The left had mixed reactions to the ruling: The New Yorker ran a headline that said, “The Supreme Court Issues a Sensible Decision on Guns.” Other publications didn’t like it at all. It would not be surprising if some conservatives were upset about the ruling too, as it acknowledges that the right to keep and bear arms is fundamental, but not limitless. Still, this is a good thing, both for domestic violence victims and the court’s ongoing tug-of-war over originalism and how to interpret the Second Amendment in 2024 and beyond.
The court rehashed a bit of the 2022 gun case, New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen, where they decided that gun laws must have some connection to the nation’s history and tradition to withstand a challenge. Friday, in the majority opinion, which Chief Justice John Roberts wrote, he said the lower courts had misunderstood Bruen and they can still uphold modern gun restrictions even if there isn’t an exact historic law to rely on.
“Rather than asking whether a present-day gun regulation has a precise historical analogue, courts applying Bruen should “conside[r] whether the challenged regulation is consistent with the principles that underpin our regulatory tradition,” Roberts writes.
Justice Amy Coney Barrett, a favorite among today’s conservatives because Donald Trump nominated her, said in her concurrence that lower courts seem to be looking to historical gun laws to review modern regulations and issued caution. “Imposing a test that demands overly specific analogues has serious problems,” Barrett wrote. “It forces 21st-century regulations to follow late-18th-century policy choices, giving us ‘a law trapped in amber.’”
Conversely, Justice Clarence Thomas wrote the sole dissent and said the “court’s directive was clear” in Bruen: Gun laws need to be “consistent with the nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation” to hold up against legal scrutiny. This is not surprising, given Thomas wrote the majority opinion in Bruen.
Still, as a woman with a vested interest in domestic violence who understands the toxic dynamic between firearms, restraining orders, and abusers, it is a sigh of relief that the Supreme Court both affirmed the right to keep firearms but also that the right “is not unlimited,” in this case, to an abuser with a protective order.
The concurring opinions present a multi-faceted but cohesive case, not that domestic violence survivors deserve peace of mind, and that the Second Amendment be damned, but that rights have narrow limits and courts can carefully set those, per the Constitution and general historical precedent.
Roberts writes, “Taken together, the surety and going armed laws confirm what common sense suggests: When an individual poses a clear threat of physical violence to another, the threatening individual may be disarmed. Section 922(g)(8) is by no means identical to these founding era regimes, but it does not need to be…Its prohibition on the possession of firearms by those found by a court to present a threat to others fits neatly within the tradition the surety and going armed laws represent.”
The case was based in Texas, where I live, where a man named Zackey Rahimi wreaked havoc on his partner, the mother of his child, starting in 2019. After assaulting her, she obtained a restraining order, which he violated. He continued to threaten other women with a firearm and he owned multiple guns. While under arrest, Texas police identified him as a suspect in several shootings. In classic, entitled, abuser fashion, Rahimi filed a lawsuit claiming the law that kept him from owning a firearm, while the restraining order was in place, was unconstitutional.
“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,” Roberts writes.
Women (and men) who have suffered abuse at the hands of someone with a firearm, or a restraining order, could not agree more. Consequences follow actions and laws are often shaped with this in mind. More than half of all intimate partner homicides are committed with a firearm and abusers often ignore restraining orders, though survivors should still obtain them, if only to document the ongoing abuse. Imagine what the statistics would be if this law were not in place?
The Second Amendment is an important part of our nation’s fraught history, a right that can help keep Americans safe and empowered. But as time has marched on and weapons have become more advanced, it’s been difficult to know what gun laws are or are not constitutional. The Supreme Court’s ruling keeps the Second Amendment intact and allows survivors of domestic violence peace of mind too.
