Appeals Court Finds Federal Gun Ban on Domestic Violence Offenders Unconstitutional
A federal court on Thursday ruled that it is unconstitutional to ban Americans accused of domestic violence from possessing firearms, even if they’re subjected to restraining orders.
Applying the logic the U.S. Supreme Court put forward last summer in deciding a landmark Second Amendment case, a panel of three judges on the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals unanimously agreed that the federal ban on possessing a firearm while subject to a domestic violence restraining order should no longer be considered constitutional.
In the June 2022 ruling, Supreme Court Justice Thomas Clarence set forth a new standard lower courts must follow. First, the court must determine whether the Second Amendment’s “plain text” covers an individual’s conduct. If so, then that conduct is presumptively protected, and the government must prove that its law is “consistent with this Nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation.”…