The SCOTUS Chronicles

[Thumpalumpacus]

Justice Clarence Thomas, one of the Supreme Court’s leading conservatives, found himself standing alone when the court handed down a major gun decision Friday.

Thomas broke with his eight colleagues, who all voted to uphold a federal gun ban for people under domestic violence restraining orders, a decision that handed a win to the Biden administration and gun control groups.

It’s a striking change for Thomas, who authored the Supreme Court’s expanded Second Amendment test two years ago, known as Bruen, that was at the center of Friday’s case.

That test requires gun regulations to fit within the nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation. Chief Justice John Roberts, joined by seven of his colleagues, said Friday the domestic abuser gun ban could be compared to a tradition of disarming people who pose a credible safety threat.

“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 of a crime. It cannot,” Thomas responded in his 32-page dissent, twice as long as the Roberts’s majority opinion.

“The Court and Government do not point to a single historical law revoking a citizen’s Second Amendment right based on possible interpersonal violence,” he continued, referring to the statute at issue, adding that he believed the government had not “borne its burden.”

[...]

A Texas man’s challenge of his conviction under the domestic violence gun law had forced the justices to consider the limits of their recent expansion and clarify the test for lower courts that have voiced confusion.

That man, Zackey Rahimi, was placed under a restraining order after he dragged his girlfriend, with whom he has a child, in a parking lot and attempted to shoot a witness. Rahimi later participated in a series of five shootings, court filings show, and was indicted on the gun charge after police searched his home and found a rifle and a pistol.

https://thehill.com/regulation/court-bat...ourt-guns/

I hate to break the news to Justice Thomas, but domestic violence is indeed a crime, and restraining orders aren't imposed without accusations, and in this case a conviction. Apparently, uppity wimmenfolk need shootin'.