The particular focus of this news article is the Supreme Court which has recently supported a federal law that has been directly connected to the inability of people who have restraining orders against them in cases of domestic violence to own firearms.
The Supreme Court’s decision with an 8-1 majority is a very uncommon ruling in support of new gun laws in the United States.
The case involved Zackey Rahimi, a man from Texas who has had a history of using his firearms in acts of violence against his partners. Even though Rahimi had been declared legally incompetent, his handgun license had been rescinded, and he was prohibited from possessing any firearms of any sort, he continued to possess his firearms and engaged in multiple public shootings in 2020.
As the majority opinion stated, Chief Justice John Roberts wrote that although the court could not specify the exact moment when a physical confrontation occurred that compelled Weeks to pull out the gun, the respondent was barred by the state policy of disarming alleged domestic abusers and common sense.
The decision supports an old federal law, which was enacted in 1994, that banned people who have restraining orders of domestic violence from possessing firearms. Another had ruled the statute unconstitutional arguing it was not in line with the historical standards of the nation as regards the use of firearms.
However, the Supreme Court did not agree with such a decision; the Chief Justice added that, “Since the founding of this nation, our America’s firearm laws prohibited those who posed a physical threat to the society to wield firearms in a wrong manner.
There was still dissension within the ruling, with the court’s most conservative member, Justice Clarence Thomas, maintaining that “today’s decision endangers Second Amendment rights for many more”.
However, activists supporting regulation called the decision an “important win” in combating domestic violence and gun violence. Obama’s gun control group Brady hailed the verdict saying it showed that the constitution permits a system with “reasonable” laws to deny purchases to dangerous people.
The case has thereby brought argument back to the surface over the interpretation of the Second Amendment in connection with the degrees of the government restrictions that may be placed on firearms ownership.
While the court is far from making a clear and direct ruling on the question of whether the Second Amendment protects firearms in the home to be used in acts of aggression, this decision offers a small but meaningful victory in the search for ways to make guns less deadly in the household.
