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Second Amendment rights for abusers? Justices seem skeptical.

The Supreme Court today appeared skeptical that the Constitution protects the right of a domestic abuser to possess a firearm. 

A year after issuing a decision expanding the Second Amendment right to carry a gun, the justices heard oral arguments in a case testing the limits of that right – and testing the functionality of a history-and-tradition test the court outlined in that 2022 decision.

Why We Wrote This

History has many lessons to teach. But should the past rule over the present in all instances? That was a question taken up Tuesday at the Supreme Court, when the justices heard the major gun case of the term.

Over two hours of arguments, the justices grappled with questions of when, and how, to balance constitutional tradition against personal safety. They also debated how a right crafted almost 250 years ago – when women possessed very few rights of their own – can be regulated in a modern world where guns mean domestic fights can have deadly consequences.

Setting aside the constitutional question, there seemed little doubt among the justices that plaintiff Zackey Rahimi, who court documents say shot at several people after he was placed under a protective order, represents a danger to his ex-girlfriend – and the community at large.

“You don’t have any doubt that your client’s a dangerous person, do you?” Chief Justice John Roberts asked Matthew Wright, Mr. Rahimi’s lawyer.

Mr. Wright answered that he would want to know “what ‘dangerous person’ means at the moment.”

“Well, it means someone who’s shooting, you know, at people. That’s a good start,” replied the chief justice.

The U.S. Supreme Court today appeared skeptical that the Constitution protects the right of a domestic abuser to possess a firearm. 

A year after issuing a decision expanding the Second Amendment right to carry a gun, the justices heard oral arguments in a case testing the limits of that right – and testing the functionality of a vague history-and-tradition test the court outlined in that 2022 decision.

Over two hours of arguments, the justices grappled with questions of when, and how, to balance constitutional tradition against personal safety. They also debated how a right crafted almost 250 years ago – when women possessed very few rights of their own – can be regulated in a modern world where guns mean domestic fights can have deadly consequences.

Why We Wrote This

History has many lessons to teach. But should the past rule over the present in all instances? That was a question taken up Tuesday at the Supreme Court, when the justices heard the major gun case of the term.

Among the justices, “there did seem to be a general consensus that today’s legislators are not constrained to only pass [gun] laws that existed in the late 1700s or 1800s,” says Eric Ruben, a professor at Southern Methodist University Dedman School of Law and a former fellow at the Brennan Center for Justice in New York.

“But the court quickly got into the weeds” around how courts should determine the extent of those constraints, he adds. Those methodological questions “are so relevant now,” Professor Ruben continues, “because the Supreme Court in the last year said that modern-day gun laws can only be constitutional if they’re analogous, in some ill-defined sense, to historical ones.”

The court has gradually expanded Second Amendment protections in recent years. In 2008, the court ruled for the first time that the Constitution protects the right to keep a firearm in the home. In 2022, in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen, the court expanded that protection to carrying a firearm anywhere in public.

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