Supreme Court upholds ban on domestic violence offenders owning guns

The Supreme Court on Friday upheld a ban on domestic abusers owning firearms, the high court’s first major Second Amendment ruling since a 2022 case that drastically expanded gun rights.

Chief Justice John Roberts wrote the opinion for the nearly unanimous majority. Conservative Justice Clarence Thomas, who authored the 2022 gun case ruling, was the lone dissent.

“An individual found by a court to pose a credible threat to the physical safety of another may be temporarily disarmed consistent with the Second Amendment,” Roberts wrote in the 8-1 majority opinion. 

The case was brough by Zackey Rahimi, a Texas man who was accused of striking his girlfriend during an altercation in a parking lot after an argument and later threatening to shoot her in 2019. Rahimi was issued a restraining order in 2020, but he “repeatedly violated” the order, the federal government wrote in its brief in the case, including being involved in five separate shooting incidents. Police secured a warrant after Rahimi was found to be a suspect in the shootings, and upon a search of his house, officers “found a .45-caliber pistol, a .308-caliber rifle, magazines, ammunition, and a copy of the protective order.”

Rahimi argued that the federal government was violating his Second Amendment rights by refusing to allow him to have a firearm.

But in oral arguments last year, the Biden administration argued that the 1994 restriction at the center of the case — which bans firearms for people under restraining orders to stay away from their spouses or partners — was consistent with the longstanding practice of disarming dangerous people.

“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 in his ruling. “Since the founding, our Nation’s firearm laws have included provisions preventing individuals who threaten physical harm to others from misusing firearms.”

Despite the favorable ruling, President Joe Biden’s campaign warned of the “startling reality” behind the case’s consideration in the first place.

“No American should overlook the startling reality behind today’s decision: Protecting domestic abuse survivors from gun violence should never be a question, but the fact it even had to be considered shows just how extreme Donald Trump and the gun lobby are,” a senior Biden campaign advisor said in a statement to Spectrum News. “There’s only one candidate in this race fighting to save lives from gun violence and that’s Joe Biden.”

The Associated Press contributed to this report.