Supreme Court Upholds Ban on Owning Guns While Under a Restraining Order

The Supreme Court decided to uphold a rule prohibiting anyone under a restraining order from owning a firearm. It’s the latest in a flurry of gun-related rulings from the court that began in 2022.

Supreme Court Rules Restraining Order Subjects Cannot Own Guns

On June 21, 2024, the US Supreme Court upheld a 1994 ban on restraining order subjects owning guns. The ruling reversed a 5th Circuit Court decision in 2023. In that decision, the New Orleans-based court said that people currently under a restraining order could own guns.

In the 8-1 ruling, Chief Justice John Roberts wrote that the 1994 law was constitutional because it was temporary and only removed a person’s gun rights after they proved they were a “credible threat.”

In his opinion, Justice roberts said that the ruling “[confirms] what common sense suggests: When an individual poses a clear threat of violence to another, the threatening individual may be disarmed.”

Justice Clarence Thomas was the sole dissenting judge. In his opinion, Justice Thomas said that the ruling was inconsistent with the decision in Bruen v NYSRPA. That case established a new standard for gun-related court cases, requiring any gun control to have some kind of historical precedent in American history.

Justice Thomas went on to say that banning an individual from owning guns simply because they are the subject of a restraining order is a violation of the accused due process rights. That’s because someone can file a restraining order against someone else without an actual trial. Essentially, this assumes the person is guilty until they prove themselves innocent.

The Big Picture

This is one of the first gun-related cases where the Supreme Court has ruled against the plaintiff. In two recent rulings – 2022’s Bruen v NYSRPA and last week’s Garland v Cargill (which we reported on) – the court sided with the plaintiffs.

One thing to note in this case is that the defendant, Zachey Rahimi, is very much not a good person. Over the span of two months, authorities linked him to five shootings in the Arlington, Texas area. He also attacked his girlfriend in a parking lot in 2019. When a bystander tried to intervene, Rahimi shot at them.

This ruling does make the current Supreme Court seem much less pro-gun than they were even a week ago. We’ll see how the justices rule on gun cases in the future – we’re sure to see more soon.