US Supreme Court leans toward allowing domestic-violence gun curbs
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[November 08, 2023]
By Andrew Chung and John Kruzel
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -U.S. Supreme Court justices on Tuesday appeared
inclined to uphold the legality of a federal law that makes it a crime
for people under domestic violence restraining orders to have guns in
the latest major case to test the willingness of its conservative
majority to further expand gun rights.
The justices heard arguments in an appeal by President Joe Biden's
administration of a lower court's ruling striking down the law -
intended to protect victims of domestic abuse - as a violation of the
U.S. Constitution's Second Amendment right to "keep and bear arms."
The New Orleans-based 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals concluded that
the measure failed a stringent test set by the Supreme Court in a 2022
ruling that required gun laws to be "consistent with the nation's
historical tradition of firearm regulation" in order to survive a Second
Amendment challenge.
Some of the conservative justices, who hold a 6-3 majority, questioned
the scope of the administration's argument that, under the Second
Amendment, people who are not "law-abiding and responsible" - categories
that include domestic abusers - may be barred from possessing guns.
Some of their questions, however, signaled openness to finding the law
in harmony with the Second Amendment by applying a standard that would
disarm people deemed dangerous, as opposed to merely irresponsible.
Conservative Chief Justice John Roberts focused on the word
"responsible," suggesting it was too broad.
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"I mean, not taking your recycling to the curb on Thursdays, if it's a
serious problem it's irresponsible," Roberts said.
Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar, representing the administration,
told Roberts the term "not responsible" is the standard the court itself
articulated for firearms restrictions in three major gun rights rulings
in the past 15 years and is "intrinsically tied to the danger you would
present if you had access to firearms."
HISTORICAL TRADITION
Prelogar argued that the law fits within the nation's historical
tradition of taking guns from people who have committed crimes or whose
access to guns poses a danger - "for example, loyalists, rebels, minors,
individuals with mental illness, felons and drug addicts."
The case involves Zackey Rahimi, a Texas man who pleaded guilty to
illegally possessing guns in violation of this law while subject to a
restraining order for assaulting his girlfriend in a parking lot and
later threatening to shoot her. Police found the guns while searching
his residence in connection with at least five shootings.
Advocacy groups have cited studies showing the presence of a gun
increases the likelihood a domestic abuse incident will turn deadly.
Prelogar also made the point.
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![](../images/110823PIX/news_a31.jpg)
People participate in a demonstration as the US Supreme Court
considers legality of domestic-violence gun curbs at the Supreme
Court in Washington, D.C., U.S., November 7, 2023. REUTERS/Sarah
Silbiger
![](http://archives.lincolndailynews.com/2023/Nov/08/images/ads/current/atlantabank_lda_PPP_2023.png)
"Guns and domestic abuse are a deadly combination," Prelogar told
the justices. "As this court has said, all too often, the only
difference between a battered woman and a dead woman is the presence
of a gun. Armed abusers also pose grave danger to police officers
responding to domestic violence calls and to the public at large, as
Zackey Rahimi's own conduct shows."
'A DANGEROUS PERSON'
"You don't have any doubt that your client's a dangerous person, do
you?" Roberts asked attorney Matthew Wright, the federal public
defender representing Rahimi.
Wright wondered what a "dangerous person" means.
"I mean, someone who's shooting, you know, at people - that's a good
start," Roberts replied, eliciting courtroom laughter.
Conservative Justice Amy Coney Barrett asked Prelogar whether the
court needed to use "law-abiding and responsible" as the relevant
test "given some of the ambiguities in that phrase."
Barrett asked, "Could I just say, it's dangerousness?"
Liberal justice Elena Kagan told Wright that ruling in Rahimi's
favor could lead to other gun curbs being invalidated, undermining
public safety.
"It just seems to me that your argument applies to a wide variety of
disarming actions - bans, what have you - that we take for granted
now because it's so obvious that people who have guns pose a great
danger to others, and you don't give guns to people who have the
kind of history of domestic violence that your client has or to the
mentally ill," Kagan said.
In a nation bitterly divided over how to address firearms violence
including frequent mass shootings, the court has taken an expansive
view of the Second Amendment, broadening gun rights in three
landmark rulings since 2008.
![](http://archives.lincolndailynews.com/2023/Nov/08/images/ads/current/brandt_sda_FFARM_2023.png)
Its 2022 ruling, New York State Rifle and Pistol Association v.
Bruen, recognized a constitutional right to carry a handgun in
public for self defense, striking down a New York state law.
Some of the liberal justices voiced concern that the Bruen decision
had given scant instruction to judges and legislators. Justice
Ketanji Brown Jackson wondered how that ruling might constrain a
lawmaker in Maine searching for a suitable response after a gunman
last month killed 18 people in Lewiston.
A ruling is expected by the end of June.
(Reporting by Andrew Chung; Editing by Will Dunham)
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