The Supreme Court on Friday upheld a law barring domestic abusers from owning guns, rejecting right-wing arguments that almost any restriction on firearms violates the Second Amendment.
By an 8-1 vote, the conservative-led top court sided with a 1994 federal ban on guns for people under restraining orders to stay away from their partners, a rule that liberals call a common-sense restriction on the right to bear arms.
“Since the founding, the nation’s firearm laws have included regulations to stop individuals who threaten physical harm to others from misusing firearms,” Chief Justice John Roberts wrote for the majority.
Right-wing Justice Clarence Thomas, the most unyielding advocate for gun rights on the court, dissented, saying there was no historical precedent for banning those accused of domestic violence from owning guns.
Friday’s case stemmed directly from the Supreme Court’s 2022 decision overruling a New York gun law in which the court ruled that any limits on the right to bear arms must be based on a historic precedent.
The new case involved a Texas man, Zackey Rahimi, who was accused of hitting his girlfriend during an argument in a parking lot and later threatening to shoot her.
At oral arguments some justices voiced concern that a ruling for Rahimi could also jeopardize the entire federal background check system that the Biden administration said has stopped more than 75,000 gun sales in the past 25 years based on domestic violence protective orders.
The case had also been closely watched for its potential to affect gun cases, especially that of presidential son Hunter Biden.
If the court had overturned the law, it could have helped Hunter Biden overturn his conviction for lying on a form to buy a firearm while he was addicted to drugs. His lawyers have signaled they will appeal, in part based on the Second Amendment.
The decision came as a relief for advocates for domestic violence victims and gun control groups, who had feared the right-wing judges might take an even bigger step towards outlawing even the most seemingly common-sense gun restrictions.
“The Supreme Court decision reinforces a simple point: common-sense gun safety laws save lives,” Gov. Hochul said.
Firearms are the most common weapon used in homicides of spouses, intimate partners, children or relatives in recent years, according to data from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Guns were used in more than half — 57% — of those killings in 2020, a year that saw an overall increase in domestic violence during the coronavirus pandemic.
Seventy women a month, on average, are shot and killed by intimate partners, according to the gun control group Everytown for Gun Safety.
Gun rights groups backed Rahimi, arguing that the appeals court got it right when it looked at American history and found no restriction close enough to justify the gun ban.
