Supreme Court case is putting gun lobby in a jam

"WASHINGTON – Zackey Rahimi's legal troubles began in 2019 when he pulled out a gun and fired at a passerby who witnessed him dragging his girlfriend through a parking lot.

"Months later, after getting into an accident, Rahimi repeatedly shot at the other driver, court records show. A year later, he threatened another woman with a gun and was charged with aggravated assault. In 2021, he fired several times into the air after a friend's credit card was declined at a burger joint near Fort Worth, Texas....

“ 'The facts of this case make it really unpalatable for them [the gun lobby] to have to stand up and say, "No, we believe that domestic abusers have a Second Amendment right to their firearms," ' said Nick Suplina, senior vice president for law and policy at Everytown for Gun Safety. 'Politically speaking, that's deeply unpopular.'....

"Rahimi, in essence, argues that because there was no regulation that banned guns from people subject to restraining orders at the time of the nation's founding, the federal law that prohibits that ownership today must fall. A federal appeals court in New Orleans sided with Rahimi in March, acknowledging he was 'hardly a model citizen' but ruling that the law prohibiting him from owning a gun is an 'outlier that our ancestors would never have accepted.'

"The Biden administration appealed to the Supreme Court, which agreed late last month to hear the case."
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news...me-court-second-amendment-rahimi/70383454007/

What do you think? Should the Supreme Court uphold the lower court ruling that despite not being a model citizen the defendant can continue to own a gun?

 

Has Congress passed legislation where this man's behavior would be disqualifying under 18 USC 922g?

 

Yes, but such legislation is unconstitutional according to the 5th Circuit Court. A federal ban on domestic abusers owning guns did not exist 200+ years ago.

 

Which part of 922g addresses his past?

 

Hmmm.... Domestic abuse, assault, and attempted murder in 2019 and then "months later" he again attempts murder? It should be obvious - the problem isn't guns - the problem is lenient liberal courts. This guy should have been removed from society after the 2019 incident.

 

Not yet

 

That ties the hands of SCOTUS, doesn't it?

 

I think the jurisdiction where this happened at is at fault. When he committed the first gun crime he should have been arrested and no longer allowed to have guns upon conviction.

Pulling out a gun and firing at a random passerby is a criminal act

 

While executing a search warrant, police officers found a rifle and a pistol at his home. He was charged with illegal firearms possession (because he was subject to a domestic violence restraining order when the guns were found).

The Supreme Court has previously ruled that "the government must affirmatively prove that its firearms regulation is part of the historical tradition".

If the authorities can not disarm people like this then that's going to make a lot of people very uncomfortable.

 

How is this guy not in jail, or hanged for attempted murder?

 

He's obviously a victim of racism.

 

"Through the founding era, governments did not recognize, much less intervene directly in, intimate partner violence because of Anglo-American common law’s treatment of domestic relations: a husband had a legal right to subject his wife to physical violence— what was called 'chastisement'—if she defied his authority.... Societal views of violence in marital and other personal contexts have changed significantly in the intervening centuries.... In all contexts under Bruen, historical analogies need not be historical twins, but the social shift that animates Section 922(g)( 8 ) requires a particularly 'nuanced approach' that recognizes that 'the Constitution can, and must, apply to circumstances beyond those the Founders specifically anticipated.'.... Domestic violence is pervasive, deadly, and inextricably linked with firearms in the United States.... Nearly 1 million women in the United States as of 2019 reported being shot or shot at by intimate partners, and more than 4.5 million women have reported being threatened with a gun by an intimate partner.... And direct access to guns increases the likelihood of intimate-partner homicide of women by 11 times."
https://s3.amazonaws.com/brady-static/US-v-Rahimi-Amicus-Brief.pdf

Should modern gun laws reflect concerns about domestic violence or should we revert to the 18th Century?

 

Good question. What would it look like to "reflect a concern about domestic violence"?

 

38% of adult female homicide victims are killed by non-firearm means. Should we include those means in anything we do about guns, or is your point more concerned with guns than with women's lives?

 

How many American Blacks 16-25 years of age get shot by other American Blacks aged 16-25 years?

See? The dude is a victim of white supremacy. Obviously.

If that 38% of female homicide victims were armed and competent to defend themselves there would be a lot less of them, maybe.

The couldn't have all been punching guys on crutches.

 

Seems like he previous behaviors should have taken his gun away,

 

I don't think this thread is working out the way Galileo thought it would.

Ultimately he is making the argument that existing gun laws should be enforced

 

You're right. It appears that this thread has gone from "Aren't those guns awful?" to "Why won't the leftist justice system lock this social menace up?"

There's no point in passing new gun laws when existing ones are ignored.

 

Does the term "Selective Outrage" sound appropriate?

Thanks for your observations.

 

Guy shoots at random passerby... Gets to keep his gun.

Equals irrefutable evidence that existing gun laws are being ignored probably by some leftist prosecutor

 

One of those existing laws prohibits those subject to domestic violence restraining orders from having guns. That's what this case is about. It's not about passing new laws so you don't bring up that straw man.

 

It said that this guy committed a series of gun crimes.......

The very first one was shooting at a random passerby which should have put his ass in jail and made his gun rights go away immediately.

Anything else your thread is talking about is just evidence that we need to enforce the laws that we have

 

Update 18 USC 922g to address non-firearms means of homicide? That's not what this case is about.

 

The defendant is not black.

https://theohiostar.com/news/scotus-to-take-up-second-amendment-case-next-term/jtnews/2023/07/03/

 

It really doesn't matter what color he is.... His ass should have been in jail the first time that he fired a gun at a random passerby.... And then none of the rest of this conversation would be happening because they had already enforced existing gun laws