The US Supreme Court on Friday proclaimed the constitutionality of the disarmament of people representing “a credible threat to the physical safety of others”, in a decision on the subject of perpetrators of domestic violence, clarifying its recent jurisprudence on the carrying of weapons.
By eight votes to one, the judges overturn an appeal decision which had declared as unconstitutional a federal law prohibiting people subject to a removal order for domestic violence from possessing a weapon.
“When a court has concluded that an individual presents a credible threat to the physical safety of others, that individual may be temporarily disarmed” without violation of the Second Amendment of the Constitution guaranteeing the right to bear arms, concludes on behalf of majority the President of the Court, John Roberts.
Democratic President Joe Biden welcomed the ruling, stressing that “no victim of domestic violence should have to worry that the perpetrator of this violence can obtain a weapon”.
It was the first time that the Supreme Court looked into this particularly sensitive issue for American society since its controversial ruling in June 2022, proclaiming the right of citizens to carry a weapon outside their home.
In the reasons for this decision voted by the six conservative judges against the opinion of their three progressive colleagues, the dean, Clarence Thomas, explained that the Court would now only authorize “reasonable” exceptions to the Second Amendment, notably in “ sensitive places”.
It is up to the courts to determine the conformity of these restrictions with precedents in the “history and traditions of the United States” between the end of the 18the century and that of the 19the.
On the basis of this new case law, an ultraconservative federal appeals court concluded in 2023 that a federal law was unconstitutional, due to failure to identify historical precedents.
In this case, in Texas, the police found a pistol and a rifle during a search of the home of a suspect involved in five shootings in two months and subject to a removal order, Zackey Rahimi, sentenced to prison sentence under this law.
” Save lives “
“Some courts have misunderstood the methodology of our recent Second Amendment decisions,” wrote Justice Roberts, clarifying that the required precedents should not be interpreted as “law set in stone.”
He criticizes the appeal judges in particular for having looked in the past not for “a historical analogue” to the contested legislation, but for a “twin” text.
Judge Thomas, the only one to have voted against, for lack of any comparable historical precedent, deplores that Friday’s decision, “in order to ensure that the government can regulate a part of society, endangers Second Amendment rights many more people.”
The Everytown association, which campaigns for strengthening control of individual weapons, welcomed “a decision which will save lives”, highlighting the links between domestic and firearm violence.
In the United States, “every month on average 70 women are shot by an intimate partner, and the presence of a weapon increases by five the chances for a woman to die at the hands of her attacker,” she recalls in a communicated.
Influential Democratic Senator Dick Durbin, head of the Judiciary Committee, also welcomed this decision in a press release.
“But the only reason this case made it to court is because two years ago, a conservative supermajority of judicial activists established a radical new standard that makes it much easier for the gun lobby to challenge long-standing gun control laws,” he said, urging the Court to reverse its June 2022 jurisprudence.
During the debates in November, the Biden administration’s legal adviser, Elizabeth Prelogar, alerted the Supreme Court to “the destabilizing consequences of the erroneous interpretation of its decision in the lower courts”, citing cases of drug traffickers or of robbers convicted on multiple occasions and authorized to keep a weapon.
“This case offers an opportunity for the Court to clarify” its position, argued Ms. Prelogar.
