EDITORIAL: Supreme Court domestic violence-gun ruling a pleasant surprise
Jun. 21—IT came as a pleasant surprise Friday when the U.S. Supreme Court, in an 8-1 decision, upheld a federal law requiring gun owners to surrender their weapons when they are subject to restraining orders stemming from domestic violence accusations.
Friday's ruling is an unalloyed positive. Laws that disarm suspected abusers and prevent them from acquiring weapons will save lives and make it easier for people to leave their abusive intimate partners.
"Our country has stood at a tipping point, with the safety of survivors of domestic violence on the line. But today, we took a step toward protecting millions from their abusers," said Janet Carter, senior director of issues and appeals at Everytown Law, in Everytown for Gun Safety's statement responding to the ruling.
Research and crime statistics make the domestic violence law's practical benefits obvious.
— Everytown for Gun Safety, a gun control advocacy organization, cited statistics indicating that women are more five times more likely to die at the hands of an abuser when a gun is present.
— A 2021 study by the Injury Epidemiology journal indicates that more than 68% of mass shootings between 2014 and 2019 were committed by someone with a history of domestic violence.
— U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data indicate that more than half of all women who die by homicide are killed by man who was a present or previous intimate partner.
If the Supreme Court's ruling Friday was beneficial from a practical sense, it also was justifiable from a constitutional one.
The Second Amendment, like all of our other rights, is not absolute. You can lose any of them after due court process. A judge, by issuing a protection from abuse order, has completed the necessary due process to justify the temporary restriction of Second Amendment rights.
When the order goes away, so does the restriction. It's a process that works.
The court's decision Friday overturns an ruling by the Fifth Circuit federal appeals court involving Texas resident Zackey Rahimi, who had been found in possession of weapons while subject to a domestic violence restraining order.
In its ruling, the Fifth Circuit cited the Supreme Court's 2022 decision in New York State Rifle and Pistol Association v. Bruen, which held that judges are obligated to consider early American history and judicial originalism in evaluating the constitutionality of gun control legislation.
The Bruen precedent meant the Supreme Court had to filter its decision Friday through the opinions of men who lived in a time when spousal abuse was regarded far differently than it is today.
Friday's ruling came exactly one week after the Supreme Court invalidated an executive order by former President Donald Trump to ban bump stocks, an accessory that allows a semiautomatic gun to behave like a fully automatic weapon. That ruling seemed to have been a sign that the Roberts Supreme Court would continue its interest in expanding gun rights.
Between the Bruen and bump stock decisions, Friday's emphatic ruling — Associate Justice Clarence Thomas, who authored the Bruen decision, cast the only dissenting vote — was surprising.
Again, though, it was a pleasant surprise.
Had the court decided differently, it would have invalidated a law that, according to attorneys arguing the case for President Joe Biden's administration, prevented the sale of more than 75,000 gun sales based on domestic violence protection orders over the span of 25 years.
A ruling against the federal law could have exposed similar state laws — including Pennsylvania's, which went into effect in 2019. — to court challenges.
While it is always difficult to evaluate the impact of a tragedy that never happened, we know that the federal law and state regulations like the one in Pennsylvania are saving lives.
Thanks to the Supreme Court's ruling Friday, they will continue to save lives.
NOTE: To see sources for information here, access this article at sharonherald.com.
