After a series of judgments whose implications we have not yet fully analyzed, the Supreme Court will rule on another thorny issue in 2024.
Can a person accused of domestic violence and subject to a protection order retain their right to own a firearm?
A question of survival for the victims
For about 30 years, federal law has prohibited attackers in domestic violence cases from possessing a firearm.
This law was based on startling statistics and, in my opinion, was common sense.
Accordingly National Library of MedicineFemale victims whose perpetrator has a firearm are five times more likely to be killed than others.
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When a third of domestic violence-related deaths result from the use of a firearm, you’d think the federal law would have almost unanimous support. The Court of Appeal for the The Fifth Circuit recently approved a Texas drug dealerZackey Rahimi to keep his gun despite attacking and threatening his former partner.
Rahimi is a tough case. In one year he was involved in five shootings and also shot at a police officer’s car.
The Fifth Circuit Court’s decision said he also shot at a fast-food restaurant because he was upset that a friend’s credit card had been declined.
The right to bear arms would be inviolable
I am one of those who believe that the Constitution, the founding text, must evolve as society evolves. We did this by adding many changes to the first ten changes from 1791.
However, the current majority on the court, six of the nine members, are originalists. They read the constitution strictly and want to stick as closely as possible to the text of the founding fathers.
It will be interesting to see if, as previously stated, they will agree with the three judges of the Fifth Circuit Court, who “commit aberrations our ancestors would never have accepted.” Judge Clarence Thomas.
I can’t predict what the Supreme Court decision will be in 2024, but in light of Thomas’ argument in 2022One might think that it would be very difficult to limit the scope of the second amendment.
Thomas reads the Constitution the way a religious fanatic reads the Bible, reading snippets of the past but refusing to consider that the world has changed.
