The Rahimi case didn’t remotely go the way many of us hoped. The issue wasn’t whether Zachy Rahimi was a good person or whether it was constitutional to disarm clearly dangerous people, for most of us. The issue was whether a restraining order was sufficient grounds to disarm someone since there was a minimal amount of due process.
The Supreme Court figures there was, and that’s not a great thing from our perspective. Much of the ruling offers up an opportunity for anti-gunners to try and justify almost anything they want.
However, anti-gunners aren’t necessarily thrilled with the long-term ramifications of Rahimi, either.
It seems at least one anti-gun writer thinks Rahimi represents a “missed opportunity” to do all sorts of things that anti-gunners think should happen.
The Supreme Court recently issued a much-awaited opinion upholding a federal law that prohibits individuals subject to domestic violence restraining orders from possessing firearms.
On paper, it was a win for gun control. In reality, it was a missed opportunity.
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The Rahimi case was undoubtedly a win for gun control advocates and domestic violence prevention groups alike. It is hard to overstate the devastating realities of domestic violence and their interplay with firearms in America. But gun control groups should also recognize Rahimi for what it was: a missed opportunity.
The Supreme Court only takes a handful of cases every year and has now dedicated an unprecedented number of these slots to the Second Amendment in the last three years. Accordingly, Americans should expect a lull in Second Amendment cases in the years that come— in fact, some briefs even advised the court not to take Rahimi because Bruen was too recently decided. With this in mind, Rahimi needed to be a clarification of the Bruen test, not merely an “F” circled at the top of the Fifth Circuit’s paper.
Somehow, in the wake of Rahimi, the lower courts have ended up hardly any wiser, and it will likely be years before they receive any further guidance. Similarly, gun control supporters will hardly know the legal standard against which the laws they advocate will be adjudicated. Undoubtedly, many more cases with outcomes like the Fifth Circuit’s decision in Rahimi are to come. It is up to the Supreme Court to decide when to put an end to the confusion. They certainly haven’t yet.
Now, I’m not going to pretend that Rahimi was good news, but who in the world would have believed for an instant that Rahimi was going to be some sparkling win for gun control, especially since as the author notes, it was so soon after Bruen?
It was never going to be some massive slam dunk for anti-gun forces. Literally, anyone could see that, and yet we have this person trying to call it a missed opportunity?
It was never an opportunity.
The fact that anti-gunners got what they wanted was as good as they could possibly have hoped, at least realistically. Roberts is pretty squishy on Second Amendment issues, but there are at least five other justices who tend to be much firmer in their support. There was no chance at all of some sweeping gun control victory just a few years after the Court handed gun rights supporters such a massive win in Bruen.
So why even write something like this?
The answer is pretty simple. Anti-gunners live in a perpetual state of delusion where they think everyone secretly agrees with them on everything to do with guns, gun control, and what the Second Amendment actually means. It’s why they have a tendency to assume that we all really think it works, among other delusions they labor under.
In this case, the author believes that the Court even considered a “clarification” of Bruen that somehow laid the groundwork for numerous anti-gun laws to remain on the books. They never did, and part of that is because of just what happened with Bruen. Then there’s the fact that absolutely nothing in the Second Amendment suggests that gun control should be remotely constitutional under any interpretation.
