US Supreme Court upholds federal domestic-violence gun ban
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[June 22, 2024]
By Andrew Chung
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The U.S. Supreme Court on Friday upheld a federal
law that makes it a crime for people under domestic violence restraining
orders to have guns, handing a victory to President Joe Biden's
administration as the justices opted not to further widen firearms
rights after a major expansion in 2022.
The 8-1 ruling, authored by conservative Chief Justice John Roberts,
overturned a lower court's decision striking down the 1994 law as a
violation of the U.S. Constitution's Second Amendment right to "keep and
bear arms." The law was challenged by a Texas man who was subject to a
restraining order for assaulting his girlfriend in a parking lot and
later threatening to shoot her.
The New Orleans-based 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals had concluded
that the measure failed the Supreme Court's stringent test set in 2022
that required gun laws to be "consistent with the nation's historical
tradition of firearm regulation" to comply with the Second Amendment.
But Roberts wrote that since the nation's founding, firearm laws have
targeted people who threaten physical harm to others.
"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 - consistent with the Second Amendment - be banned from
possessing firearms while the order is in effect," Roberts wrote.

Biden's administration defended the law as critical to protect public
safety and abuse victims, who often are women.
"No one who has been abused should have to worry about their abuser
getting a gun," Biden said, touting his record on gun control. "As a
result of (Friday's) ruling, survivors of domestic violence and their
families will still be able to count on critical protections, just as
they have for the past three decades."
Conservative Justice Clarence Thomas, who authored the 2022 ruling in a
case called New York State Rifle and Pistol Association v. Bruen, was
the lone dissenter.
"Not a single historical regulation justifies the statute at issue,"
Thomas wrote, adding that "in the interest of ensuring the government
can regulate one subset of society, (Friday's) decision puts at risk the
Second Amendment rights of many more."
The case involved Zackey Rahimi, who pleaded guilty in 2021 to illegally
possessing guns in violation of this law while subject to a restraining
order. Police found a pistol and rifle while searching Rahimi's
residence in connection with at least five shootings, including using an
assault-type rifle to fire at the home of a man to whom he had sold
drugs.
A federal judge had rejected Rahimi's Second Amendment challenge and
sentenced him to more than six years in prison before the case went to
the 5th Circuit. Violating this law was punishable by up to 10 years in
prison at the time of Rahimi's indictment but has since been raised to
15 years.
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A view shows firearms at the National Rifle Association (NRA) annual
convention in Indianapolis, Indiana, U.S., April 15, 2023.
REUTERS/Evelyn Hockstein/File Photo

'A SIGH OF RELIEF'
Gun control advocates welcomed Friday's ruling.
"As millions of domestic violence victims breathe a sigh of relief,
it's worth remembering who put them in jeopardy: extreme
Trump-appointed judges on the 5th Circuit who sided with an abuser
who wanted to keep his guns," said John Feinblatt, president of
Everytown for Gun Safety, referring to Republican former President
Donald Trump.
Rahimi's lawyer declined to comment.
In a nation bitterly divided over how to address firearms violence
including frequent mass shootings, the Supreme Court often has taken
an expansive view of the Second Amendment. It broadened gun rights
in landmark rulings in 2008 and 2010 before the 2022 Bruen decision,
which recognized a constitutional right to carry a handgun in public
for self defense and struck down New York state's limits on carrying
concealed handguns.
In Friday's ruling, Roberts made clear that the history and
tradition test set in Bruen for gun regulations is not as inflexible
as the 5th Circuit's ruling and Thomas's dissent suggested.
Roberts said that under the Bruen precedent, modern gun restrictions
do not require a "historical twin" in order to be lawful.
Five justices who joined the majority in the ruling wrote concurring
opinions, reflecting a vigorous debate over the workability of the
Bruen test. Liberal Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson said the Rahimi
case demonstrated that lower courts are struggling to apply the
Bruen tenets.
"In my view, the blame may lie with us, not with them," Jackson
wrote.
In another firearms-related decision, the Supreme Court on June 14,
declared unlawful a federal ban on "bump stock" devices that enable
semiautomatic weapons to fire rapidly like machine guns, although
that case did not involve the Second Amendment.
In a May Reuters/Ipsos poll, 75% of registered voters, including 84%
of Democrats and 70% of Republicans, said that a person subject to a
domestic violence restraining order should not be allowed to possess
firearms.
(Reporting by Andrew Chung; Editing by Will Dunham)
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