The Second Amendment Law Center filed an amicus brief with the Supreme Court yesterday 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 here. 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 the Second Amendment with this case. The Bruen decision last year set a new standard and methodology for evaluating the constitutionality of gun control laws. But how that standard should be implemented by courts in actual cases still needs to be settled. How the Bruen methodology is 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 a Second Amendment violation because they do not give individuals in the class due process. The law challenged in the Rahimi case prohibits all individuals under domestic violence restraining orders from possessing a firearm. Other class prohibition laws ban anyone who uses marijuana, 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 his rights since he should probably be in prison for his violent conduct. 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, the government has banned guns from 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 label could they come up with? They could start small and expand the class, as they have done with “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.
Please join our Founders Circle to support 2AC’s efforts to protect the Second Amendment. We’ll send you a collectible challenge coin! to show you are a part of the 2A team. Join TODAY and subscribe at 2ALC.org.
