Why an appeals court ruled alleged domestic abusers have a right to own firearms
An appeals court ruling made Feb. 2 states people with a domestic violence restraining order have a constitutional right to possess firearms.
The case was brought to the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals after Zackey Rahimi — who was involved in five shootings in Arlington between December 2020 and January 2021 — was indicted for possessing a firearm while under a domestic violence restraining order.
Prior to the shootings, Rahimi entered a civil protective order Feb. 5, 2020, after an alleged assault of his ex-girlfriend, according to court documents. The order restrained him from harassing, stalking or threatening his ex-girlfriend and their child, and expressly prohibited him from possessing a firearm.
Rahimi moved to dismiss the indictment twice on the grounds that the ruling was unconstitutional.
Why was the ruling made?
Judge Cory T. Wilson, an appointee by former President Donald Trump, said in an opinion that the decision made in Rahimi’s case was based on constitutionality.
Wilson said the case was not about whether prohibiting the possession of firearms by someone with a domestic violence restraining order was a “laudable policy goal,” but rather if it was constitutional under the Second Amendment.
“Rahimi, while hardly a model citizen, is nonetheless part of the political community entitled to the Second Amendment’s guarantees, all other things equal,” Wilson said.
One case cited in Wilson’s opinion was the 2022 Supreme Court ruling in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen which ruled that modern firearm laws must be “consistent with the Second Amendment’s text and historical understanding.”
Wilson said the Bruen ruling required the appeals court to reevaluate whether Rahimi’s case falls under historical context of the Second Amendment.
Following Bruen, Wilson used several historical examples in his opinion, including disarmament efforts meant to prevent armed rebellions in the American colonies.
Wilson said the “dangerousness” laws in the colonies worked to disarm people by class or group, not based on individual findings of “credible threats” to identified potential victims.
“The purpose of these “dangerousness” laws was the preservation of political and social order, not the protection of an identified person from the specific threat posed by another,” Wilson said. “Therefore, laws disarming ‘dangerous’ classes of people are not ‘relevantly similar’ to...such that they can serve as historical analogues.”
This story was originally published February 10, 2023 at 2:01 PM.
