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dontmeantobepoliticalbut · 7 months

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The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday seemed likely to uphold a federal law that bans gun possession for anyone subject to a domestic violence court order. If so, the decision would be a small retreat from the court's sweeping decision on gun rights last year.

From the outset Tuesday, the Justices wrestled with the consequences of their far-reaching 2022 decision, declaring that in order for a gun law to be constitutional, it has to be analogous to a law that existed at the nation's founding in the late 1700s. The question Tuesday was how precise that analog has to be.

DANGEROUS VS. RESPONSIBLE

Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar, representing the government, told the Justices that under the court's most recent decisions, including last year's, Congress may disarm those who are not law-abiding, responsible citizens.

"There is no historical evidence" that the Second Amendment "was originally understood to prevent legislatures from disarming dangerous individuals," she said.

But, as several Justices noted, people do all kinds of irresponsible things — driving over the speed limit, putting the trash out on the wrong day — but nobody would suggest they lose their constitutional rights for that. Pressed by Chief Justice John Roberts, Prelogar agreed that the word responsible is "something of a placeholder for dangerousness."

"There's no daylight at all then between not responsible and dangerous?" Justice Brett Kavanaugh asked. No daylight, Prelogar agreed, adding that "our understanding of what history and tradition reflect ... is those whose possession of firearms presents an unusual danger beyond the ordinary citizen."

"Why did you use the term 'responsible' if what you meant was dangerous?" Roberts asked.

"Well, we relied on the same phrasing the Court itself used when it first articulated" the right to bear arms principle in 2008, she replied.

Most of the Court's conservatives seemed to accept that proposition, with only Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas remaining skeptical. Thomas was the author of last year's broad decision — a decision so expansive and unspecific that the lower courts have interpreted it in dramatically different ways. As Justice Elena Kagan observed, "There seems to be a fair bit of division, and a fair bit of confusion about what Bruen [last year's case] means and what Bruen requires of the lower courts."

BACKGROUND TO THE CASE

Challenging the federal law in Tuesday's case was Zackey Rahimi. A Texas judge stripped him of his license to have guns when it granted a domestic violence court order after Rahimi allegedly assaulted his girlfriend in a parking lot, and then fired a gun at a bystander who saw the assault. After he continued firing guns in public, even after the court order, police searched his residence and found guns, magazines and ammunition. He was sentenced to six years in prison for violating the federal law that bans domestic abusers under court order from possessing guns.

Rahimi, however, continued to press his challenge to the federal law, and the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, citing the Supreme Court's 2022 ruling, declared the law unconstitutional.

Rahimi's lawyer, federal public defender Matthew Wright, struggled to defend that decision Tuesday, telling the Justices there is no law from the founding era that is analogous to this one.

"There's no history of [gun] bans. They don't exist," Wright told the court.

Justice Kagan asked if the presence of a similar ban at the time of the founding is essential after the court's decision last year in the Bruen case. If there isn't a similar ban from the founding era, "we say that the government has no right to do anything?" she asked incredulously.

"That's largely what Bruen says," Wright replied.

Wright also maintained that those accused of domestic violence have few protections in court prior to being slapped with a ban on guns.

Justice Amy Coney Barrett wasn't buying that, noting that Rahimi's ex-girlfriend "did submit a sworn affidavit giving quite a lot of detail about the various threats. It's not like he just showed up and the judge said 'credible finding of violence.'"

Roberts was even more direct, asking, "You don't have any doubt that your client is a dangerous person, do you?"

Wright replied, "I would want to know what dangerous person means."

"Someone who is shooting at people," Roberts shot back.

"That's fair," a sheepish Wright conceded.

Kagan followed up: "Do you think the Congress could disarm people who are mentally ill, who've been committed to mental institutions?"

"I think maybe," Wright answered, prompting this from Kagan: "I will tell you the honest truth, Mr. Wright. I feel like you are running away from your argument because the implications of your argument are just so untenable that you have to say 'no, that is not really my argument.'"

Indeed, the Court's decision in the Rahimi case will have ripple effects. It may make lower courts more hesitant to strike down laws aimed at preventing dangerous people from having guns.

But as several Justices said Tuesday, this is the easy case. The harder ones lie ahead, among them: federal and state laws that bar convicted felons — even those convicted of non-violent crimes — from having guns.

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toxoplasmewsis · 1 year

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The decades-old US law barring domestic abusers from possessing firearms contradicts the nation’s “historical tradition” of access to guns even for pe ople who may not be “model citizens,” an appeals court said in a ruling that prompted a Justice Department rebuke.

The statute is unconstitutional because it gives too much power to Congress to determine who qualifies as “law-abiding, responsible citizens” when it comes to gun ownership, the 5th US Circuit Court of Appeals said Thursday. A unanimous three-judge panel wondered: who’s next?

“Could speeders be stripped of their right to keep and bear arms? Political nonconformists? People who do not recycle or drive an electric vehicle?” the New Orleans-based court asked in the decision.

The ruling vacated the conviction of a Texas man, Zackey Rahimi, who pleaded guilty to violating the law by keeping a pistol at home despite being subject to a civil domestic-violence restraining order for assaulting his former girlfriend. It’s the latest fallout from a US Supreme Court ruling in June that paved the way for courts to reconsider a wide variety of gun restrictions.

“Rahimi, while hardly a model citizen, is nonetheless part of the political community entitled to the Second Amendment’s guarantees, all other things equal,” said the appellate panel, comprised of two judges appointed by former President Donald Trump and one by Ronald Reagan.

Rahimi’s home was searched after he was involved in five shootings in a two-month span, including firing at a law enforcement vehicle in December 2020, firing at a driver after getting in a car accident and shooting multiple rounds in the air in January 2021 “after his friend’s credit card was declined at a Whataburger restaurant,” the appeals court said.

US Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a statement that Congress passed the law 30 years ago after determining “that a person who is subject to a court order that restrains him or her from threatening an intimate partner or child cannot lawfully possess a firearm.”

“Whether analyzed through the lens of Supreme Court precedent, or of the text, history, and tradition of the Second Amendment, that statute is constitutional,” Garland said. “Accordingly, the department will seek further review of the Fifth Circuit’s contrary decision.”

Rahimi’s lawyer, James Matthew Wright, didn’t immediately respond to a message seeking comment.

California Attorney General Rob Bonta called the decision “dangerous,” noting that firearms are used to commit more than half of all “intimate partner homicides” in the US. He said restraining orders in his state still bar possession of guns and urged residents “to utilize these life-saving tools.”

Shannon Watts, founder of Moms Demand Action, said in a statement that the 5th Circuit decision should be overturned.

“This extreme and dangerous ruling is a death sentence for women and families as domestic violence is far too often a precursor to gun violence,” Shannon said. “When someone is able to secure a restraining order, we must do everything possible to keep them and their families safe — not empower the abuser with easy access to firearms.”

Everytown for Gun Safety, which advocates gun-safety measures, is backed by Michael Bloomberg, founder and majority owner of Bloomberg LP.

The case is USA v. Rahimi, 21-11001, US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit (New Orleans).

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It was not very popular the last time I said this and I know adding more guns to the equation isn’t gonna solve the problem, but i really really think it’s time women learn self defense, including gun training and possibly owning one.

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dreaminginthedeepsouth · 7 months

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Sam Alito’s Deplorable Arguments for Letting Domestic Abusers Keep Their Guns

In the fantasy world of Opus Dei jurisprudence, two justices decide to go to bat for the rights of convicted domestic abusers to continue to have and use firearms as they perpetrate further crimes... because the Founders would approve, apparently...

Dahlia Lithwick: the arguments at 1 First St. on Tuesday morning steered clear of old Zackey Rahimi. Only after Justice Samuel Alito implied that when a woman seeks a protective order in a domestic violence setting, the results tend to be “he said, she said” situations concluding in restraining orders against both parties, and only after Justice Clarence Thomas suggested that there existed only a “very thin record” in the present case did it become necessary for the remaining justices to intervene with actual facts from the actual record. As Justice Amy Coney Barrett was forced to remind her colleagues, who were at that point just parroting gun industry talking points, Rahimi’s girlfriend “did submit a sworn affidavit giving quite a lot of detail about the various threats. It’s not like he just showed up and the judge said ‘Credible finding of violence.’ ”

But why stick to the facts when you can imagine better ones? So, despite the fact that Rahimi was not making a procedural argument about the unfairness of the civil restraining order process, both Alito and Thomas magicked up these objections. Despite the fact that there was a lower court’s finding that Rahimi was in fact a danger to his girlfriend and child, they coughed up hypotheticals that raised the issue of how generally unfair it is for courts to take away guns in a civil proceeding. As Thomas put it, “If this were a criminal proceeding, then you would have a determination of what you’re talking about—someone would be convicted of a crime, a felony assault, or something. But here you have something that’s anticipatory or predictive, where a civil court is making the determination.” Alito—unsurprisingly—fretted more about the rights of the poor beleaguered gun owner than the woman he terrorizes: “If the person [under the restraining order] thinks that he or she is in danger and wants to have a firearm, is that person’s only recourse to possess the firearm and take their chances if they get prosecuted?” In other words, the inversion process is now fully realized. The MAGA justices not only invent records in cases that have no facts. They also ignore the record in the cases that actually have them. Why consider the implications of actual gun violence when you can live in the imaginary world of good guys with guns suffering the indignities of legal restrictions?

Blessedly, at least on this occasion, there was no general agreement from the other conservative justices that pretending Zackey Rahimi right out of existence would yield better results. “You don’t have any doubt that your client is a dangerous person, do you?” Chief Justice John Roberts finally asked J. Matthew Wright, Rahimi’s attorney. Wright mulishly insisted that he would “want to know what dangerous person means.” Roberts, thus unable to ignore the actual facts of the case before him, supplied a plausible definition: “It means ‘someone who is shooting at people.’ … That’s a good start.” There was uneasy laughter in the chamber when Roberts said that, and Wright conceded it. In the current era, uneasy public laughter is often the signaling mechanism that lived reality has pierced a hypothetical John Wayne film festival being screened in D.C. Bruen was an interesting and failed lab experiment about deriving historical analogs from an imagined archive of founding documents. So, always follow the uneasy laughter—that tends to be where the people who end up as mass shooters and domestic abusers reside. “Someone who poses a risk of domestic violence is dangerous,” Barrett pronounced, conclusively, to the immense relief of the reality-based community on Tuesday. The result in the final Rahimi opinion will likely flow from that conclusion, which was shared by the chief justice and Justice Brett Kavanaugh (as well as, of course, the three progressive justices).

But the fact that the bulk of the 90-minute legal debate in Rahimi was untethered both from the established facts of this case and from the gun violence data in the many amicus briefs filed reveals that this is still a conservative supermajority that remains more interested in debating whether and when a justice of the peace can seize a musket from a white dude than considering whether disarming violent abusers is a good idea. It’s critical not to miss the connection between these oral arguments and Tuesday’s other major news event in U.S. political and civil life. Shortly after oral arguments in Rahimi, a whole lot of people showed up at the polls to indicate that they are still absolutely furious that Sam Alito and his tunnel-visioned buddies evinced no interest in the lived economic, emotional, and medical lives of half the population when they reversed Roe v. Wade a year and a half ago.

Democracy, it would seem, is less interested in establishing the correct level of abstraction for determining cunning historical analogs than in continuing to move through the modern world, alive. As embarrassing as the arguments in Rahimi proved to be, they also seem to signal that there are, for the moment at least, no longer five votes for the proposition that voters will shrug away violence and misogyny because, like, #history. From this court, that’s the best you can hope for. For this court, that’s a big retreat from the smug, wrong certainty that was

SLATE.COM

Sam Alito’s Deplorable Arguments for Letting Domestic Abusers Keep Their Guns

#domestic violence #gun violence #gun laws #gun rights #SCOTUS #corrupt SCOTUS #women's rights #justice #the law #rule of law #Slate.com #Sam Alito

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mariacallous · 8 months

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On June 8, 2016, Phoukeo Dej-Oudom asked a family violence commissioner at Clark County Family Court in Las Vegas to grant a restraining order against her soon-to-be-ex-husband, Jason.

“Throughout the marriage, the children’s lives as well as mine have been threatened,” the 35-year-old woman wrote. “Guns have been pulled out and pointed to our heads multiple times.”

Commissioner Amy Mastin denied the application. The court later issued a statement saying that the threats Dej-Oudom described didn’t meet statutory requirements for a restraining order because they took place years before, outside the state of Nevada — despite the fact that the application also described recent threatening phone calls and text messages, storming into her place of work and vows to abscond with their three children.

Three weeks later, police found Dej-Oudom’s dead body near a pharmacy parking lot with a gunshot wound to the head. Several hours later, police entered an apartment where they found the bodies of their three children, age 9, 14, and 15, along with that of Jason Dej-Oudom, the shooter.

Next month, the Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in United States v. Zackey Rahimi — a landmark case that will decide whether it’s constitutional to strip gun rights from people under protection orders for domestic violence.

But the conservative court’s decision in that closely watched case will also impact the country’s ability to prevent mass shootings, potentially upending both federal and state laws designed to keep firearms out of the hands of people like Jason Dej-Oudom at moments when their intimate partners and families are at their most vulnerable.

While high-casualty shootings at public places attract major media attention and notoriety, researchers say most mass shootings look much more like Dej-Oudom’s — crimes of passion carried out against family members, after a long history of non-fatal violence.

The perpetrator is almost always a man. The primary victim is usually an intimate partner and almost always a woman. The other victims are generally family members, typically children, who may be either targets of the violence or just bystanders. Researchers sometimes refer to the phenomenon as “familicide.”

At least 54% of mass shootings in the decade between 2009 and 2018 involved domestic violence, according to data collected by the Gun Violence Archive and analyzed by Everytown for Gun Safety, a reform group.

“Many people equate mass shootings with random acts of violence, but our analysis shows that most mass shootings aren’t at all random,” said Everytown’s senior director of research, Sarah Burd-Sharps. “Nearly half of mass shooters shoot a current or former intimate partner or family member as part of their rampage.”

About half of all domestic violence victims don’t report the incidents they experience to police, according to the National Crime Victimization Survey. Those who do seek legal help to protect themselves, however, find that the rules for disarming a suspected domestic abuser are complex, vary widely across jurisdictions and have historically allowed some perpetrators to slip through glaring loopholes.

Possessing a firearm after a conviction for a domestic violence offense or while subject to a protective order for domestic violence are both felonies under federal law. But although federal law currently bars people subject to protection orders for domestic abuse from possessing guns, the state courts that issue those orders don’t always confiscate firearms from abusers.

“They tell them, ‘you can’t have a gun’ — but nobody checks,” said April Zeoli, a scholar at the University of Michigan who studies the impact of state laws on gun safety. “They really get to keep the gun by default. It’s like the honor system.”

And for decades, federal law limited its definition of domestic violence to include people who were married, cohabiting or had children together. Offenses committed by dating partners didn’t count as “domestic violence” for the purposes of stripping gun rights — an outdated definition now widely known as the “boyfriend loophole.” LGBTQ+ relationships have often fallen outside the scope of the federal government’s definition of domestic violence as well.

Last year’s bipartisan Safer Communities Act revised the federal government’s definition of domestic violence to include dating partners.

But some of the biggest research-backed progress in limiting domestic-violence-related firearm deaths has come at the state level, according to Zeoli. And many states have yet to pass aggressive laws limiting firearm access to domestic abusers, let alone expand the legal definition of domestic violence to include dating partners.

There are two broad categories of restraining orders to protect people from domestic violence ― temporary “ex parte” restraining orders that don’t require a judge to sign off, and longer-lasting protective orders issued by a court.

The federal law forbidding domestic abusers from possessing guns does not apply to ex parte orders. Many states do not strip gun rights based on those orders either.

“When women are in the most danger of domestic violence is when they’re trying to leave an abusive relationship,” said Liza Gold, a psychiatrist at Georgetown University School of Medicine and editor of the book “Gun Violence and Mental Illness.” “And when they’re trying to do that, the first thing that happens is they try to get a restraining order, and it’s usually a temporary one. So it’s leaving out the most vulnerable group.”

States that have passed laws to strip gun rights from abusers based on ex parte orders saw a 13% drop in intimate partner homicides, according to a 2018 study co-authored by Zeoli. Including dating partners in those laws was associated with the same percentage decrease in intimate partner homicides.

Researchers also saw a drop of 12% when laws included a provision forcing the offender to give up their firearms. The biggest drop of all, at 23%, occurred after states passed laws barring gun access to people convicted of nonspecific violent misdemeanors.

Muddling The Path To Reform

Results like those point researchers and reform advocates toward an obvious path to reform: Make it easier to disarm abusers.

“The most important public policy implication of this research is we need laws that protect survivors of domestic abuse,” Burd-Sharps of Everytown said. “These laws that decrease access to guns for domestic abusers can also decrease mass shootings.”

But the movement to strengthen protections for victims and survivors of domestic violence is facing a challenge bordering on the existential following the Supreme Court’s bombshell gun rights ruling in New York State Pistol Assn v. Bruen last year.

Writing for the 6-3 conservative majority, Justice Clarence Thomas set a new standard for assessing the constitutionality of gun restrictions. Courts would no longer balance the individual Second Amendment right to bear arms against government interest in protecting public safety.

Instead, the only constitutional gun restrictions under the new standard are those that can trace their origins to a similar law that dates back to somewhere between 1791, when the Bill of Rights passed, and the end of the Civil War.

The ruling opened the door to challenges against dozens of longstanding gun regulations, including state-level assault weapons bans, age restrictions on handgun purchases and a ban on “ghost” guns.

Last year, the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals delivered one of the most surprising decisions, ruling that the federal law barring people subject to protection orders for domestic violence from possessing guns amounted to an unconstitutional violation of the Second Amendment. The Supreme Court agreed to review the decision this summer and will hold oral arguments on Nov. 7.

The decision outraged reformers partly because the defendant, Zackey Rahimi, so clearly exhibits the traits that make it dangerous to allow domestic abusers easy access to guns.

The protective order that barred him from contact with his former girlfriend or their young child informed him that it would be a federal crime to possess guns, but contained no forfeiture provision.

He went on to fire guns at people in public at least six times while under the order, according to court filings and police records obtained by HuffPost.

He allegedly fired repeatedly at a woman he lured into a parking lot, sprayed a house with bullets from an AR-15 over social media comments, shot at two drivers in separate road rage incidents, and fired into the air in a residential neighborhood in front of children and outside a Whataburger after it declined a friend’s credit card.

Unless the Supreme Court rules otherwise, Rahimi can now theoretically possess firearms. In practice, however, he’s locked up at Green Bay Jail in Fort Worth and faces a total of five indictments in the state of Texas: three for aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, one for recklessly discharging a firearm and one for possession of fentanyl.

A decision in his favor would confirm that Thomas’ at times vague ruling was just as radical as many champions hoped and most reformers feared. It would reverse decades of lawmaking to shield people from domestic violence that reformers still view as incomplete.

But some legal scholars say the Rahimi case is more likely to mark the first time that the Supreme Court sets limits on the Bruen ruling and its chaotic implementation by lower courts.

“Gun violence is preventable,” Zeoli said. “We have some laws that research suggests reduce intimate partner homicide, and potentially other types of gun violence. Hopefully we will continue to have those laws. We will see how the Supreme Court rules.”

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klbmsw · 11 months

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prelawland · 7 months

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The Law Of United States v. Rahimi

By Catherine Kavalauskas, University of California Davis Class of 2026

November 20, 2023

The 1994 Violence Against Women Act, a policy prohibits people who are subject to domestic violence protection orders from owning firearms. The United States v. Rahimi case poses a threat against the 1994 Violence Against Women Act. This law was challenged on March 2, 2023 when the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit ruled in favor of Zackey Rahimi, holding that citizens have a constitutional right to possess guns despite being subject to domestic violence protective orders.

For full article please visit

United States v. Rahimi

California PreLaw Land

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californiaprelawland · 7 months

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United States v. Rahimi

By Catherine Kavalauskas, University of California Davis Class of 2026

November 15, 2023

The United States v. Rahimi case poses a threat against the 1994 Violence Against Women Act. This policy prohibits people who are subject to domestic violence protection orders from owning firearms. The law was challenged on March 2, 2023 when the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit ruled in favor of Zackey Rahimi, holding that citizens have a constitutional right to possess guns despite being subject to domestic violence protective orders.

In 2019, Zackey Rahimi (Texas man) assaulted his ex-girlfriend in a parking lot. The scene drew the attention of bystanders and when Rahimi saw these people watching, he fired his gun. After the event, Rahimi became subject to a domestic violence protective order otherwise known as a restraining order. A restraining order is a court order that provides a citizen with protection from being physically or sexually abused, stalked, or threatened (2). Restraining orders prohibit the restrained person from physically seeing or contacting (mail, texts, and calls) the protected person. Generally, people under a restraining order (the restrained person) are legally prohibited from owning firearms. Disregarding his court order, Rahimi kept his guns and was later involved in five other shootings (3); upon searching his home, police found a rifle and a pistol in his home, and Rahimi was arrested. As a result of his arrest, Mr. Rahimi challenged the 1994 Violence Against Women Act, arguing that it violates the Second Amendment - the right to bear arms.

Ultimately, The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit ruled in favor of Rahimi. The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, a conservative court, invalidated the 1994 Violence Against Women Act, arguing that citizens have a constitutional right to possess guns despite being subject to domestic violence protective orders. Furthermore, the court denied governments the ability to limit a citizen’s gun rights, even if the citizen is subject to restraining orders or domestic violence histories (4).

This month, as of November 7, 2023, the U.S. Supreme Court began to survey arguments in the Rahimi gun rights case. The ruling of the United States v. Rahimi case could reinstate gun possession rights to citizens under domestic restraining orders, people who are a threat to themselves and others. In the United States, guns are used in more than 50% of domestic violence homicides (5). Moreover, the 1994 Violence Against Women Act has helped reduce the number of women who are subject to gun violence within domestic abuse relationships, however, as stated previously, the U.S. Supreme Court ruling threatens to dismantle this policy.

Moreover, the public remains optimistic that the Supreme Court will recognize the “lethal combination of domestic violence and guns,” according to The Guardian (6). However, considering the current divisions among partisan lines in the Supreme Court, with Republican justices continuously taking more conservative positions, the court’s ruling could swing either way.

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1) American Progress. “The Supreme Court Case United States v. Rahimi Underscores the Ugly Truth About Originalism and Women”. 17 Oct 2023. https://www.americanprogress.org/article/the-supreme-court-case-united-states-v-rahimi-underscores-the-ugly-truth-about-originalism-and-women/ . 13 Nov 2023

2) California Courts. “Restraining Orders”. https://www.courts.ca.gov/1260.htm?rdeLocaleAttr=en#:~:text=A%20restraining%20order%20 . 13 Nov 2023.

3) The Guardian. “U.S. Supreme Court Hears Case on Reinstating Gun Possession to People Accused of Domestic Violence”. 11 Nov 2023. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/nov/11/supreme-court-gun-possession-domestic-violence#:~:text=This%20policy%20was%20challenged%20in,to%20the%20New%20York%20Times . 13 Nov 2023.

4) Aclu.org. “United States v. Rahimi”. https://www.aclu.org/cases/united-states-v-rahimi . 13 Nov 2023.

5) The Guardian. “U.S. Supreme Court Hears Case on Reinstating Gun Possession to People Accused of Domestic Violence”. 11 Nov 2023. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/nov/11/supreme-court-gun-possession-domestic-violence#:~:text=This%20policy%20was%20challenged%20in,to%20the%20New%20York%20Times . 13 Nov 2023.

6) The Guardian. “U.S. Supreme Court Hears Case on Reinstating Gun Possession to People Accused of Domestic Violence”. 11 Nov 2023. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/nov/11/supreme-court-gun-possession-domestic-violence#:~:text=This%20policy%20was%20challenged%20in,to%20the%20New%20York%20Times . 13 Nov 2023.

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recentlyheardcom · 7 months

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This is part of Opening Arguments, Slate’s coverage of the start of the latest Supreme Court term. We’re working to change the way the media covers the Supreme Court. Support our work when you join Slate Plus.For Zackey Rahimi, the solution for just about every problem in life seems to be to shoot a gun in its general direction. In December 2019, he fired a shot at a bystander who’d seen him shove his girlfriend in a parking lot, then threatened to shoot his girlfriend too if she told anyone about it. When an acquaintance posted something rude about him on social media, he fired an AR-15 into their house. When he got into a car accident, he shot at the other driver; when a truck flashed its lights at him on the highway, he followed the driver off the exit and, for some reason, shot at a different car that was behind the offending truck. After Rahimi’s friend’s credit card was declined at a Whataburger, Rahimi pulled out a gun and fired several shots into the air, a choice that I doubt made terrified employees any more inclined to fulfill his order.None of this was in dispute on Tuesday, when the Supreme Court heard oral arguments over Rahimi’s bid to keep his beloved guns. But it was also not much of a topic of conversation, as Justice Clarence Thomas claimed there existed only a “very thin record” in the case. Despite the court’s inability (or unwillingness) to highlight the horrifying facts of his case, it does seem as if enough conservatives will join the court’s progressives to reject Rahimi’s plea.If it weren’t clear already, Zackey Rahimi has not demonstrated an ability to safely possess firearms. In early 2020, a Texas state court entered a protective order that, among other things, ordered him to stay away from his ex-girlfriend and barred him from having guns. But after police investigating the subsequent shootings searched his room and found a pistol, a rifle, and ammunition for both, Rahimi was charged with violating a federal law that prohibits people subject to protective orders from possessing guns. In federal district court, Rahimi challenged the law as a violation of his Second Amendment rights, but the judge was unconvinced. A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit—the country’s most conservative federal appeals court—affirmed in June 2022 the state’s right to take away Zackey Rahimi’s firearms.A few weeks later, however, the Supreme Court blessed Rahimi with a chance to get his guns back. In an opinion penned by Thomas, the court held, in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen, that restrictions on the right to bear arms are presumptively unconstitutional unless they are, in a judge’s learned opinion, consistent with the nation’s “historical tradition of firearm regulation.” The 5th Circuit withdrew its opinion in Rahimi’s case and issued another in which it changed its mind: Although the law embodies “salutary policy goals,” wrote Judge Cory T. Wilson, “our ancestors would never have accepted” it. Put differently, because the Framers did not disarm domestic abusers, who today shoot and kill an average of 70 women a month, modern lawmakers are powerless to do anything about it.Since Bruen, lower court judges applying its test have been, to use a legal term of art, all over the place, a fact repeatedly highlighted during oral arguments by Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, who sought some, any, guidance on how the court should understand its own ruling. Again, lower courts are equally confused. One court, for example, decided that Florida’s ban on the sale of guns to 18-to-20-year-olds passed constitutional muster; another concluded that a federal law disarming people convicted of certain crimes perhaps did not.A few judges have publicly aired their frustrations with the sudden analytical primacy of law-office history. “We are not experts in what white, wealthy, and male property owners thought about firearms regulation in 1791,” wrote one in 2022. “Yet we are now expected to play historian in the name of constitutional adjudication.

” Another castigated the court for creating a game of “historical Where’s Waldo” that entails “mountains of work for district courts that must now deal with Bruen-related arguments in nearly every criminal case in which a firearm is found.”In taking up Rahimi’s case on Tuesday, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in its first major Second Amendment case since Bruen. The legal question in United States v. Rahimi is whether the federal law under which Rahimi was convicted violates the Second Amendment. The practical question is whether the court meant what it said in Bruen so literally that any legislative attempt to address America’s ongoing gun violence crisis must bow to whatever Clarence Thomas imagines that James Madison would have thought about it nearly 250 years ago.Most of the debate on Tuesday was about the level of generality at which a modern law is supported by “history and tradition.” In Bruen, Thomas wrote that the government must identify a historical “analogue,” but not necessarily a historical “twin.” But both sides, of course, have different views about exactly how close the familial relationship needs to be. In Rahimi, the government argues that a “history and tradition” of disarming “dangerous” people is enough to uphold the law. Rahimi argues that a purported lack of a “history and tradition” of outright bans on gun possession means that the law is unconstitutional, and that the government has no choice but to restore Rahimi’s right to wave a gun around when denied access to fast-food hamburgers of his choice.This argument is bold, in the same way that Captain Smith’s choice to navigate the Titanic into an iceberg field was bold. The modern concept of protective orders, after all, did not exist at the founding, which makes the absence of laws disarming people subject to protective orders not as dispositive as your average National Rifle Association lifetime member would think. Today’s firearms are also far deadlier than Colonial-era firearms: In about two-thirds of fatal mass shootings between 2014 and 2019, the perpetrator either killed at least one partner or family member or had a history of domestic violence, according to an amicus brief filed by a gun safety group. In the context of a real-life epidemic of deadly intimate partner violence, the fact that the Framers did not disarm abusers in 1791 does not mean they would not have done so if abusers in 1791 murdered as many people as they do in 2023.A few justices raised concerns about the problems inherent in empowering judges and lawmakers to determine who is “dangerous” or “irresponsible” enough to lose their Second Amendment rights. None, however, seemed to think that Zackey Rahimi would not qualify. After Chief Justice John Roberts asked if Rahimi’s counsel, J. Matthew Wright, would concede that his client is a “dangerous person,” Wright, ever the zealous advocate, asked for a definition of the term. Roberts’ incredulous reply—“Well, it means someone who’s shooting, you know, at people. That’s a good start”—drew nervous laughter from the gallery.Burdened with a difficult set of facts, Wright pushed a different, narrower argument: that the law at issue did not provide Rahimi enough process before the government took his guns away. But Rahimi’s case is a facial challenge under the Second Amendment, not a due process challenge, and a few justices grew frustrated with Wright for evading the question. At various points, Roberts and Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Neil Gorsuch all suggested that resolving problems with civil protective order processes is simply a task for another day. If there are “circumstances where someone could be shown to be sufficiently dangerous that the firearm can be taken from him,” Roberts asked, “why isn’t that the end of the case?”Justice Elena Kagan was even more withering in her criticism. “I feel like you’re running away from your argument, you know, because the implications of your argument are just so untenable that you have

to say, ‘No, that’s not really my argument,’ ” she said, noting that Wright’s logic would jeopardize a “wide variety” of laws that disarm people who pose an “obvious” danger to others. “I guess I’m asking you to clarify your argument, because you seem to be running away from it because you can’t stand what the consequences of it are.”After oral argument, it seems likely that the court will back away from the most extreme iteration of Bruen. (As the New York Times’ Linda Greenhouse noted, many of the pro–Second Amendment amici in Bruen are conspicuously silent in Rahimi because even the conservative legal movement’s most unapologetic gun rights proponents probably do not want to see “SUPREME COURT UPHOLDS GUN RIGHTS OF DOMESTIC ABUSERS” splashed across the top of, well, the New York Times.) At one point, Jackson invoked the case’s implications in the aftermath of the recent mass shooting in Maine, in which 18 people were killed. A result in Rahimi that clarifies Bruen would be welcome news for lawmakers whose constituents, as Jackson put it, are asking them to “do something”—but who, as of now, aren’t sure what the court will allow.To the extent that the justices felt annoyed or embarrassed by the proceedings on Tuesday, they have no one to blame but themselves. Everything Wright argued on Rahimi’s behalf flows directly from Bruen, a jurisprudential train wreck that Clarence Thomas slapped on Supreme Court letterhead while putting together his luxury vacation plans for the summer. This is the kind of thing that will occasionally happen as long as the court is controlled by a six-justice conservative supermajority: When there is nothing to check Thomas and Company’s enthusiasm for repackaging Federalist Society dogma as constitutional law, sometimes they will make a mess that they’ll have to go back and clean up.

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michaelgabrill · 7 months

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#NewYorkTimes #NYT

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dreaminginthedeepsouth · 1 year

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Salt Lake Tribune

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Putting More Guns in the Wrong Hands :: Joyce Vance

First the Supreme Court decided Heller, a case that extended the Second Amendment notion of well-armed militias to permit Americans to possess virtually any kind of firearm that wasn’t fully automatic or short-barreled in their home, under a self-defense rationale. Then came last term’s decision in Bruen, a New York case, that struck down what it decided were unreasonable limitations on public possession of firearms. So we knew it was only a matter of time until a court took it even further. After all, over the years the NRA has advocated for the right of blind people to carry firearms, and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), the only federal agency tasked with oversight of the gun industry, is so notoriously underfunded by Congress that it cannot fully perform that role.

This week the 5th Circuit entered the fray, ruling that the domestic violence provision of 18 U.S.C. 922(g) contradicts the nation’s “historical tradition” of access to firearms even for people who aren’t “model citizens.” The three-judge panel (two Trump appointees and one Reagan appointee, for those who are counting) held that the statute is unconstitutional because it gives too much power to Congress to determine who qualifies as “law-abiding, responsible citizens” when it comes to gun ownership.

The court worried about who might lose their right to possess firearms if they permitted the prohibition against people with a demonstrated propensity towards violence against their partners to stay on the books: “Could speeders be stripped of their right to keep and bear arms? Political nonconformists? People who do not recycle or drive an electric vehicle?”

The court vacated the conviction of the Texan man Zackey Rahimi, who pleaded guilty to having a pistol in his home following the issuance of a civil domestic-violence restraining order for assaulting his former girlfriend. Texas, which we know denies women abortion access to protect the lives of unborn fetuses, apparently thinks it’s acceptable to risk that same woman’s life at the hands of a man with a firearm who has already shown a willingness to do violence to her. The court wrote that “Rahimi, while hardly a model citizen, is nonetheless part of the political community entitled to the Second Amendment’s guarantees, all other things equal.”

The 5th Circuit contorted itself to ignore the use of language like “law-abiding citizen” that prior cases have used to determine the reach of Second Amendment rights. And while the decision is limited to the 8th subsection of the statute, which we started out with above, there is little reason to believe litigants won’t proceed to challenge other parts of the statute.

And none of this is theoretical. Prosecutions for possession of firearms by disqualified persons have risen steadily over the years. The most recent numbers available from the U.S. Sentencing Commission show that in 2021, there were 7,454 offenders convicted under 18 U.S.C. 922(g). That was an increase from 6,032 offenders in fiscal year 2017. Illegal firearms possession cases are also significant as a percentage of DOJ’s total criminal docket. For instance, in fiscal year 2016, there were 5,391 offenders convicted under 18 U.S.C. 922(g), accounting for 8% of all offenders sentenced in federal court.

DOJ has already announced it will appeal the Rahimi decision in a statement from Attorney General Garland: “Nearly 30 years ago, Congress determined that a person who is subject to a court order that restrains him or her from threatening an intimate partner or child cannot lawfully possess a firearm. Whether analyzed through the lens of Supreme Court precedent, or of the text, history, and tradition of the Second Amendment, that statute is constitutional. Accordingly, the Department will seek further review of the Fifth Circuit’s contrary decision.”

What should we expect the Supreme Court to do? In a 2019 case, Rehaif, the Court considered whether the government had to prove a defendant was aware they had the status that made it a crime for them to possess a firearm (in that case, that they were not legally in the United States). The Court ruled that the government did, without in any way suggesting that the statute itself was unconstitutional. However, this Court has been less mindful of precedent than the Court has been at any other point in our lifetimes. Given its recent trajectory on firearms and Second Amendment issues, it’s hard to feel optimistic that all of the public-safety-based restrictions on firearms ownership in 922(g) will survive.

We’re in this together,

Joyce

#Joyce Vance #gun violence #gun madness #Opus Dei SCOTUS #Corrupt SCOTUS #Rule of Law #DOJ

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sparky7u · 9 months

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intothewildsstuff · 11 months

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Guns: Supreme Court case puts Second Amendment groups in a bind

The conservative justices are making decisions that defy rational thought so I wouldn't look to them for help in this one either.

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dailyinformativ · 1 year

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Do People Subject to Domestic Abuse Orders Have the Right to Be Armed?

Zackey Rahimi, a drug dealer in Texas with a history of armed violence, is “hardly a model citizen,” a federal appeals court judge wrote in March, with considerable understatement. But the court vacated Mr. Rahimi’s conviction under a federal law that makes it a crime for people subject to domestic-violence orders to possess guns, ruling that the law violated the Second Amendment. Next week, the…

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creatiview · 1 year

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[ad_1] A United States (US) appeals court on Thursday declared unconstitutional a federal law making it a crime for people under domestic violence restraining orders to own firearms. The decision by a three-judge panel of the 5th US Circuit Court of Appeals is the latest victory for gun rights advocates since a Supreme Court ruling last June granting a broad right for people to carry firearms outside the home. That ruling, New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen, announced a new test for assessing firearms laws, saying restrictions must be “consistent with this nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation,” and not simply advance an important government interest. In Thursday’s decision, Circuit Judge Cory Wilson said banning people under domestic violence restraining orders from owning firearms “embodies salutary policy goals meant to protect vulnerable people in our society.” But the judge, appointed by Donald Trump, said the Bruen ruling made such a consideration irrelevant, and that from a historical perspective the ban was “an outlier that our ancestors would never have accepted.” The court threw out the guilty plea and six-year prison sentence for Zackey Rahimi, who admitted to possessing guns found in his Kennedale, Texas, home after prosecutors said he participated in five shootings in Dec. 2020 and Jan. 2021. Rahimi had been under a restraining order since Feb. 2020, following his alleged assault of a former girlfriend. A federal public defender representing Rahimi did not immediately respond to requests for comment. US Attorney General Merrick Garland, in a written statement disagreed with the 5th Circuit’s ruling and said the Biden administration would appeal. “Whether analyzed through the lens of Supreme Court precedent, or of the text, history, and tradition of the Second Amendment, that statute is constitutional,” Garland said. “Accordingly, the Department will seek further review of the Fifth Circuit’s contrary decision.” The 5th Circuit is based in New Orleans, and its decision applies in Texas, Louisiana and Mississippi. It had upheld the federal law last June 8, just over two weeks before the Bruen decision, but withdrew its opinion and ordered additional briefing. — Reuters [ad_2] Source link

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