The Supreme Court has ruled that civil domestic abuse court judges are permitted to ban someone from having firearms if they are involved in such cases.
Justice Clarence Thomas was the only dissent in the ruling on Friday.
The case came out of a fight over domestic violence restraining orders, and the majority ruling from Chief Justice John Roberts said, "[W]e conclude only this: An individual found by a court to pose a credible threat to the physical safety of another may be temporarily disarmed consistent with the Second Amendment."
Thomas said the issue should have been resolved with the Second Amendment and earlier precedent that allows gun restrictions only if the government proves such a limit would be "consistent with the Second Amendment's text and historical understanding," and in this case that did not happen.
The Second Amendment Foundation pointed out the ruling, in the Rahimi case, "failed to produce the damage the anti-gun crowd hoped for…"
That's because it left an earlier precedent, in the Bruen case that now decides how Second Amendment challenges are addressed, still controlling.
The organization explained, "To be clear, domestic violence is abhorrent and those who commit such acts should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law – for which a conviction would result in their disarmament through imprisonment."
The group quoted from Thomas, "The question before us is not whether Rahimi and others like him can be disarmed consistent with the Second Amendment. Instead, the question is whether the government can strip the Second Amendment right of anyone subject to a protective order – even if he has never been accused or convicted of a crime."
The SAF pointed out that taking away constitutional rights when a subject has not been "accused or convicted of a crime, is not consistent with what the Constitution protects."
"While Rahimi himself is the focal point of this case, the unintended consequences of how the Court justified upholding 922(g)(8) may affect the Second Amendment rights of millions of Americans if the lower courts adopt a similar approach. This makes it all the more important the court take any number of other Second Amendment cases at its door, to further clarify that the Second Amendment protects a pre-existing, fundamental individual right and how to appropriately conduct the analysis Bruen requires," SAF reported.
The case was the first significant fight over gun rights since a 2022 decision expanded the rights of law-abiding citizens to carry handguns outside the home for protection.
In recent years, the court's rulings have almost always affirmed the rights protected by the Second Amendment.
Bruen simply requires gun regulations to be consistent with "the nation's historical tradition of firearm regulation."
The case was about Zackey Rahimi, who was a domestic violence order but argued he still had a right to keep a gun for self-protectin.
The narrow ruling addressed only those "considered a danger to society."
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