The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday is hearing a case that could overturn a law barring people under domestic violence protection orders from possessing guns. The issue illustrates the stark divide between those who believe the Second Amendment confers a near-absolute right to carry a firearm for self defense and those who see such an expansive legal interpretation as a threat to public safety.
The man at the center of the case, Zackey Rahimi, is not a sympathetic figure. According to press reports, he was subjected to a protective order after dragging his partner across a parking lot, tossing her into his car and then firing a gun in the air to frighten bystanders who witnessed the incident. He later called his partner and threatened to shoot her if she told anyone about it.
The lawyers arguing the case today will address the constitutionality of the law. But there’s another critical issue at stake—the health consequences for victims of domestic violence.
Domestic violence, also known as intimate partner violence, is more common than many people realize. Of the estimated 4,970 female victims of murder and nonnegligent manslaughter in 2021, 34% were killed by an intimate partner, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics. About 6% of the 17,970 males murdered that year were victims of intimate partner homicide. The CDC reports that 41% of women experience contact sexual violence, physical violence and/or stalking by an intimate partner during their lifetimes. The odds that the victim will die are five times higher if a gun is involved.
Ironically, “self-protection” is the reason Americans most commonly cite for keeping or carrying a gun. In an Forbes.com article published last month, I noted that a firearm in the home increases a family’s risk of harm, rather than reduce it.
Nearly three decades ago, I led a three-city study that examined the relationship between gun ownership and the risk of homicide in the home. We found no evidence of protective effects, including a subgroup analysis limited to homicides following forced entry into the home. However, keeping one or more guns in the home was associated with a nearly eight-fold higher risk of homicide at the hands of a family member or intimate acquaintance.
What about carrying a gun outside the home? The most definitive study of this question, led by Dr. Charles Branas, chair of the department of epidemiology at the Columbia School of Public Health, found that armed individuals were four times more likely to be shot than similar individuals who were unarmed. Data from the Justice Department’s National Crime Victimization Survey, which interviews thousands of people each year, indicates that defensive gun use is generally rare (less than 1% of contact crimes), and when a gun is used in self-defense, it does not significantly reduce an individual’s risk of injury compared to other methods.
Another problem with carrying a gun is that fearful owners tend to shoot first, without knowing if the perceived threat is armed. “Stand-your-ground” laws have codified this mindset. Studies indicate that these laws increase gun violence and gun homicides.
Notwithstanding these observations, belief in the protective power of guns is so pervasive, it has even shaped Supreme Court decisions. More than two decades ago in Heller v. District of Columbia, Justice Antonin Scalia extolled the virtues of keeping a handgun for protection, noting that it “is easier to store in a location that is readily accessible in an emergency.” He did not mention that an accessible handgun can also be reached by curious children, an angry spouse or a depressed teen.
Writing for the majority in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association Inc. v. Bruen, Justice Clarence Thomas asserted that “The Second and Fourteenth Amendments protect an individual’s right to carry a handgun for self-defense outside the home.” He declared that officials cannot restrict access to firearms based solely on “an important interest” such as public safety. Instead, they must “demonstrate that the regulation is consistent with this Nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation.”
The groundwork for Tuesday’s Supreme Court case was laid when the Fifth Circuit of the U.S. Court of Appeals applied Justice Thomas’ language in Bruen decision to rule that since no laws denying guns to people under domestic protection orders existed at the time the Constitution was written, such laws are unconstitutional today.
In an opinion published Monday in the Washington Post, David Cole, national legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union and Georgetown University Law professor, notes that during the era of our founding fathers, “women were viewed as their husbands’ property, marital rape was a husband’s privilege, and women did not have the right to vote, serve on juries, or otherwise exercise the responsibilities of citizenship. But that is not justification for giving a domestic abuser the right to carry a gun.”
If the Supreme Court affirms the Fifth Circuit’s decision, how will women respond? Many years ago, a colleague and I analyzed FBI Uniform Crime Reports data on more than 215,000 homicides that occurred in the U.S. over an 11-year period. Although women comprised 23% of victims, they were twice as likely to be killed by a gun-wielding spouse or intimate partner than the total killed by strangers using any method. And although women committed less than 15% of U.S. homicides, when a woman killed, the victim was five times more likely to be her spouse, intimate acquaintance or a family member than to be a stranger or person of unidentified relationship.
The United States has more guns in civilian hands than the next 25 nations in the world combined. Although our firearm homicide dipped slightly this year from its Covid-19 peak, it is 25 times higher than the average among other high-income nations. What happens next will be up to the Supreme Court. What happens in the longer term will be up to the U.S. Congress and us.
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