By: SottoVoce
SCOTUS, USA – With all the excitement about the abortion rights ruling we missed the other good news out of SCOTUS today. In the case of Voisine v. the United States, the United States Supreme Court handed down a decision prohibiting people convicted of “reckless domestic assaults” from purchasing guns in a 6-2 vote, according to SCOTUSblog. In this ruling, SCOTUS holds that domestic violence conviction is misdemeanor crime of violence for purposes of limiting access to firearms.
“This was the case of two Maine men who were convicted on state domestic violence charges and then found with firearms and charged with violating a federal law that prohibits domestic abusers from having firearms,” SCOTUSblog’s Amy Howe wrote in the live blog. “The question was whether their convictions qualified under the statute.”
According to the SCOTUS document on the decision, “Both men argued that they were not subject to §922(g)(9)’s prohibition because their prior convictions … could have been based on reckless, rather than knowing or intentional, conduct and thus did not quality as misdemeanor crimes of domestic violence.”
Ultimately, six of the justices decided that “recklessness,” especially in the case of domestic violence, is far from unintentional, and deemed it a misdemeanor — thus blocking anyone convicted of domestic violence from buying a gun. link
When the case was being discussed in February, Justice Clarence Thomas broke his 10-year silence on the bench to question the fairness of such a ruling. At the time, he asked whether “recklessness” is reason enough to warrant a “lifetime ban on possession of a gun, which, at least as of now, is a constitutional right.” Put his dissents on today’s two rulings together, and one wonders how such a man found a place on our highest court.
While just a technical ruling, and perhaps not as flashy as the abortion case, it’s very good news, both on the gun front and for women. At least a third of the women killed in the US are murdered by domestic partners. Also, many people who commit mass killings have domestic violence in their backgrounds. As a 6-2 ruling (Sotomayor joined Thomas for two (of three) parts of his dissent, but did not write separately), it would have passed even without Scalia.
All in all, a good day.
Click Here to See the Full Article: SCOTUS Rules that People Convicted of Domestic Violence Can’t Purchase Guns