Opinion
The Second Amendment Law Center (2ALC) filed an amicus brief with the Supreme Court this week in the case of United States v. Rahimi, the next landmark Second Amendment case relating to the gun rights of someone subject to a civil restraining order. Read our brief here.
Twenty other amicus briefs were also filed yesterday urging the court to strike down class-based bans on gun possession. You can see them all at www.supremecourt.gov. 2ALC helped recruit amici and coordinate efforts to get these briefs filed.
As most of you know by now, the stakes could not be higher for 2A in SCOTUS with this case.
The Bruen decision last year set a new standard and methodology for evaluating the constitutionality of gun control laws. But exactly how that standard should be implemented by courts in actual cases still needs to be settled. Whether the Bruen methodology is correctly applied to evaluate the constitutionality of a gun law often makes the difference between winning and losing a case.
Some courts are getting it drastically wrong. 2ALC has been coordinating amicus brief campaigns in multiple cases in multiple states to show some courts how to do it right.
The issue in Rahimi is whether “class-based” prohibitions on Second Amendment rights are unconstitutional under the Second Amendment because they do not give individuals in the class due process or individual consideration. The law challenged in the Rahimi case prohibits everyone under a domestic violence restraining order from possessing a firearm. Other class prohibition laws ban anyone who uses marijuana or other drugs, people with nonviolent felonies, and certain misdemeanors.
To be clear, if judged individually, Mr. Rahimi almost certainly should lose his 2A rights and likely all of his rights since he should probably be in prison for his violent conduct.
However, the problem with class prohibitions is that not all members of these classes deserve to lose their rights. These laws shoot the dogs with the wolves. And if the government can designate an entire class of people as “dangerous” and strip them of their 2A rights, then it can create a class out of any politically disfavored group. In the past, governments have done that to native American Indians and freed slaves.
Consider how ultra-progressives have misused the phrase “assault weapon” to ban an ever-expanding class of firearms. Anti-gun politicians know very well how to manipulate terminology. Gun owners in general, are already being demonized by progressive politicians. So, will an anti-gun government deem anyone with a particular type of firearm as “dangerous” and take away their 2A? Maybe a class of “paramilitary patriots” should be disarmed? What other labels could they come up with? They could start small and expand the class, as with ever-expanding “assault weapon” bans.
The critical question in the Rahimi case is how the Supreme Court applies the Bruen test and whether SCOTUS will clarify how lower courts should apply it.
2ALC thanks all of the groups and individuals who submitted amicus briefs. The Supreme Court will hear oral arguments on November 7th. A decision is expected in June 2024.
Please join the 2ALC Founders Circle to support 2AC’s efforts to protect the Second Amendment. We’ll send you a collectible challenge coin! to show you are a part of the 2A team. Join or subscribe TODAY at 2ALC.org!
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About C.D. “Chuck” Michel
C.D. “Chuck” Michel is Senior Counsel and owner of Michel & Associates, P.C. a law firm located in Long Beach, California. (www.michellawyers.com). The firm focuses on civil rights advocacy, primarily involving the Second Amendment. Other civil and criminal practice areas include business litigation, land use, environmental, and employment law.
Chuck is also the volunteer president and general counsel for the California Rifle & Pistol Association (crpa.org) and the Second Amendment Law Center (2ALC.org).
He is the author of California Gun Laws: A Guide to State and Federal Firearm Regulations (www.
words matter. the words of the Second Amendment mean what they say, no matter how you want to interpret it.
ultra-progs/politicians/anit-2A groups (they are all the same) use ambiguous and scary sounding words to intimidate the populace into believing them. activist judges twist the meaning of words to render decisions favorable to the ultra-progs. and the media industrial complex only published what advances the extreme leftwing agenda.
even with this less than favorable plaintiff, rahimi, i believe scotus will render the correct verdict.
W.T.F.?!?!?! The USSC/SCOTUS has already shown itself to be TOTALLY incompetent, irrelevant and immaterial since 1973 in Roe v. Wade, so why does anybody still look to it with such love struck googly eyes?? What is the cause of that unlimited amount of adoration for a completely corrupted and criminal organization? Is it a societal case of battered child/spouse/parent syndrome?? What will it take to wake the people up and make them see that the legal system is their ENEMY, and not their friend? We only need about 4% of the society to see that to shut the whole thing… Read more »
Garland only appealed to SCOTUS because Rahimi is such a despicable character. We would be better served to have the local prosecutor negotiate a plea agreement and moot the case like the 2A prohibitionists did in the first NYSRPA case.