A lawyer for a Texas man urged the Supreme Court late Tuesday to let stand a lower court opinion that critics say will make it easier for domestic abusers to obtain firearms.
The man, Zackey Rahimi, is at the center of the latest Second Amendment case to reach the high court. A federal appeals court ruled in Rahimi's favor in March. The court held that a federal law that bars an individual subject to a domestic violence restraining order from possessing a firearm is unconstitutional.
Now, the Biden administration is asking the Supreme Court to reverse that decision and clarify the reach of a major Second Amendment opinion from last term that marked the most significant expansion of gun rights in a decade.
In court papers filed in March, Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar told the justices they should take up the Rahimi case next term and reverse the appeals court decision that "threatens grave harms for victims of domestic violence."
The justices are expected to meet behind closed doors in the coming weeks to discuss the case and decide whether to step in and hear the appeal.
After the justices issued New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen a year ago, lower courts began to reconsider thousands of firearm rules across the country, including the federal law at issue in the case at hand. A panel of judges on the US 5th Circuit Court of Appeals cited Bruen and held that the statute "is an outlier that our ancestors would never have accepted."
On Tuesday, Rahimi's lawyer, J. Matthew Wright, responded to the Biden administration's appeal.
Wright argued that the law is unconstitutional, and that the court should allow the issue to "percolate" in the lower courts before stepping in.
"Bruen is less than a year old," Wright told the justices in Tuesday's filing. He said that lower courts are "just beginning to grapple" with the decision and that its "recency" is reason enough for the justices to deny the Biden administration's request.
Earlier this month the justices refused to block a local and state ban on assault weapons sales in Illinois, rejecting an emergency request from gun rights advocates and a gun store.
Rahimi was issued a restraining order in 2020 after a violent altercation with his girlfriend in Arlington, Texas. A court found that he had "committed family violence" and that it was likely to occur again. Six months later he tried to communicate with her again, approaching her house in the dark of night.
Beginning in December 2020 Rahimi took part in five shootings in Texas that culminated on January 7, 2021, when he fired shots in the air at a Whataburger restaurant after his friend's credit card was declined.
When the police ultimately obtained a search warrant for his home, they found a rifle and a pistol and Rahimi admitted that he was subject to the protective order that had been entered in the civil proceeding.
A federal grand jury indicted him, and Rahimi moved to dismiss the indictment arguing that the law was unconstitutional. He lost his court effort, but then the Supreme Court issued its Second Amendment decision in Bruen.
After reviewing the decision, the 5th Circuit ruled in favor of Rahimi, saying that Bruen "fundamentally changed our analysis of laws that implicate the Second Amendment, rendering our prior precedent obsolete."
