonia Sotomayor, and were supported by Justices Elana Kagan, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, Amy Coney Barrett and Ketanji Brown Jackson.
Thomas wrote a lengthy dissent.
“The question before us is not whether Rahimi and others like him may be disarmed under the Second Amendment, but rather whether the government can strip Second Amendment rights from someone who is the subject of a protective order, even if that person has never been charged with or convicted of a crime. They can’t,” he said.
“The courts and the government have not cited a single historic law that revokes a citizen’s Second Amendment rights based on the possibility of interpersonal violence. [the statute] It is consistent with the language and historical understanding of the Second Amendment.
“The framers of the Constitution and the people who ratified it understood that the right to keep and bear arms was essential to the preservation of liberty,” he continued.
Click here to get the FOX News app
“But because it aims to enable the government to regulate certain groups in society, today’s ruling puts Second Amendment rights at risk for many more people. I respectfully dissent,” he said.
