The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled on Thursday that it is unconstitutional for a state to ban a person under a domestic violence protection order from possessing firearms.
The highly conservative appeals court’s are shot and killed by intimate partners on average every month. In 2020, the year Rahimi entered into his protective order, 634 women were killed by intimate partners with firearms. Intimate partners or family members were killed in two-thirds of all mass shootings from 2014-2019. The rate of intimate partner gun violence jumped by 25% in 2021.
The court does state that the law in question “embodies salutary policy goals meant to protect vulnerable people in our society.” However, Bruen “forecloses any such analysis in favor of a historical analogical inquiry into the scope of the allowable burden on the Second Amendment right.”
Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a press release Wednesday night that the department would appeal the decision to the Supreme Court.
