Most notably, Zackey Rahimi—the plaintiff in this case—isn’t particularly sympathetic. In fact, by all accounts, he’s a really bad guy. The background facts are often messy and unclear, but they read like the synopsis of an above-average episode of “Law & Order.”

Who is it putting up the money for justifying a criminal to use guns? Anyone dare answer that?

Rahimi was accused of committing several domestic violence offenses, including at least one that involved the criminal use of a firearm. As a result, a court issued a domestic violence restraining order against him that met the criteria necessary under § 922(g)( to prohibit Rahimi from possessing firearms.

Within short order, Rahimi proceeded to ignore the restraining order and his status as a prohibited person. He illegally obtained a firearm and, over a two-month span, committed at least five separate shootings. Eventually, police arrested him and he pled guilty to criminal charges at the state level.

3. The lower court held that the federal statute was unconstitutional under Bruen.

Why do the anti-gun crowd bring a criminal in to test whether

Even though Rahimi pled guilty to his criminal charges under state law, he simultaneously was charged and convicted in federal court for violating § 922(g)(. After the Supreme Court issued its Bruen opinion in 2022, he rechallenged this federal conviction, arguing that it was unconstitutional under the Bruen test.

A panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit agreed, reasoning that nothing in the historical record evidenced a national tradition of using civil restraining orders to completely deprive people of the right to keep and bear arms when they are merely accused—but not yet convicted—of domestic violence.

The 5th Circuit was also quick to point out that although the government couldn’t disarm Rahimi just by issuing a civil protection order, it nonetheless had other constitutionally sound mechanisms at its disposal to protect the public from Rahimi’s violent tendencies prior to his criminal conviction.

For example, prosecutors could have fought to keep Rahimi detained in jail while awaiting trial or could have made disarmament a condition of his pretrial release.

But not when democrat prosecutors paid for by Billionaire democrat socialist George Soros are supporting defund the poliuce and no bail for criminal offenses.

4. The Supreme Court upheld the statute, but left the door open for future challenges.

This is the context in which the Supreme Court upheld § 922(g)( against Rahimi’s challenge.