Fifth Circuit Rules Disarming People Subject to Domestic Violence Restraining Orders Unconstitutional

A federal appeals court reversed a Texas man’s conviction for possessing a firearm while he was subject to a domestic violence restraining order.

A three-judge panel of the Fifth Circuit unanimously vacated the man’s conviction on Thursday, finding the federal gun law he was charged under conflicts with the Second Amendment. The panel ruled the federal ban on the possession of guns by those subject to restraining orders did not survive the test laid out in the Supreme Court’s recent New York State Rifle and Pistol Association v. Bruen ruling. It found insufficient evidence that the restraining order restriction was part of the “historical tradition” of gun regulation, as required by Bruen.

“The Government fails to demonstrate that § 922(g)(8) ‘s restriction of the Second Amendment right fits within our Nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation. The Government’s proffered analogues falter under one or both of the metrics the Supreme Court articulated in Bruen as the baseline for measuring ‘relevantly similar’ analogues: ‘how and why the regulations burden a law-abiding citizen’s right to armed self-defense,'” Judge Cory T. Wilson wrote for the panel in United States v. Rahimi. “As a result, § 922(g)(8) falls outside the class of firearm regulations countenanced by the Second Amendment.”