June 24, 2024
(WASHINGTON) On Friday, the Supreme Court of the United States, by an 8-1 vote, rejected a Second Amendment challenge to the federal law banning persons subject to a domestic violence restraining order from possessing firearms. In its amicus brief in U.S. v. Rahimi, GAGV was the only major gun violence prevention group to argue that the Supreme Court should reverse its decisions in District of Columbia v. Heller and NYSRPA v. Bruen, both of which overturned 200 years of precedent recognizing the Second Amendment’s intended meaning to protect state militias. The Court did not take up GAGV’s call to reverse Heller and Bruen.
GAGV President Jonathan Lowy stated: “It is obviously good news that the Supreme Court rejected the notion that domestic abusers have a Constitutional right to firearms. But the fact that such an obvious question was up for debate shows how far the current interpretation of the Second Amendment has strayed from what James Madison intended.
“The Court’s incorrect view that 21st-century gun laws must have some historical precedent makes no sense, especially for a nation that suffers from gun massacres and gun death rates unlike any other comparable country and that exports its gun violence epidemic to countries throughout the region. As Justice Jackson rightly points out, lower courts are concluding that ‘…there is little method to Bruen’s madness.’
“The Second Amendment madness must end. The Court should return the Second Amendment to the meaning that was understood for 200 years and that was intended by the Framers. Returning to the Second Amendment jurisprudence that governed until 2008 would allow the government to carry out its core public safety function and enact common-sense laws that protect all Americans.”