Supreme Court considers whether to uphold law that keeps guns out of the hands of domestic abusers
The ConversationNov 21, 2023
The Facts
On Tuesday, SCOTUS heard arguments in the case of Texas man Zackey Rahimi, who is challenging a federal law that prohibits people who are the subject of a domestic violence restraining order from possessing guns.
Rahimi is asking SCOTUS to dismiss the charge against him based on its 2022 decision in New York State Rifle and Pistol Association v. Bruen, which instructed courts to uphold gun restrictions only if a tradition of such regulations exist in US history.
The Spin
Left narrative
The Bruen ruling and the appeals court ruling in favor of Rahimi are what happens when courts subscribe to unfettered originalism. There were no protective orders against domestic abusers when the Second Amendment was written. Luckily, there seems to be enough justices willing to keep the country safe.
Right narrative
The Second Amendment explicitly spells out the rare instances where it’s legal to limit gun possession. The law in question, in this case, is too broad, and the risk of mistakenly taking guns away from innocent people is too great to let the statute stand. Time and again, we find out the hard way that gun restrictions don’t impact criminals who, by their nature, don’t adhere to laws.
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