The Path to Rahimi - a Timeline
Part 1 of a two-part essay about the Supreme Court case, United States v. Rahimi, whose decision is set to arrive soon
By: Caroline Light
This is Part I of a two-part essay about United States v. Rahimi, a Supreme Court case to determine whether a federal law, 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(8), that prohibits people subject to domestic violence restraining orders from possessing firearms, is in violation of the Second Amendment.
Since oral arguments began on November 7, 2023, the case has received scant attention, in part because there are so many other high-stakes cases on the Supreme Court docket. But Rahimi carries substantial weight in multiple registers: The Court’s decision could have grave consequences for efforts to mitigate gun-related intimate partner violence (IPV) and domestic violence (DV).
Second, Rahimi has wider implications for public safety and gun-violence resistance, reminding us that the feminist exhortation, “the Personal is Political,” remains salient. The catchphrase emerged in the 1960s and 70s around a groundswell of feminist organizing to raise awareness about patriarchal violence — including that which took place in private spaces — and its relation to larger, interconnected systems of power and coercion.
Finally, the case provides a lens on the distortion of constitutional law in the service of a spurious mythology of armed self-defense.
First, a timeline of events, including legal and policy milestones, leading to Rahimi.
September 13, 1994 – President Clinton signs into law the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA), as Title IV of the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act.
VAWA is the first federal legislation to designate sexual and domestic violence — traditionally considered “private” problems affecting individuals — as crimes worthy of public attention and federal resources. VAWA allocates $1.6 billion towards the investigation and prosecution of violent crimes while also providing pathways for civil redress.
Also part of the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act, 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(8) was an amendment to the Gun Control Act of 1968, adding persons subject to a civil domestic-violence restraining order to the list of people who could be prohibited from possessing guns. This federal mandate is based on evidence that a firearm in the home significantly increases the chances that a woman will be killed by her abuser.
June 26, 2008 – Supreme Court holds in District of Columbia v. Heller that the Second Amendment protects an individual right to armed self-defense in the home.
In Justice Scalia’s majority opinion, the Second Amendment “surely elevates above all other interests the right of law-abiding, responsible citizens to use arms in defense of hearth and home.” This interpretation — based on a belief that guns are essential for individual self-defense — runs counter to what many scholars, including Michael Waldman, Mary Anne Franks, Dominic Erdozain, and Saul Cornell, claim was the original framers’ intention when they started the Amendment with the phrase, “A well-regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free State.”
December 2019 – Nineteen-year-old Zackey Rahimi becomes physically violent with his girlfriend during an argument in a parking lot in Arlington, Texas. When she tries to flee the scene, Rahimi shoves her and drags her into his car. He threatens to shoot his girlfriend if she reports his abusive behavior. Then he fires his gun at a bystander who has witnessed the altercation.
February 2020 – A Texas court revokes Rahimi’s gun license following his ex-girlfriend’s successful petition for a two-year domestic violence protective order. The court bars Rahimi from contact with his ex-girlfriend, her family, and the couple’s child. The filing of this civil protective order activates 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(8), the federal prohibition on gun possession by those subject to domestic violence protective orders.
December 2020 to January 2021 – While federal law prohibits him from having or using firearms as long as the protective order is in place, no one oversees the actual removal of those firearms.
Rahimi fires his guns recklessly in several instances of public aggression: in an instance of road rage, he shoots at another car; he fires an AR-15 into the home of an acquaintance; and he shoots several rounds in the air after a friend’s credit card is declined at a fast food restaurant. When police search Rahimi’s home in connection with one of several criminal charges, they discover multiple firearms, including a .45-caliber pistol, a .308-caliber rifle, pistol and rifle magazines, and ammunition. He is charged for violating 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(8).
January 14, 2021 – Rahimi is incarcerated for violating 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(8), which carries a penalty of up to ten years imprisonment.
2021 – Rahimi appeals to the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals — which represents Texas, Mississippi, and Louisiana — to dismiss his indictment. The court initially denies Rahimi’s motion in United States v. Rahimi.
June 23, 2022 – In New York State Rifle & Pistol Association Inc. v. Bruen, the Supreme Court establishes a new test for evaluating the constitutionality of contemporary firearms restrictions, which must be “consistent with the Second Amendment’s text and historical understanding.”
Justice Thomas’s majority opinion holds that any restrictions on the right to “have and bear arms” are unconstitutional unless they are consistent with the nation’s “historical tradition of firearm regulation.” Legal experts, including respected judges and lawyers, express confusion as to how the new test should be applied.
June 24, 2022 - One day after Bruen, the Supreme Court delivers their decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, declaring, “the Constitution does not confer a right to abortion,” and overruling decades of settled law. Among the majority’s justification is a need to defend fetuses’ “most basic human right — to live.”
March 2, 2023 – In light of Bruen, the 5th Circuit issues a new decision in United States v. Rahimi, declaring 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(8) unconstitutional.
At the time of the Constitution’s framing, reasons the three judge panel, there were no laws disarming domestic abusers. While state laws denied gun ownership to particular categories of people deemed “dangerous” to public safety, the judges determine that there is no historical analogue to contemporary domestic violence protective orders, which, in their assessment, protect individuals, not the public.
March 17, 2023 – Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar files a petition for a writ of certiorari (request for Supreme C,ourt review) “whether 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(8), which prohibits the possession of firearms by persons subject to domestic violence restraining orders, violates the Second Amendment on its face.”
November 7, 2023 – The Supreme Court hears oral arguments in United States v. Rahimi.
U.S. Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar urges the Court to consider that the Bruen test does not require a literal legislative twin — an identical law that existed when the Constitution was written — but rather a principle of established law. Under this interpretation, the disarmament of people under a protective order is consistent with historic legislation that disarmed people who were considered dangerous to others.
Spring 2024 – Supreme Court will issue a decision.
Caroline Light is the Director of Undergraduate Studies in Harvard’s Program in Studies of Women, Gender, and Sexuality. Her book, Stand Your Ground: A History of America’s Love Affair with Lethal Self-Defense (Beacon Press, 2017) provides a critical genealogy of our nation’s ideals of armed citizenship.
Excellent recap of the Rahmi case, demonstrating just how radical the Bruen decision is, decided by the right-wing MAGA justices put on the Supreme Court by Donald Trump who agreed with Justice Thomas that public safety shouldn't be considered when assessing the constitutionality of gun regulations.