SCOTUS justices confronted with their own 'historical tradition' rule in pivotal gun case

PO1 William "Chip" Nagel
..."What is at issue in the case?

The Biden administration is appealing a ruling by the Trump-packed U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit in United States v. Rahimi. At issue in the litigation is the fate of 18 U.S. Code § 922 (g)(8) , a federal law that restricts domestic abusers from possessing firearms. The statute itself restricts individuals from gun possession if they are “subject to a court order that restrains [them] from harassing, stalking, or threatening an intimate partner” — and applies even if the court order in question is a civil, not criminal, one.
The government, represented by Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar, argued that Section 922(g)(8) is a key provision because those subject to domestic violence protective orders are “an obvious danger to their intimate partners” given the very strong link between guns and homicides. The Biden administration contends that the decision by the Fifth Circuit “endangers victims of domestic violence, their families, police officers, and the public.”

This is yet another case that arises partly out of a really stupid charging decision at the local level and partly out of abuses that have made a mockery out of what should have been a good law.

Rahimi is no angel -- and almost certainly should not be running around with a gun -- but the decision to charge him for unlawful possession of a firearm BASED ON AN OLD EPO was simply the last of the stupid decisions that brought about this case. He should have been charged and prosecuted for the laundry list of serious crimes he committed - which would have avoided all this nonsense.

The entire notion of "misdemeanor domestic violence" is a mixture of stupidity and abuse. Serious crimes are felonies, misdemeanors are crimes that don't meet the threshold of being serious. The very concept of a Violent Misdemeanor is an oxymoron!

Stripping an enumerated constitutional right as a routine part of a frequently abused local court order is ridiculous enough -- making that part of federal law even when the local court does not include any ban on firearms is completely egregious.