Supreme Court's Recent Decisions Shape Firearms Laws: From Second Amendment Rights to Bump Stocks and Free Speech

Second Amendment Update and other Firearms-Related Cases
By Robert Phillips

1.  Since the United States Supreme Court decided the landmark case decision of New York State Rifle & Pistol Assn., Inc. v. Bruen (2022) 597 U. S. 1, establishing the criteria courts are to use when determining whether any statute that seeks to limit or prohibit the possession or use of a firearm complies with the Second Amendment’s right to bear arms, the cases challenging one prohibitory statute after another have been coming down hot and heavy.  The latest such case is the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision of United States v. Rahimi (June 21, 2024) __ U.S. __ [2024 U.S. LEXIS 2714]. 

In Rahimi, the defendant/appellant, Zackey Rahimi, had a propensity for shooting his pistol off anytime life’s little issues weren’t going his way.  This included one such incident when, after an argument with his girlfriend (and mother of his child) turned violent, he either shot at her as she escaped his assault on her person, or shot at a witness to the event.  As a result of this incident, the girlfriend sought and obtained a restraining order from a Texas court preventing him from having any contact with her or their child.  The resulting court order included a suspension of Rahimi’s gun license for two years.  This, not surprisingly, had absolutely no effect on Rahimi and his need to accent his anger by shooting at others or simply into the air, recording some six such incidents over the following months.  This resulted in him being indicted in federal court under 18 U. S. C. § 922(g)(8), a federal statute that prohibits individuals subject to a domestic violence restraining order from possessing a firearm.  (See Pen. Code §§ 18100 et seq. for California’s equivalent regulations.)  Upon denial of his motion to dismiss, arguing that the regulation violated his right to bear arms under the Second Amendment, Rahimi appealed.   

Ultimately, the U.S. Supreme Court held that in light of the Court’s Bruen decision and it’s reasoning therein, the rule now is that anytime an individual has been found by a court to pose a credible threat to the physical safety of another, that individual may be temporarily disarmed, and that to do so does not violate the Second Amendment.  This decision was reached after a ....

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