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Supreme Court to decide if gun bans for domestic abusers are constitutional (Nina Totenberg)
https://www.npr.org/2023/11/07/1208501397/supreme-court-guns-domestic-abusers(7 min. audio at link)
Supreme Court to decide if gun bans for domestic abusers are constitutional
November 7, 2023 5:00 AM ET
Heard on Morning Edition
Nina Totenberg
The Supreme Court hears arguments Tuesday in a case that could invalidate the federal law barring guns for anyone who is the subject of a domestic violence court order. If the federal law falls, so would similar laws in most states, and other important gun laws.
[...]
The legal arguments
Former Deputy Solicitor General Michael Dreeben, who was in charge of the Justice Department's criminal appeals docket for 24 years, says there is a good reason there is no precise analog from the 1700s.
"At the Founding, domestic violence was not considered to be a serious problem that warranted legal intervention. Women were viewed more or less as property of their husbands," he says. "The second feature of changed dynamics is that firearms are now the weapon of choice in domestic violence conflicts in a way that was not true at the founding." Those realities, the government argues, justify a more "nuanced" analog to the 1700s.
[...]
"The government is throwing spaghetti at the wall hoping something sticks," he says, adding that "the government is basically saying, 'We don't like this test... we want something else.'"
"If they cannot point to an analog, they're in trouble, Beard observes. "The statute is probably unconstitutional and presumptively is."
[...]
November 7, 2023 5:00 AM ET
Heard on Morning Edition
Nina Totenberg
The Supreme Court hears arguments Tuesday in a case that could invalidate the federal law barring guns for anyone who is the subject of a domestic violence court order. If the federal law falls, so would similar laws in most states, and other important gun laws.
[...]
The legal arguments
Former Deputy Solicitor General Michael Dreeben, who was in charge of the Justice Department's criminal appeals docket for 24 years, says there is a good reason there is no precise analog from the 1700s.
"At the Founding, domestic violence was not considered to be a serious problem that warranted legal intervention. Women were viewed more or less as property of their husbands," he says. "The second feature of changed dynamics is that firearms are now the weapon of choice in domestic violence conflicts in a way that was not true at the founding." Those realities, the government argues, justify a more "nuanced" analog to the 1700s.
[...]
"The government is throwing spaghetti at the wall hoping something sticks," he says, adding that "the government is basically saying, 'We don't like this test... we want something else.'"
"If they cannot point to an analog, they're in trouble, Beard observes. "The statute is probably unconstitutional and presumptively is."
[...]
7 replies
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