Dec. 7, 2023
By Gabriel Campos
Staff Writer
The Supreme Court heard oral arguments for United States v. Rahimi on Nov. 7. The case involves a Texas man, Zackey Rahimi, who in Dec. of 2019 physically assaulted his girlfriend in a parking lot, shot at a person who witnessed this and then later threatened to shoot his girlfriend. Between December 2020-January 2021, Rahimi was involved in at least five more shootings.
This man repeatedly proved himself to be dangerous and irresponsible when possessing a gun but has been allowed to carry firearms because of the Supreme Court’s unwillingness to enable any forms of gun control. Rahimi’s case illustrates the dangers of America’s current gun laws and that the Supreme Court is not taking the proper measures to curtail the violence inflicted on Americans by gun violence.
In early 2020, Rahimi’s girlfriend at the time filed a restraining order against him,which barred him from owning any guns. Police searched his home and found a pistol and rifle. Rahimi decided to challenge this in court, which eventually made its way to the Supreme Court through the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals, resulting in a muddled case in which justices contradicted themselves and previous Supreme Court rulings.
During oral arguments, some conservative justices questioned the administration’s argument. Lawyers representing the Biden Administration argued that under the Second Amendment, people who are not “law-abiding and responsible” –categories that include domestic abusers–can have their right to own guns suspended. One of Chief Justice John Roberts’ main points was on the word “responsible,” which he suggested was too broad with his statement, “I mean, not taking your recycling to the curb on Thursdays, if it’s a serious problem it’s irresponsible.”
This contradiction is just one example of the many ways in which the Supreme Court ignores previously established precedent to further their ideological goals.
Comments like this made by conservative justices go to show how little they care about public safety when it comes to guns. Not taking your recycling to the curb on Thursdays is very different from opening fire outside a Whataburger because your friend’s credit card was declined. This is a real example of something Rahimi did while under a restraining order.
Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar pointed out that “not responsible” is a standard that the court itself articulated and has used to decide the rulings of gun-related cases for the past 15 years. This contradiction is just one example of the many ways in which the Supreme Court ignores previously established precedent to further their ideological goals.
While Roberts posed a very skeptical question to Rahimi’s federal defense attorney, it is still unclear how the court will rule in June. However, given the court’s history of rulings on gun-related cases, it is very possible the court may rule in favor of an expansion of gun rights yet again. To fully understand how harmful the Supreme Court has been to efforts to fight gun violence, one needs to know about the court’s methods of ruling in last year’s major gun-related case, New York Rifle and Pistol Association v. Bruen.
When Rahimi first challenged the seizure of his firearms, the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed that barring Rahimi from owning them would be unconstitutional. This changed after New York Rifle and Pistol Association v. Bruen. In Bruen, the court ruled that restrictions on the right to bear arms are unconstitutional unless they are consistent with a “historical tradition of firearm regulation”. Due to the 5th Circuit being the most conservative circuit court in the country, it immediately withdrew its opinion on Rahimi’s case to align itself with the majority conservative Supreme Court’s ruling.
There should be two major takeaways from this. The first is that the Supreme Court’s ruling in Bruen last year directly contributed to a lax in gun control when it comes to a person who has proven themselves to be violent. Rahimi, a violent man who otherwise would have been denied access to firearms, was permitted access because of last year’s Supreme Court ruling, which poses a major threat to public safety.
Secondly, the Supreme Court viewing anything through a lens of “historical tradition” just puts more people in danger because none of the justices, whether they are liberal or conservative, have the historical training or knowledge to properly weigh currently upheld policy with how it was previously interpreted by the public.
None of the Supreme Court justices are historians, so it makes no sense for a core part of their decisions to hinge on their understanding of history. This method of legal analysis, which is called Originalism, has and will continue to make domestic and gun violence worse because a lot has changed since 1791, the year the Bill of Rights and Second Amendment were ratified.
To return to U.S. v. Rahimi, unless the Supreme Court justices have a sudden change of heart, come June when the court will give its ruling, they will be directly interpreting the law from a time when it was perfectly legal to abuse intimate partners and when assault rifles didn’t even exist.
To truly end gun violence, we must seriously consider what institutions are furthering the violence and in what ways we can criticize these institutions. The Supreme Court has proven itself to be one of these institutions that has done nothing to alleviate the effects of gun violence in America, so it must be held to harsh criticism and thoughtful discussion as to why this powerful branch of government has done nothing but make gun violence worse.
