The U.S. Supreme Court decided on Friday to sustain a federal statute that forbids domestic abusers from owning firearms, handing gun control proponents a significant victory. Justice Clarence Thomas was the only vote against the ruling, which was 8 to 1.
“Since the founding, our nation’s firearm laws have included provisions preventing individuals who threaten physical harm to others from misusing firearms,” Chief Justice John Roberts wrote in the opinion. Section 922(g)(8), when applied to the facts of this case, conforms well with this tradition.
The opinion on Friday upholds federal gun rules that were contested following the 2022 ruling, which perplexed lower courts examining Second Amendment cases. Roberts underlined that the government can disarm people who pose a threat to the physical safety of others because of the longstanding tradition of weapon regulation.
In dissent, Justice Thomas—who wrote the 2022 Bruen opinion—argued that neither the government nor the court could provide a single historical statute that would have taken away a citizen’s Second Amendment rights because of the potential for interpersonal violence. However, today’s ruling jeopardizes the rights of many more people to the Second Amendment to guarantee that the government may control a particular segment of society.
