DV Victims Deserve Safety from Guns

In June 2024, the U.S. Supreme Court decided the case of U.S. v. Rahimi. In that case, the perpetrator, who physically assaulted his female partner in a parking lot, and then shot his gun when he realized there were witnesses, was ordered, under gun laws, to not own a firearm.

This joker appealed the findings under his Second Amendment rights. Listen, I understand that some people want their rights under the Second Amendment. But, the fact is, there is no right provided by the U.S. Constitution that is absolute. Each of these rights has been curtailed in some way by SCOTUS (the U.S. Supreme Court).

Why? Because, besides lofty, vague priorities like national security, we live in a society made up of individuals. Each individual is a part of a group, unless you want to be a hermit, which I do not suggest.

I, for example, am an individual that is part of a family, which is made up of me and several other individuals. This family, along with other families, make up my neighborhood. My neighborhood, along with other neighborhoods, make up the town in which I live, which is part of the state, which is part of the country, which is part of the world.

You get the point. Each of us is a part of something bigger. Which means that each of us, if we want to remain a part of these social groups, must respect the rights of others. And the rights of others are sometimes in conflicts with our rights.

The ACLU talks about its amicus brief in a post about this case here (that post has not been updated to reflect the 8-1 decision in June 2024 upholding the law preventing individuals with domestic violence orders of protection against them from owning firearms). If I had written an amicus brief on this subject, this is part of what I would write:

The Court has a longstanding history of curtailing constitutional rights for the greater good. In this case, Mr. Rahimi asks this Court to avoid curtailing his Second Amendment right to bear arms. The Court's role, therefore, is not to determine whether the law disallowing those subject to domestic violence protective orders is invalid according to the Second Amendment, but to decide whether the Right to Bear Arms is more important to our society than the the Right to be Free from Violence (arguably enshrined in the Eighth Amendment, albeit not explicitly).

I argue that it does not.

Perhaps the most universally accepted amendment is the 13th Amendment against slavery. However, even this amendment has an exception built directly into the amendment itself: "Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States..." So, everyone shall be free from working for free, except prisoners. That's a pretty big exception.

As to Freedom of Speech under the First Amendment, this is a lesson in complicated jurisprudential gymnastics worthy of the bar exam. Whether a person may protest depends on the type of property on which they are protesting. The Supreme Court splits property for Free Speech purposes into three categories (and has since 1983): "traditional" public forums, "limited" public forums, and nonpublic forums. Then, depending on the type of forum, the government may limit speech, but not its content, or limit free speech through time, place, and manner restrictions, or make "reasonable limitations".

As to the Fourth Amendment freedom from unreasonable search and seizures, there is a list of exceptions to the warrant requirement the length of my arm. The police do not need a warrant to search your property if you're in a moving vehicle; if you might escape with the evidence; if the evidence is in plain view; if you're being legally arrested at the time, if there are "exigent" circumstances. And that's all if the Supreme Court, in the last 100 years or so of jurisprudence, has found that you have a reasonable expectation of privacy in the place being searched.

I could go on, amendment by amendment. The point is, freedom in a society, where the freedoms of everyone must co-exist, is not absolute.

I do not believe, and I do not think that the average U.S. citizen believes, that the right to be free from violence is more important than the right to bear arms.