GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (WOOD) — The U.S. Supreme Court is considering a challenge to a federal law that prevents many domestic abusers from having guns.
If the court’s ruling on United States v. Rahimi strikes down that federal standard, legal experts say it could threaten Michigan’s “red flag” law.
Zackey Rahimi, a Texas man convicted of domestic violence charges, lost his right to carry firearms after his former girlfriend was granted a restraining order by a state court. But Rahimi still hung onto his firearms and was later involved in five shootings in 2020. Rahimi was later indicted for violating a federal law of having guns while under a domestic violence restraining order. He later sued and took his fight to the nation’s highest court.
The court is expected to make a ruling in the next few weeks about whether the federal law preventing people under domestic violence restraining orders from having firearms is constitutional.
On average, more than 12 million women and men are victims of domestic violence every year. Survivors’ advocates say women are five times more likely to be killed when their abuser has access to a gun.
Those supporting Rahimi’s case say his right to own a gun is protected under the Second Amendment.
Michael McDaniel, a constitutional law professor at Cooley Law School, doesn’t expect the high court to side with Rahimi, based on how the justices acted during oral arguments last year.
“The Supreme Court was very skeptical of allowing an individual like Rahimi to have a right to a firearm,” McDaniel said. “Justice Roberts even asked his attorney, ‘Your client’s a bad guy, right?’”
While the case challenges the federal gun restrictions, many states have their own red-flag laws.
Michigan has had one since February. It allows police, family members and mental health professionals to go to a judge and ask for an extreme risk protection order. A judge can then order police to take away someone’s guns if they’re shown to be a threat to themselves or others.
While McDaniel doesn’t expect the court to overturn the federal law, he says if it does, it would threaten Michigan’s red flag law. Gun owners could file suit, arguing that it unconstitutional.
“I would think red flag laws, extreme risk protection orders like we have in Michigan, would be under reconsideration by the courts as well,” McDaniel said.
McDaniel said legal experts, prosecutors and police are closely watching the case following the court’s 2022 ruling in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association, Inc. v. Bruen. In that case, the court struck down a more than 100-year-old New York gun law that had placed restrictions on carrying a concealed handgun in public places.
In the majority opinion by Justice Clarence Thomas, the court used a standard that “the government must then justify its regulation by demonstrating that it is consistent with the Nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation.” Since then, several plaintiffs have successfully overturned gun regulations because they didn’t meet the historical standard test.
One conservative justice, Amy Coney Barrett, has already expressed concern over continuing to apply that standard. It’s unclear whether fellow conservatives Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Brett Kavanaugh would support it either.
That’s why McDaniel doesn’t believe the court will apply the historical standard rationale in the Rahimi case or overturn the federal law.
“I don’t think we’re going to have an opinion as strong as Bruen,” McDaniel said.
McDaniel said he hopes Roberts will use the Rahimi decision to clarify the Bruen ruling and the court’s standard going forward with the Second Amendment.
A decision is expected later this month or early next month.
