Should Violent Domestic Abusers Be Allowed to Possess Guns?

The US Supreme Court will soon be deciding if violent domestic abusers can legally own and possess guns. Unfortunately, you read that right… 

The defendant in the case United States v. Rahimi is clearly a violent individual. In 2020, a judge issued a restraining order against him on behalf of his ex-girlfriend after he threw her onto the pavement of a parking lot, dragged her into his car, and then shot at a bystander he noticed nearby. The restraining order barred him from possessing firearms. Still, he carried out five different shootings around Arlington, Texas. After all that, cops searched his home, found guns and ammo that he wasn’t supposed to have, pressed charges, and Rahimi was convicted.It was an open and shut case - until it wasn’t. 

Listen to find out how the Supreme Court kicked the door open for a violent individual such as Rahimi to potentially legally own and possess guns. In this episode you’ll hear from: 

• Ruth Glenn, survivor and President, Survivor Justice Action
• Shira Feldman, Director of Constitutional Litigation,  Brady United
• Kelly Roskam, Director of Law and Policy, Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Violence Solutions
• Dominic Erdozain, author, One Nation Under Guns: How Gun Culture Distorts Our History and Threatens Our Democracy
• Angela Ferrell-Zabala, Moms Demand Action

Grave Injustice is a production of COURIER and Court Accountability. Our show is produced by Devin Moroney, written by Jared Downing, and supervised by RC Di Mezzo with support from COURIER’s Kyle Tharp, Danielle Strasburger, and Lucy Ritzmann. Original music is by Via Mardot. Danielle DelPlato created the show’s cover art.

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Transcript

Ruth Glenn: [00:00:00] The firearm was always a threat. It was very, very rare that he had to pick it up and point it at me, but it was always present and I knew that. And so it was absolutely a form of control and probably the most powerful in our relationship. 

Lisa Graves: Ruth Glenn's husband rarely picked up the gun, but when he screamed at her and hit her, the gun was always there, looming.

Like in the background of a Chekhov play, just waiting to go off. Eventually, Ruth managed to escape and get an order of protection for her and her teenage son. But her husband tracked her down, forced her into a car, and stuck the gun in her face. 

Ruth Glenn: When he finally did find me, uh, well, there were two events.

One was a kidnapping in which he held me at gunpoint for four hours. And the threat was, I 

Lisa Graves: will kill you, I will kill myself. Eventually, Ruth managed to talk him down, and the court took the gun away. But it didn't [00:01:00] matter. At the time, there were no laws barring domestic abusers from owning guns, and he just bought another one.

Ruth Glenn: He went right back to the sporting goods store, and that's what he used 

Lisa Graves: to harm me. When he found her again, he was ready to pull the trigger. 

Ruth Glenn: He shot me three times, uh, twice in the head. and was intent on making sure that I was dead. 

Lisa Graves: After leaving his wife for dead, he used the gun to kill himself. But miraculously, Ruth survived the ordeal.

In fact, she doesn't even have any lasting injuries. That was more than 30 years ago. Ruth has since written about her ordeal in a book. It's called Everything I Never Dreamed. She also became the CEO for the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence, and she has recently helped launch a group called Survivor Justice Action.

During that time, Ruth has seen a wave of new laws for women in her position. A few years after she was shot, the Violence Against Women Act offered new resources for women trapped in abusive [00:02:00] partnerships. A few years after that, the so called Lautenberg Amendment to the Gun Control Act barred convicted domestic abusers from owning guns.

Ruth Glenn: It felt like as a survivor, someone was hearing our concerns. There was a relief, and there's something that happens for victims and survivors when they hear, even if it's. You know, far removed from them, that somebody is hearing them. 

Lisa Graves: Women are still shot to death by their intimate partners, an average of 70 women per month, to be precise.

But access to a gun makes it five times more likely that a woman will die at the hands of her abuser. But still, things seemed to be changing for the better. 

Ruth Glenn: It felt like a step forward. And Rohimi has felt like a step backwards. 

Lisa Graves: If you haven't heard the name Rahimi in the headlines, you're going to hear it a lot in this episode.

Zaki Rahimi is from Texas. In 2020, a judge issued a restraining order [00:03:00] against him on behalf of his ex girlfriend after he threw her onto the pavement of a parking lot, dragged her into the car, and then shot at a bystander he noticed nearby. The restraining order barred him from possessing firearms.

Still, he carried out five different shootings around Arlington, Texas. Nobody was shot, the cop searched his home, found guns and ammo that he wasn't supposed to have, pressed charges, and Rahimi was convicted. It was an open and shut case. Until it wasn't. Zaki 

News Anchor: Rahimi was under a restraining order for domestic violence when he carried out a string of shootings and threatened a woman with a gun.

No one was shot, but police searched his home and found two firearms. 

Ruth Glenn: The federal law that had said people who had restraining orders for domestic violence shouldn't have firearms. Well, the Federal Circuit Court said, uh, no, that's not okay under Supreme Court precedent and they struck it down. 

News Anchor: The U. S.

Supreme Court heard arguments today in a major [00:04:00] case looking at whether people with domestic violence court orders should be barred by a federal law from owning guns. 

Lisa Graves: Rahimi might go free. The U. S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit overturned his conviction. And that Lautenberg Amendment? It violated the Second Amendment, according to that court.

Trump appointed judge James Ho argued that the Second Amendment authors wouldn't have taken a man's gun away over something as flimsy as a restraining order. Even a man like Rahimi, who once fired an assault weapon into someone's house Over a mean Facebook comment and even someone like Ruth Glenn's ex husband who kidnapped her at gunpoint before returning to finish the job.

Ruth Glenn: Many, many survivors of domestic violence really had that first response of what do you mean? I survived a gunshot and now we're talking that we're just going to unprotect survivors of domestic violence. You are sending the message that [00:05:00] an object of Firearm is more important than lives.

Lisa Graves: The case is now before the U. S. Supreme Court, which heard oral arguments in November. But how did we even get here? How is it that the Supreme Court of the United States will now decide whether or not an unstable convicted domestic abuser will be released? With a history of shooting at strangers, we'll get his guns back.

The answer is complicated, but one thing is certain. Rahimi isn't a fluke. It's part of a plan years in the making. One meant to dismantle the most common sense gun restrictions one law at a time. I'm Lisa Graves, and this is Grave Injustice, a new podcast from Courier that explores how powerful extremist groups have hijacked the courts.

To bend the law and rewrite the rules for this episode. How far right lobbyists and interest groups are wielding a right-wing court [00:06:00] to change history and dismantle our most basic protections? Up next, the United States versus Rahimi forces the court to reckon with a prior disaster of a decision called Bruin.

Melissa Ryan: Hi, it's Melissa Ryan. I've spent nearly a decade helping leaders in politics and nonprofits defend themselves. against online and offline threats. In 2024, disinformation, trolls, and emerging technologies like AI pose a serious threat to American democracy. That's why every week in my newsletter, Control Alt Right Delete, I track the rise of far right extremism, white nationalism, and online toxicity.

Politics can feel really scary right now, but I work to reduce the fear by explaining the other side's tactics. and how we can beat them at their own game. Make sure you're subscribed for everything you need to know. You can subscribe for free at alt right delete dot news or at the link in the show notes.[00:07:00] 

Lisa Graves: Let's start by talking about what's at stake. It's an amendment to the 1968 Gun Control Act. 

Shira Feldman: And that law is 18 U. S. C. section 922 G. A. Eight. It's part of a list of different categories of people largely that are prohibited from having firearms. 

Lisa Graves: This is Shira Feldman, director of constitutional litigation at the Brady campaign, a gun control advocacy group that filed an amicus brief in support of the U.

S. government's case against Rahimi. 

Shira Feldman: In this particular prohibition, Bars someone from possessing a firearm if they're the subject of a qualifying domestic violence restraining order. So someone who goes to try to purchase a firearm and is subject to a background check, if they have a qualifying domestic violence restraining order against them because of this law, that transaction will be blocked.

Lisa Graves: The law was enacted in 1998. And one thing I want to make very clear, it has results. When I spoke with Schur in February, 79, [00:08:00] 153 gun transactions had been blocked under that law. 

Shira Feldman: So that's almost 80, 000 firearms that could not be purchased by people who should not have them because of this law. 

Lisa Graves: So what about this Rahimi guy, whose case might dismantle the whole thing?

Shira Feldman: Zaki Rahimi is an individual who was the subject of a domestic violence restraining order. In 2019, he assaulted his girlfriend in a parking lot, and he fired a gun at a witness who saw what had happened. 

Lisa Graves: Rahimi's girlfriend was granted a restraining order, one which barred him from possessing firearms.

The protection order didn't stop him from stalking her. He harassed her on social media, and And even showed up at her house in the middle of the night. Nor did the order keep Rahimi from his guns. He threatened a woman with a gun and was charged with aggravated assault with a deadly weapon. Then, when someone, quote, started talking trash about him online, he drove to the man's house and shot at it with an AR 15.

After that, [00:09:00] he got into an accident with another car and shot at the driver. A few days after that, he fired a gun into the air in a residential neighborhood. And after that, he shot at a driver during a road rage incident. Finally, when a friend's credit card was declined at Whataburger, Rahimi resolved the situation by firing into the air outside the restaurant.

Shira Feldman: And when officers searched his home after the shootings, they found firearms and ammunition and gun magazines and a copy of the protective order that barred him from possessing firearms. So he was prosecuted under this law, and he was convicted. 

Lisa Graves: Rahimi appealed the conviction, but lost. Then he appealed again in 2022.

By then, something had happened. Bruin. Bruin is the other name you're going to hear a lot in this episode. Like Rahimi, it's shorthand for a case. New York State Rifle and Pistol Association, Inc. vs. Bruin. It was a challenge to a New York state law that required people to show [00:10:00] a special need for carrying a concealed gun before they were allowed to do so.

And in a six to three decision, the U. S. Supreme Court decided that New York's law was unconstitutional. 

Shira Feldman: Justice Thomas issued a decision that said that the New York law at issue was unconstitutional, but that's not really the important part of the decision. The most important part of the decision is that Justice Thomas also said that means and scrutiny is not the way to do constitutional analysis for the Second Amendment.

And he announced a brand new test that is just for the Second Amendment that he says focuses on history and tradition. 

Lisa Graves: Clarence Thomas's brand new test completely changed how lawmakers can interpret the Second Amendment. The new test has two steps. 

Shira Feldman: When you do the test, you, you essentially have two steps.

The first step is you look at the law in question. And you ask whether the conduct it affects is protected by the plain [00:11:00] text of the Second Amendment. 

Lisa Graves: That seems like a reasonable question, but here's the kicker. 

Shira Feldman: If it does, then the government has the burden in defending the law to come forth with historical examples.

Lisa Graves: Historical examples. Hmm. In other words, If you want to prove that your law doesn't violate the Second Amendment, you have to find an actual, similar law or custom from history that proves that your interpretation is consistent with what the Second Amendment authors had in mind. 

Shira Feldman: Relevantly similar is the language that Justice Thomas uses.

And courts are supposed to engage in what he calls analogical reasoning. To determine this, how far back exactly are you supposed to look? The answer is pretty far back. Justice Thomas says that relevant time periods include particularly the time of the founding when the Second Amendment was ratified, so that 1791.

And also, he looks at the time around [00:12:00] Reconstruction, when the 14th Amendment was ratified, because that's when the Second Amendment was applied to the states, that's 1868. 

Lisa Graves: Thus, in a stroke, Clarence Thomas and the right wing justices of the Supreme Court completely changed the way we must interpret the Second Amendment, forcing judges to become amateur historians.

One federal judge called it a Game of historical wares Waldo. And in the case of Rahimi, the US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit never found Waldo 

Shira Feldman: from the perspective of the Fifth Circuit historical laws that banned categories of people that were understood to be dangerous from having firearms were in place to preserve societal order.

And the Fifth Circuit said, and I think this is really important. that this law isn't about preserving societal order. It's just about protecting individual people. And according to the Fifth Circuit, that's not meant to preserve societal order. [00:13:00] And so the two things are not sufficiently similar. 

Lisa Graves: The fact is that America of Yore, the new authoritative source for Second Amendment interpretation, it wasn't so concerned about violence against women.

Natalie Nanasi: When you look back, At what this country's views on women were at the time that the second amendment was ratified, women didn't have the right to vote. Women mostly didn't have the right to work outside the home. They were subjected to what was called the doctrine of coverture, right? Which is essentially this idea that in, in the legal sense, a man had Would cover, which is where the word comes from, his wife.

So he represented her interest in court. A woman couldn't make a will. A woman, if she worked outside the home, didn't have the right to keep her own wages. 

Lisa Graves: Natalie Nassi is an associate professor at SMU Law School, where she also directs the Hunter Legal Center for Victims of Crimes Against Women. 

Natalie Nanasi: [00:14:00] Women were, were essentially the property of their husbands in 1791.

And until much later in our nation's history, they were subjected to what was called the doctrine of coverture, right? Which is essentially this idea that in the legal sense, a man had cover, which is where the word comes from, his wife, so he represented her interest in court. A woman couldn't make a will.

A woman, if she worked outside the home, didn't have the right to keep her own wages. 

Lisa Graves: In fact, it's only in recent decades that law enforcement has had any affirmative legal obligation to protect women from domestic violence in the United States. 

Natalie Nanasi: Domestic violence was something that was not recognized, that was condoned, that was considered socially acceptable.

Legally, it was really only within certainly my lifetime that the law recognized a woman's right to be free from violence in her own home.[00:15:00] 

Lisa Graves: So how do you enact laws that protect a portion of society at large from a very real threat? Again. An average of 70 women are shot each month by intimate partners. How do you use the law to protect these people when you don't happen to have a clear historical analogy? Well, according to the fifth circuit, you don't.

Up next, the actual history.

Mark Jacob: Hi, it's Mark Jacob. I'm a former Metro Editor of the Chicago Tribune and former Sunday Editor of the Chicago Sun Times. Today I'm the author of Stop the Presses, a weekly newsletter from Courier about how right wing extremism has exploited the weaknesses in American journalism, and also what journalists and you can do about it.

As a lifelong journalist, I couldn't stay silent as bad actors and politics game the system while others in my profession turn a blind eye. So every week I'm [00:16:00] holding the news media accountable and encouraging us. That's all to be more than fact checkers, we must be fact crusaders. Make sure you're subscribed to receive my newsletter every Monday.

You can subscribe at stopthepresses. news, that's one word, stopthepresses. news, or at the link in our show notes. Thanks a lot. 

Lisa Graves: What can we know? about the attitude of the authors of the Second Amendment and what they intended. To find out, I asked an actual gun historian. 

Dominic Erdozain: My name is Dominic Erderzain. I'm a historian and I'm the author, most recently, of One Nation Under Guns, How Gun Culture Distorts Our History and Threatens Our Democracy.

Lisa Graves: The first thing Dominic told me was that the image of a gun toting America of old, where anyone and everyone was free to carry a rifle or a revolver around, that's not really accurate. 

Dominic Erdozain: So there is a great deal of 19th century opinion that shows that people were revolted by weapons and by the presence of them in civilian hands.[00:17:00] 

And so to say that you have to find evidence against What was not commonly owned is a false argument. It is a bit of a fiction. 

Lisa Graves: Early American states and cities had restrictions on the types of weapons people could carry, where people could and couldn't carry weapons, and laws barring Black people and Native Americans from owning guns.

In 1881, Tombstone, Arizona, of the Wild West lore, banned the carrying of deadly weapons in city limits. Some of these restrictions were inherited from England. 

Dominic Erdozain: Although it's unpopular to quote the Statute of Northampton, this is a A 14th century statute passed in, you know, in England to, against, um, people carrying weapons as they travel to the terror of the people.

This law was in fact still active in the US in the early years of the Republic and a famous case in, in, uh, North Carolina in 1843 argued that even the statute of Northampton was only codifying a longstanding principle of common law, which is that, you know, you don't travel [00:18:00] armed. So the, these laws were, were active in the U S and it's a sort of, not even a cherry picking approach.

It's a kind of highly fictionalized jurisprudence that suggests that everyone was, um, armed and that the courts kind of encouraged it. 

Lisa Graves: It goes without saying that the guns of centuries ago bear little resemblance. to modern firearms, and there is plenty of historical evidence that people viewed advances in deadly weapons with anxiety.

My conversation with Dominic reminded me of my own time working at the Justice Department's Office of Legal Policy on gun policy. While I was there, I was able to read questions that people had written in the mid 20th century to the Office of Legal Counsel. the Department of Justice for opinions. One popular question was Does the Second Amendment protect the right to bear arms equivalent to that of the military for self defense?

In other words, what qualifies as a constitutional arm? Does a grenade, a bomb, a tank, a nuclear weapon, a neutron bomb? What [00:19:00] counts? Course those things don't count. You can't compare a Musket, or even a civil war era repeating rifle to an AR 15. An era 15 might as well be a bomb. 

Dominic Erdozain: It, it's hugely problematic because you've got cases coming through in which people are trying to find evidence that there were kind of repeating rifles at the time of the founding when such things didn't exist.

What we're doing is we're arguing from silence and then claiming that the silence means that these things were authorized when. The reason for the silence is, first of all, that they didn't exist. Second, that there wasn't this great popular will for weapons in the period. And if you read people like John Locke, you know, the architect of liberal politics in many ways, or Alexander Hamilton, they say that the purpose of the state is to substitute the mild, um, influence of the courts for, for the sanguinary influence of the sword, the sanguinary reign of the sword, that, that, that it's bloody and violent and arbitrary.

Why does government exist? Says Locke. to protect [00:20:00] us from the violence and partiality of man. The modern state is there to protect one another from interpersonal violence. From Montesquieu, who's a huge influence on, on the founders and the idea of the separation of powers. He says, you know, what is this freedom?

It's freedom from arbitrariness. And we can't have this freedom if one citizen is afraid of another. So to have a situation where courts are even considering the rights of a violent individual, someone who has, um, gun violence. convictions to own a weapon shows what a terrible situation we're in 

Lisa Graves: up next the actors behind the scenes

Kyle Tharp: hey it's kyle tharp and i'm the author of courier's newsletter for what it's worth for the past five years i've been tracking the online information wars and the digital trends shaping our politics delivering data and [00:21:00] insights to over 20 000 readers every friday morning as this wild 2024 election cycle heats up we all need to be paying attention to what's happening online If you want to know more about the online forces impacting our politics, make sure you're subscribed at FWIW.

news or at the link in our show notes.

Lisa Graves: One of the major characters in the story is a Fifth Circuit judge named James Ho, one of the three who overturned Rahimi's conviction and put the future of the Lautenberg Amendment in doubt. In addition to questions of the Second Amendment and Clarence Thomas's new game of historical where's Waldo, Ho made up an argument from due process.

Basically, a protection order based on the word of a victim is too flimsy to take away a constitutional right. There are two things that really trouble me about this. Well, there are a lot of things that trouble me about this, but I'm only going to go into two of them. First, even without interference from the court, the [00:22:00] Lautenberg Amendment leaves a lot to be desired in terms of protecting women.

Kelly Roskam: One of the ways that people get around this is, in large part, dating partners. are not covered by the federal law and are not covered by many state firearm prohibitions for protective orders. 

Lisa Graves: This is Kelly Roskam. She's the director of law and policy at the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Violence Solutions.

Kelly Roskam: So you see people dating much longer now today before getting married. It's a major loophole in the law. It was closed for the misdemeanor crimes of domestic violence in the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, but it was not closed for protective orders. 

Lisa Graves: Another problem is that while the law prohibits abusers from owning guns, it doesn't have tight protocols for actually turning those guns over to the authorities.

Kelly Roskam: So, while the federal law prohibits purchase and possession, there is no requirement that those individuals relinquish them to anybody. Many states do have [00:23:00] relinquishment statutes, but they vary significantly in their detailedness, they vary significantly in implementation. 

Lisa Graves: Still, to James Ho, even this difficult to enforce safeguard has too much power.

Commenting on a different case, but alluding to Rahimi, he wrote, quote, We don't presume that citizens are dangerous criminals. We impose a robust burden of proof on the government, and when in doubt, we err on the side of liberty. 

Kelly Roskam: He describes the civil proceeding that domestic violence protective orders go through to be insufficient, in his opinion, that domestic abusers should be prosecuted of crimes, and I think particularly felony crimes, and anything less than that is insufficient.

Not only do I think that this is a red herring, I also think it's absolutely incorrect based on the way courts evaluate due process claims for Domestic violence, [00:24:00] protective orders and protective orders generally. 

Lisa Graves: The second thing that really bothers me about this is that Judge Ho is using the same argument as the National Rifle Association.

When Rahimi went before the US Supreme Court, the NRA submitted an amicus brief making the same argument. It said, quote, Rahimi should not only lose his second amendment liberties, but he should also lose all of his liberties. If, and this next part is italicized, the allegations against him are ultimately proven true with sufficient due process.

The fact that one of the presiding judges in the case and the nation's largest gun lobby happen to draw from the same rhetorical playbook could be mere coincidence, but they do run in the same circles. James Ho was a member of the Federalist Society, that powerful network of far right lawyers we discussed in the previous episode.

Ho was hand picked by the judge. by Leonard Leo, the then vice president of the Federalist Society and the single most influential advisor for Donald Trump's judicial appointments. James Ho [00:25:00] helped make the Fifth Circuit a go to court for funneling right wing backed cases to the U. S. Supreme Court. Judge Ho also upheld the abortion pill ban by District Judge Matthew Kaczmarek, who is also a Leonard Leo approved Trump appointee with ties to the Federalist Society.

Another Leonard Leo ally, the National Rifle Association. The Washington Post reported in 2017 that one of Leo's lobbying entities, a shadowy non profit called America Engaged, with almost no public presence, donated nearly 1 million to the NRA's lobbying arm. That same year, the NRA spent the same amount of money on an ad campaign supporting the nomination of Neil Gorsuch to the U.

S. Supreme Court. One of the justices behind the Bruin decision now weighing the Rahimi case. Rahimi has still more allies, such as Gun Owners of America, a special interest group led by Larry Pratt, who is known to have given presentations to the Ku Klux Klan, white supremacists, and armed militia groups.[00:26:00] 

Comedian Sacha Baron Cohen once brought him into a prank interview show. I 

Sasha Baron Cohen: needed to find politicians who would fight for the Second Amendment right of toddlers to bear firearms at preschool. So I met with lobbyist Larry Pratt, director of Gun Owners of America. We actually found out that in schools it's not only important to arm the teachers, it's important to arm certain gifted children.

The only thing that stop a bad man with a gun is a good boy with a gun. Yeah, uh, even a good toddler. Exactly, a toddler, really. The great thing about toddlers is they don't have any fear of guns. That's a good point. 

Lisa Graves: This web of connections between the NRA, Leonard Leo, the judge that is sending Rahimi before the Supreme Court, and the justices who will decide it, is only part of a legal machine decades in the making that has gradually warped the mechanisms [00:27:00] of the constitution toward a right wing agenda.

The Rahimi case was made possible by Bruin, but Bruin itself was made possible by another case from 2008, District of Columbia versus Heller, which, for the first time, defined the right to bear arms as an individual right rather than a collective right under the aegis of a militia. upending 200 years of historical precedent.

The justices that made it possible were two new George W. Bush appointees, John Roberts and Samuel Alito, both with a stamp of approval from the NRA, the Federal Society, and an up and coming Leonard Leo.

Up next, The Consequences.

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Lisa Graves: So what does this lobbying, politicking, and judicial maneuvering mean for the rest of us? Not only women in vulnerable situations, but anyone who might cross paths with someone like Rahimi and find themselves staring down a barrel.

For Angela Farrell Zabala, she sees guns in America as an ever present threat 

Angela Ferrell-Zabala: to her children. I'm a mother of four, and when we go on a play date, I'm always asking the parents, are you a gun owner? Do you have a gun? And if you so, is it securely stored? The fact 

Lisa Graves: that the courts, which are meant to protect us from dangerous people are debating whether to make guns easier to obtain is completely [00:29:00] baffling to Angela.

Angela Ferrell-Zabala: The fact that we're even considering this, this is even something to be wrestled with is. Just unreal. 

Lisa Graves: I should mention that Angela is the Executive Director of Moms Demand Action, an advocacy organization that speaks out for survivors of gun violence and pushes for public safety measures. Thus, she doesn't just fret about gun laws in America.

She works to change them for the better. 

Angela Ferrell-Zabala: I get to travel around all across this country and talk to people in red states, blue states, purple states, gun owners, not gun owners, parents and, and folks that aren't, don't have children at all. And everybody says the same thing. They know that more guns or having a guns everywhere culture is not making us safer.

Lisa Graves: A contingent from Moms Demand Action showed up to the U. S. Supreme Court on the day it heard oral arguments for Rahimi. Angela knows about the designs of the Federal Society, Leonard Leo, the NRA, and their allies. But she believes the more these actors try to remove our legal protections, the more ordinary Americans will speak out for [00:30:00] our safety.

Angela Ferrell-Zabala: We showed up when they were hearing oral arguments really strong across this country and in front of the Supreme Court. We know that an average of 70 women in this country are shot and killed by an abusive partner each and every month. And we think about the fact that. These women go to the courts for help for justice when they're trying to get a restraining order.

They're looking for help and to have the Supreme Court wrestle with something like this will put so many people at risk. And so we are hoping that they will listen to and put the lives of women and families across this country ahead of the profits of the gun lobby 

Lisa Graves: for Angela. Rahimi, Bruin, and the unprecedented dangerous ways the courts are reading the Second Amendment.

It's about more than guns. 

Angela Ferrell-Zabala: So the Supreme Court last year, we saw them hand down two very extreme decisions. One was with our gun violence prevention or thinking about our side of advocacy. They're rolling back gun safety laws. They didn't even take a [00:31:00] breath before they started with the Dobbs decision and stripped away basic fundamental rights and bodily autonomy for women across this country.

Lisa Graves: Dobbs and Rahimi came from the same place, and they are part of the larger far right agenda to chip away at our freedoms. If there's any silver lining to the situation, it is that Rahimi probably won't win his case, and the law probably will remain intact. for now. At least Natalie Nassi believes so. 

Natalie Nanasi: I think at the end of the day, the Supreme Court is not going to use the Rahimi case to invalidate these domestic violence protective order firearm restrictions.

I just, I don't see that happening given what we saw at oral argument. 

Lisa Graves: But again, the Rahimi case is only a symptom of a much larger problem. 

Natalie Nanasi: But I, I also in the same vein, I don't think that they're going to change anything about it. the root cause of [00:32:00] this problem, which is Bruin. I think that the Bruin standard is going to continue.

It is going to be what we have to live with going forward. 

Lisa Graves: Bruin was about shifting the playing field itself, changing the rules of the game, and altering the way we think about the Constitution itself. For Natalie, the potential consequences go well beyond guns. The 

Natalie Nanasi: thread that we saw in Dubs, where again, we are, we are turning back the clock to its Time where women had little few rights and we see what is happening now, right.

If the, this court is trying to take us back to that time. And Bruin wasn't about women, but Rahimi is right. And so it flows, it flows immediately from that same kind of analysis, right? And so we have a chord that, you know, it's a feature, not a bug that, that they are turning the clock back. In this [00:33:00] way, that will impact the lives of women in a really detrimental way, that if the test is now, we got to look back, right, we got to look back to the 1700s, the 1800s, to see if something passes constitutional muster, you are just by definition going to take women's lives back to a time when they had fewer rights, when they were less safe, where they had less autonomy.

And again, I don't, I don't think that, that it's an accident that, that all these things are happening at the same time. 

Lisa Graves: Next time on Grave Injustice. 

Ari Berman: Alexander versus NAACP is a case concerning racial gerrymandering in South Carolina's first congressional district. The federal court was forced to put into effect a map that it said was racially discriminatory because the Supreme Court had delayed a decision so much.

Leah Aden: When you bleach most [00:34:00] of the black voters from CD1 and you dump them in. You are sending a message that black voters who live and work in CD1 don't have a right to representation alongside their neighbors.