Supreme Court favors domestic violence law challenged by Texas man

The Supreme Court heard arguments on Tuesday, November 7 in a challenge to a 30-year-old federal gun law that is meant to protect potential victims of domestic violence from being seriously injured or killed. After hearing those arguments, it appears that Supreme Court will uphold a 1994 law that prohibits people under a domestic violence restraining order from owning or purchasing a gun, CNN reports.

Zackey Rahimi, in 2020 and 2021, was allegedly involved in multiple shootings and told police that he was the subject of a domestic violence restraining order after a violent confrontation with his girlfriend. Rahimi had a domestic violence restraining order placed on him in February 2020, prohibiting him from owning guns. 

Justices on Tuesday looked at their decision in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association Inc. v. Bruen case, which was struck down by a the Supreme Court in June 2022 with the majority 6-3 opinion saying gun restrictions should be analyzed under the Second Amendment and the historical right to bear arms.

Multiple reports say the Supreme Court leaned toward upholding the federal law that prevents someone with a domestic violence restraining order from owning a gun. 

Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar argued to the Supreme Court Tuesday that “guns and domestic violence are a deadly combination.”

“Throughout our nation’s history legislatures have disarmed those who have committed serious criminal conduct or whose access to guns poses a danger,” Prelogar said Tuesday during arguments. 

Justice Amy Coney Barret, who was part of the majority in the June 2022 ruling, agreed with Prelogar and said that legislature can make those judgments bar gun ownership from people “based on dangerousness.”

Supreme Court justices like Clarence Thomas and John Roberts were concerned it was too easy for states to disarm people accused of domestic violence but the Supreme Court was arguing the federal, not state, law, CBS News reported. None of the justices signaled that they plan to drop the federal law. 

Rahimi, the Texas man at the center of the gun law challenge, has since changed his tune on gun ownership. CNN reported on a July 25 handrwitten letter they obtained from Rahimi, who is still serving six years in a Fort Worth jail. 

“I will make sure for sure this time that when I finish my time being incarcerated to stay the faithful, righteous person I am this day, to stay away from all drugs at all times, do probation & parole rightfully, to go to school and have a great career, have a great manufacturing engineering job, to never break any law again, to stay away from the wrong circle, to stay away from all firearms and weapons, and to never be away from my family again,” Rahimi wrote in the letter.

He continues to say in the letter that he believes he had guns for the “right reason,” which was to protect his family, he wrote.

Rahimi was arrested for his involvement in five shootings in Texas that started in December 2020 and ended on January 7, 2021, when he fired shots in the air at a Whataburger restaurant, CNN reports. 

“I would like to say I apologize for all the trouble I’ve put all of you through and for all my actions,” he wrote.

The Supreme Court is expected to make a decision in the case in early summer 2024.