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A conservative-leaning appeals court ruled Thursday that a federal law banning victims of domestic violence from owning firearms is unconstitutional.
judgment is the latest significant ruling to eliminate gun control as a result of the Supreme Court’s extension of Second Amendment rights in last year’s New York Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen.
The 5th U.S. Court of Appeals for the Circuit ruled that federal legislation targeting those believed to pose a threat of domestic violence should not be construed as gun control statutes are historically similar to constitutional gun control. It said it would not withstand the Bruen test it demands. framing.
“Through that lens, it concludes that[the law’s]ban on the possession of firearms is an ‘outlier’ that our ancestors would never have accepted,” the Fifth Circuit said.
The Justice Department indicated Thursday night it plans to appeal the ruling.Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a statement that Congress decided the law “nearly 30 years ago.”
“The law is constitutional, whether analyzed through the lens of Supreme Court precedent or through the lens of Second Amendment text, history, and tradition. We call for further reconsideration of the opposing decision.”
The Justice Department has not specified next steps to seek a rehearing of the judgment. This could include asking the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals for a rehearsal in full before all the judges in the court, or to take the case to the United States Supreme Court. bring the action.
The court’s opinion was written by Judge Corey Todd Wilson, appointed by former President Donald Trump. He was joined by Reagan-appointed Justice Edith Jones and another Trump-appointed Justice, James Ho, who also wrote the agreement.
The Fifth Circuit panel was not persuaded by the historical analogies put forward by the US Department of Justice. The U.S. Department of Justice was defending the conviction of a person with a firearm under a domestic violence restraining order imposed after he was accused of assaulting his ex-wife. -she. The Justice Department argued that domestic violence laws were similar to her 17th-century and her 18th-century regulations that disarmed “dangerous” persons.
“The purpose of these ‘dangerous’ laws was to maintain political and social order, not to protect a specified person from a specific threat posed by another,” he said. The Fifth Circuit Opinion states: “Thus, the law disarming the ‘dangerous’ class of people is not ‘appropriately analogous’,” but “works as a historical analogue.”
A Justice Department spokesperson did not immediately respond to CNN’s inquiry. If the Fifth Circuit’s ruling is appealed, it could start another showdown over gun rights in the Supreme Court.
Steve Vladek, a CNN Supreme Court analyst and professor at the University of Texas Law School, said clarification from the court was needed.
“One of two things is true: this kind of blind, rigorous, uncontextualized and unconventional assessment of history is exactly what the Supreme Court did last June in Bruen, a landmark event. Either it was intended in a fair judgment or it wasn’t,” Vladek said.
“In any event, the Brüen majority of judges made it clear which they meant, and that individuals under restraining orders related to active domestic violence were still constitutionally prohibited from owning firearms. We have a duty to support or reject the rather frightening idea that we are entitled to
Zacky Rahimi, a defendant challenging his conviction, had lost a previous round in the Fifth Circuit last year before the Supreme Court ruled Bruen. The previous Fifth Circuit opinion was reversed after Bruen’s judgment was handed down, and the Court of Appeals gave another briefing for the new test.
This story has been updated with additional developments.