June 21, 2024
The Supreme Court just upheld a law that bans certain people from owning and possessing firearms. Yes – you heard that correctly. The supreme court says “shall not be infringe” actually can be infringed in certain circumstances….as it has been in this country since its founding.
And this decision wasn’t close. The ruling was eight to one with the majority opinion written by Chief Justice John Roberts. There were several concurring opinions. Justice Clarence Thomas dissented. And I’ll explain his position in a second but first you need to understand the case.
In United States vs Rahimi… Rahimi is Zackey Rahimi a convicted drug dealer from Texas who had a court-ordered restraining order against him for allegedly assaulting his girlfriend. Both federal and Texas state law bans people with domestic violence restraining orders from possessing guns. Well after that restraining order was imposed — Rahimi was involved in multiple shootings in Texas. He was indicted by a federal grand jury for possession of a firearm while under a domestic violence restraining order. But he sued saying that federal law that restricts him from having guns violates his second amendment right. And the 5th circuit court of appeals agreed with him. The fifth circuit said – because of a landmark supreme court ruling in 2022 that established the Bruen test – the federal law and Texas’s state law banning people with domestic violence restraining orders from possessing guns is unconstitutional because it’s not “consistent with the nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation.”
But today – the chief justice says the fifth circuit like many other lower courts have gotten it wrong. They misapplied the Bruen test by to Rahimi’s case. The chief justice clarified how to apply the Bruen test to existing and future gun regulations. He said in order to legally restrict someone’s right to possess firearm, the law to regulate it “must comport with the principles underlying the second amendment, but it need not be a “dead ringer” or a “historical twin.” The chief says since there was a court finding that Rahimi had a long history of repeated violence against several woman and several other crimes it was lawful to restrict his gun possession. He said “our tradition of firearm regulation allows the government to disarm individuals who present a credible threat to the physical safety of others. When an individual has been found by a court to pose a credible threat to the physical safety of another, that individual may be temporarily disarmed consistent with the second amendment.”
He said the Supreme Court had no difficulty in overturning the 5th circuit in Rahimi’s case saying it was “common sense.” He says while the right to keep and bear arms is a fundamental right, like all other rights, in this country it is not unlimited.
In his dissent Justice Thomas said no – when a court is using the Bruen test to decide legality of gun regulation – it needs to basically be a “historical twin”. Thomas – who wrote the Bruen majority opinion said “the court and government do not point to a single historical law revoking a citizen’s second amendment right based on possible interpersonal violence. The government has not borne its burden to prove that [the law that lists who is prohibited from possessing firearms] §922(g)(8) is consistent with the second amendment’s text and historical understanding.”
Read the Supreme Court Rahimi ruling here.
