What The Supreme Court’s Rahimi Ruling Means For Everyone
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On June 21, the Supreme Court of the United States ruled on a pivotal Second Amendment gun control case, United States v. Rahimi, ultimately deciding to uphold a federal law that blocks people subject to domestic violence restraining orders from possessing firearms.
The judges were asked to decide whether that law violated the Second Amendment—the right to bear arms. And gun control advocacy groups and legal experts had been anxiously awaiting the decision because of its serious implications for gun control efforts and victims of domestic abuse.
Rahimi Case Details
In 2019, a Texas man named Zackey Rahimi was banned from possessing firearms after his then-girlfriend filed a domestic violence restraining order against him for assaulting and threatened to shoot her if she told anyone about it, per The New York Times. Rahimi was later charged with violating that law when police found "a pistol, a rifle, ammunition—and a copy of the restraining order," per the Supreme Court decision.
Reactions From Experts
"[Friday's] decision is a win for all survivors and victims of domestic violence," says Kari Still, law and policy advisor at the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Violence Solutions. "We know that nearly half of all women murdered in the United States are killed by current or former intimate partners. Not only is this a win for survivors, but this is also a win for public health."
Over at Everytown For Gun Safety, everyone was breathing a sigh of relief, says Janet Carter, senior director of issues and appeals at Everytown Law and a former Supreme Court clerk.
"It's just common sense that somebody under a domestic violence protective order should not be able to access a gun," she says. "We never should have been in this situation. It never should have been a question that a domestic abuser has a right to a gun."
A Crisis Avoided
The data is clear: Laws preventing people with domestic-violence restraining orders from accessing firearms can help save lives. Abusers with firearms are five times more likely to kill their female victims, according to Everytown research. And each month, an average of 70 women are shot and killed by an intimate partner. Naomi Young, policy associate at the ERA Project at Columbia Law School's Center for Gender and Sexuality Law, calls these staggering numbers a "distinctly American issue."
What's more, there's a connection between domestic violence and mass shooters. A 2021 study shows that 68 percent of mass shooters from 2014 to 2019 have either killed a family memberor intimate partner or had a history of domestic abuse, says Still.
The court's decision mirrors public opinion. Roughly three in four Americans think that barring domestic abusers from possessing firearms does not violate their Second Amendment rights, while just one in four think it does, per a New York Times SCOTUSpoll.
Breaking Down Bruen
This was the first time the court ruled on the Second Amendment since a landmark 2022 case, New York State Rifle & Pistol Association, Inc. v. Bruen, where the court changed the analysis for Second Amendment cases by saying that gun-related legislation must be in line with the country's historical firearm legislation and that new laws must have "historical analogues" to older laws.
Initially, the court wasn't super clear on what, exactly, a "historical analogue" entailed. But the clarifications in the Rahimi decision show that Second Amendment cases should not be decided based on identical historical legislation, experts say. Instead, the Supreme Court relied on a "long historical tradition" of disarming people posing a danger to others, Carter says.
But even with a more flexible reading, the idea of leaning on historical legislation continues to concern some legal experts. Kari Still called it a "dangerous test," especially since there are different, modern public health and safety concerns in 2024 "that the founders could just not even envision." Rahimi presented a perfect example: Domestic violence issues hold a vastly different place in society now compared to the 18th Century.
"Our nation's history and traditions aren't that kind to women, and very much permitted domestic violence," says Young. "Domestic violence has thrived in this country, not despite the law, but largely because of it."
What Happens Next
Rahimi was certainly a win for gun control advocates, but it was more of a defensive victory than a step forward (a.k.a. the existing gun control law now remains, but no new ones have been put in place). So, where does that leave the U.S.? What steps need to be taken to continue protecting survivors?
In Carter's point of view, actually implementing and enforcing laws that prevent abusers from obtaining guns is the next big hurdle. And of course, there are more cases dealing with the Second Amendment that are going through various state and federal courts right now.
“Laws that prohibit domestic abusers from having access to firearms are crucial to protecting survivors and the broader community from future gun violence. But these laws do not implement themselves," says Chelsea Parsons, director of implementation at Everytown for Gun Safety.
Over at the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Violence Solutions, Still says her team is focused on their policy priority list, which includes firearm purchasing licensing (which helps process background checks to ensure an ineligible person can't access a firearm) and training requirements (the equivalent of a driver's license for people owning guns). In 2020, background checks stopped more than 300,000 illegal gun sales, and roughly 42 percent of those holds involved people with felonies, per FBI data published by Everytown. But there are still loopholes that allow gun sales to slip through.
Young also emphasizes the importance of finalizing the proposed 28th Amendment, the Federal Equal Rights Amendment which guarantees equal rights under the law for all persons regardless of sex, as a key tool that would provide a constitutional sex equality guarantee as the basis for better protections for domestic violence survivors. (The ERA Project focuses on the amendment's adoption as its core goal). Sex equality, she explains, could provide a holistic foundation to prevent gender-based violence, as well as promote other interrelated issues like economic inequality and reproductive rights.
"Without the ERA, we see laws like that [federal law in the Rahimi case] come under threat, and I think Rahimi is a really great example of that," Young says. "We really shouldn't have ever had to be waiting with bated breath."
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