This Supreme Court gun ruling missed the mark

Members of the Supreme Court ruled on Friday in favor of a federal law that bars people under domestic violence restraining orders from possessing firearms.

Chief Justice John Roberts wrote in the majority opinion that individuals who pose a credible threat to the safety of their intimate partner may be banned from possessing firearms while the order is in effect in a manner consistent with historical traditions of regulating firearms in the United States. Justice Clarence Thomas, the lone dissenter in the case, meanwhile said the statute does not fit with that tradition.

He observed that the law in question does not require a finding that a person has ever committed a crime of domestic violence and is not triggered by a conviction, meaning gun owners can be stripped of their weapons without due process.

Thomas said prosecutors failed to identify examples of an adjacent regulation. The government does not offer a single historical regulation that is relevantly similar, he said. The governments smorgasbord of commentary proves little of relevance.

The question is whether the government can strip the Second Amendment right of anyone subject to a protective order, even if he has never been accused or convicted, he continued. In the interest of ensuring the government can regulate one subset of society, todays decision puts at risk the Second Amendment rights of many more.

Second Amendment advocacy groups applauded Thomas and voiced disappointment over the majority opinion. Gun Owners of America remarked that difficult cases with terrible defendants like this require the strictest adherence to principle.

The Supreme Court also recently issued an opinion clarifying that bump stocks, which are used with semiautomatic firearms to increase firing rates, cannot be classified as machine guns under present federal law. While the decision affirming firearm bans with domestic violence restraining orders had eight Justices siding with the majority, the decision opposing bump stock bans had six Justices siding with the majority.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, a Democrat from New York, said last week that lawmakers would debate codifying a federal ban on bump stocks after the MAGA Supreme Court showed the nation how dangerously far right they will go.

Gun Pulse is a brand-new conservative publication devoted entirely to the Second Amendment, from political battles over the right to keep and bear arms, to opinion and commentary pieces, to equipment reviews, and much more.