By Robert J. Hansen | OBSERVER Staff Writer
The Supreme Court ruled June 21 to uphold a federal statute that prohibits individuals subject to a domestic violence restraining order from possessing a firearm.
Chief Justice John Roberts wrote in the court’s majority opinion that the government has a compelling interest in keeping firearms out of the hands of domestic abusers.
“With over 70 people shot and killed by an intimate partner each month in the United States, the seriousness of the problem can hardly be overstated,” Roberts wrote.
Zackey Rahimi, the respondent in the case, had challenged that the statute violated his Second Amendment right.
In December 2019, Rahimi met his girlfriend, who is also the mother of his child, for lunch in a parking lot. During the meal, the two began arguing, and Rahimi became enraged. His girlfriend attempted to leave, but Rahimi grabbed her by the wrist, dragged her back to his car and shoved her in, causing her to strike her head against the dashboard.
When he realized that a bystander was watching the altercation, Rahimi paused to retrieve a gun from under the passenger seat of his car.
The girlfriend took advantage of the opportunity to escape. Rahimi fired at his girlfriend as she fled and later called and warned her that he would shoot her if she reported the incident.
The girlfriend then filed for a restraining order.
In May 2020, Rahimi violated the order by approaching the girlfriend’s home at night. He also began contacting her through social media. In November, Rahimi threatened a different woman with a gun, resulting in a charge for aggravated assault with a deadly weapon. And while Rahimi was under arrest for that assault, police identified him as the suspect in at least five additional shootings.
A woman is five times more likely to be killed if the intimate partner causing her harm has access to a firearm, according to the National Library of Medicine.
In particular, Black women are twice as likely to be shot and killed by an intimate partner in comparison to white women, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Gun violence and domestic violence also affect the broader community, as 50% of mass shootings include the killing of an intimate partner and more than two-thirds of mass shootings have a connection to domestic violence.
Domestic violence organizations remain steadfast sources of support for any Californian needing safety planning and legal advocacy, including assistance requesting a domestic violence restraining order, said Krista Colón, senior director of public policy at the California Partnership to End Domestic Violence.
“It’s essential to understand the immense risk that firearms can cause for people experiencing domestic violence,” Colón told The OBSERVER.
“The presence of firearms makes it an extremely dangerous situation for a survivor to leave and even if a survivor doesn’t lose their life, there is still much more violence, abuse, and control that comes about when an abuser has a gun.”
Colón said that thousands of survivors in California family courts rely on restraining orders.
For years, California’s domestic violence restraining orders have provided a pathway to safety, mandating that guns be removed from the subject of the order.From 2020 to 2023, judges issued 361,980 such orders, according to a new report from Attorney General Rob Bonta.