The US supreme court will hear oral arguments on Tuesday in a case which gun and domestic violence prevention groups are warning could be a matter of life and death for thousands of abuse victims and their families.
Tuesday’s hearing on United States v Rahimi is seen as one of the most consequential cases with which the nine justices will grapple this term. At stake is how far the new hard-right supermajority of the court will go in unraveling the US’s already lax gun laws, even as the country reels from a spate of devastating mass shootings.
Also at stake, say experts, are the lives of thousands of Americans, overwhelmingly women, threatened with gun violence at the hands of their current or former intimate partners.
There are plenty of gun laws out there that a reasonable person could see merit in challenging: rules about short-barrel rifles / braces & pot smokers not being able to own guns probably aren’t saving any lives.
The fact that this is the one they go after is just such a demonstration of malintent. There’s good evidence for a relationship between domestic violence and mass shooters.
This should be a bi-partisan slam-dunk. Minimally invasive to law-abiding gun owners, gets guns out of the hands of dangerous criminals. What public good is served in challenging it?
This is on law this is often used against law abiding gun owners. Their marriage is going south and suddenly they are hit by a restraining order. Some cases there is domestic violence going on, but others the spouse is just trying to make their ex’s life bad. Many gun owners have been hit with this and lot their ability to do the legal things they would do with guns even though they weren’t going to harm their ex.
That isn’t to say that everyone hit by a restraining order won’t harm their ex. Only that there are a number of cases where there is no evidence of harm or harm planned but someone lost their guns. (Yes I’m aware that we only get one side of this story and don’t know the truth, but it happens enough that gun owners are worried it could happen to them)
I’m not against disarming dangerous criminals or opposed to this at all but at the point we have identified that they are too dangerous to own a gun why not just imprison them while we’re at it? Taking their guns won’t stop them from victimizing people in other ways.