The Supreme Court heard arguments on Tuesday in United States v. Rahimi, a case that questions whether a person with a domestic violence restraining order against them can possess a firearm. Once again, we’ll see if the court's hardest-of-hard-right interpretations of the Second Amendment outweighs Americans’ right not to get shot.
NPR has one of the better explainers out there. The newly reactionary Supreme Court brought this case on itself after 2022's New York State Rifle & Pistol Association Inc. v. Bruen nullified an as-of-yet-unknown number of federal and state gun restrictions by imposing a new, very particular test.
Sixteen months ago, the conservative court majority broke sharply with the way gun laws had been handled by the courts in the past. In a landmark decision, the six-justice majority ruled that in order to be constitutional, a gun law has to be analogous to a law that existed at the nation's founding in the late 1700s.
Sound familiar? Yes, we're back to the foundational question posed by Justices Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas, and rest of the hard-right bench: Are each of this nation's current laws compatible with the thoughts of 16th- to 18th-century witch hunters, wifebeaters, and slaveholders who believed that women lacked the intelligence necessary to vote, own property, and choose their own husbands?
