RIGHT-WING COURT TAKES UP THREAT TO SURVIVORS OF INTIMATE PARTNER VIOLENCE

(November 7, 2023) – Today, the Supreme Court will hear arguments in United States v. Rahimi, a case that threatens a gun safety rule barring people who are subject to domestic violence restraining orders from possessing firearms. This case could put the lives of countless intimate partner violence survivors at risk.

“Should we give guns to domestic abusers with restraining orders against them? It’s a question that would have a very obvious answer in any sane, logical context,” said Sarah Lipton-Lubet, president of Take Back the Court. “But the right-wing justices made a huge mess in their Bruen decision when they invented a new rule that gun safety laws must have historical analogues from a time when muskets were the state-of-the-art technology and women couldn’t vote. Now they have to decide whether their invented test has any limit. This is what happens when rogue justices ignore precedent and make up the law as they go.

“Here in the 21st century, it’s impossible to separate these questions from their real-world repercussions: The presence of a gun makes it five times more likely a woman will be killed by her abuser, and the recent tragedy in Lewiston laid bare the consequences of allowing violent men unfettered access to weapons of war in the face of obvious warning signs.

“This court has been plumbing new depths in their effort to eviscerate gun safety protections in service of the rampant right-wing fetishization of guns. Is there any bottom? We’re about to find out.”

###