Firearms Owners Against Crime
Institute for Legal, Legislative and Educational Action
Institute for Legal, Legislative and Educational Action
The Second Amendment Law Center (2ALC) filed an amicus brief with the Supreme Court this week in the case of United States v. Rahimi, the next landmark Second Amendment case relating to the gun rights of someone subject to a civil restraining order. Read our brief here.
Twenty other amicus briefs were also filed yesterday urging the court to strike down class-based bans on gun possession. You can see them all at www.supremecourt.gov. 2ALC helped recruit amici and coordinate efforts to get these briefs filed.
As most of you know by now, the stakes could not be higher for 2A in SCOTUS with this case.
The Bruen decision last year set a new standard and methodology for evaluating the constitutionality of gun control laws. But exactly how that standard should be implemented by courts in actual cases still needs to be settled. Whether the Bruen methodology is correctly applied to evaluate the constitutionality of a gun law often makes the difference between winning and losing a case.
Some courts are getting it drastically wrong. 2ALC has been coordinating amicus brief campaigns in multiple cases in multiple states to show some courts how to do it right.
The issue in Rahimi is whether “class-based” prohibitions on Second Amendment rights are unconstitutional under the Second Amendment because they do not give individuals in the class due process or individual consideration. The law challenged in the Rahimi case prohibits everyone under a domestic violence restraining order from possessing a firearm. Other class prohibition laws ban anyone who uses marijuana or other drugs, people with nonviolent felonies, and certain misdemeanors.
To be clear, if judged individually, Mr. Rahimi almost certainly should lose his 2A rights and likely all of his rights since he should probably be in prison for his violent conduct.
However, the problem with class prohibitions is that not all members of these classes deserve to lose their rights. These laws shoot the dogs with the wolves. And if the government can designate an entire class of people as “dangerous” and strip them of their 2A rights, then it can create a class out of any politically disfavored group. In the past, governments have done that to native American Indians and freed slaves.
Consider how ultra-progressives have misused the phrase “assault weapon” to ban an ever-expanding class of firearms. Anti-gun politicians know very well how to manipulate terminology. Gun owners in general, are already being demonized by progressive politicians. So, will an anti-gun government deem anyone with a particular type of firearm as “dangerous” and take away their 2A? Maybe a class of “paramilitary patriots” should be disarmed? What other labels could they come up with? They could start small and expand the class, as with ever-expanding “assault weapon” bans.
The critical question in the Rahimi case is how the Supreme Court applies the Bruen test and whether SCOTUS will clarify how lower courts should apply it.
2ALC thanks all of the groups and individuals who submitted amicus briefs. The Supreme Court will hear oral arguments on November 7th. A decision is expected in June 2024.