Supreme Court seems likely to uphold gun ban for domestic abusers on narrow grounds

The justices heard arguments over a 1994 federal law.

A majority of Supreme Court justices on Tuesday appeared inclined to uphold a 30-year-old federal ban on firearms for people under domestic violence restraining orders.

At the same time, during oral arguments in the case U.S. v. Rahimi, several conservative justices seemed to seek a narrow ruling that would reaffirm a generally expansive view of the Second Amendment.

The case comes at a time when firearms are a leading factor in intimate partner violence nationwide. A woman is five times more likely to die from a domestic abuse situation if a gun is involved, according to the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Violence Solutions.

The law in question requires state and federal courts to submit restraining orders to the national criminal background check system, which in turn blocks an attempted gun purchase. More than 77,000 gun sales have been denied under the law since 1998, according to the FBI.

Zackey Rahimi, a Texas drug dealer who was indicted for gun possession in violation of a restraining order obtained by his girlfriend, is challenging the ban as lacking historical precedent. A federal appeals court agreed with him and said the law should be struck down.