According to the #Rahimi Court nothing in #Heller created an unbounded right to keep handguns in the home and nothing in #Bruen disturbs the government's authority to regulate firearms possession by those who have been found to pose a credible threat to the physical safety of others. 7/
Now at the part of the #Rahimi opinion that explains where the Court thinks the lower court, the Fifth Circuit, and the dissent by #ClarenceThomas both err. Both insist on a historical twin to justify a law disarming those who pose a credible threat of domestic violence, when what is required is an analogue. Furthermore, the Fifth Circuit went out of its way to make up a conflict between the domestic violence law and the Constitution.
The Fifth Circuit repeatedly engages in histrionic reasoning to justify unprecedented conclusions. The Supreme Court is making it clear it will not uphold decisions like this. This should be obvious, but it lays down a pragmatic marker, a limitation on the lawlessness of lower courts. (Not that it can check the lawlessness of comparably histrionic Supreme Court decisions.) #LawFedi#RuleOfLaw 9/
The #Rahimi Court insists that "historical analysis" will continue to be the order of the day for considering the Constitutional validity of firearms regulation. It emphasizes the narrowness of its holding: "[W]e conclude only this: An individual found by a court to pose a credible threat to the physical safety of another may be temporarily disarmed consistent with the Second Amendment." This is narrow indeed. 10/
On to the concurrence by #Sotomayor and joined by #Kagan. Sotomoayor emphasizes that she still maintains #Bruen was wrongly decided. But, even under Bruen, #Rahimi is an easy case - prohibiting adjudicated domestic abusers from possessing guns is, under any sense of analogical reasoning, analogical to historical laws regulating firearms possession and use. #ClarenceThomas tries to argue that any difference between historical and today's laws makes them disanalogous. That's ridiculous. 12/
Great passage from #Sotomayor: "Under [#ClarenceThomas] approach, the legislatures of today would be limited not by a distant generation’s determination that such a law was unconstitutional, but by a distant generation’s failure to consider that such a law might be necessary. ... #Rahimi 13/