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Supreme Court, by an 8-1 vote, rejects Second Amendment challenge to § 922(g)(8)

By Douglas Berman

The Supreme Court this morning in US v. Rahimi, No. 22-915 (S. Ct. June 21, 2024) (available here), reversed a Fifth Circuit ruling that the Second Amendment was violated by a federal criminal law that prohibits any persons under a domestic violence restraining order from possessing a gun. Chief Justice Roberts authored a relatively short opinion for the Court and it starts and ends this way:

A federal statute prohibits an individual subject to a domestic violence restraining order from possessing a firearm if that order includes a finding that he “represents a credible threat to the physical safety of [an] intimate partner,” or a child of the partner or individual. 18 U.S.C. §922(g)(8). Respondent Zackey Rahimi is subject to such an order. The question is whether this provision may be enforced against him consistent with the Second Amendment….

In Heller, McDonald, and Bruen, this Court did not “undertake an exhaustive historical analysis . . . of the full scope of the Second Amendment.” Bruen, 597 U. S., at 31.  Nor do we do so today.  Rather, we conclude only this: An individual found by a court to pose a credible threat to the physical safety of another may be temporarily disarmed consistent with the Second Amendment.

The judgment of the Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit is reversed, and the case is remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.

Lengthy concurrences — one by Justice Sotomayor joined by Justice Kagan and separate ones by Justice Gorsuch, by Justices Kavanaugh, by Justice Barrett and by Justice Jackson — provide a whole lot more for Second Amendment folks to sort through. And Justice Thomas has a lengthy dissent that is of note in part because he was the author of th landmark Bruen decision.

I am certain a lot of other folks who are expert in the Second Amendment (as well as those who are not) will have a lot to say about Rahimi.  But the closing “only this” statement in the opinion for the Court leads me to think that litigation over the Second Amendment is not going to get much easier for lower courts after this ruling.