Rahimi: The Case That Might Turn the Court Even More Extreme on Guns – The New Republic

The most grotesque example came in, where else, Texas, where so much of the right-wing constitutional litigation originates. Zackey Rahimi went on a shooting spree in 2020 and 2021, firing his gun in several incidents in Arlington, Texas. While he was doing this, he was subject to a protective order due to domestic violence against his girlfriend. And theres a federal law that prohibits people under such orders to own guns.

The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, seated in New Orleans and now the countrys most aggressively MAGA-fied, struck down the federal law. Rahimi, while hardly a model citizen, is nonetheless part of the political community entitled to the Second Amendments guarantees, all other things equal,the opinion read. Back then, after all, there were no laws against domestic violence. It was a feature, not a bug.

The ruling was widely criticized, and when it was appealed to the Supreme Court, the justices took the case. That is noteworthy. Four justices must vote to hear an appeal. It took a decade after Heller before the court would even consider a major Second Amendment case, and now it is wading back into the controversy less than two years after Bruen. What gives?

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Rahimi: The Case That Might Turn the Court Even More Extreme on Guns - The New Republic