SCOTUS Set a Dangerous Precedent With Bruen. A Year Later, It Can Fix Its Mistake | Opinion

Four years after Kate Ranta's wedding day, her marriage to her husband, Tom, turned violent. Tom's threats and abuse escalated until one day, he loaded his gun, took their toddler son hostage, and threatened to hurt Kate. They made it out alive, but Kate knew she had to file a temporary restraining order to protect her and her son's lives. The court ultimately granted the order, taking away Tom's firearms. Yet, it allowed him to legally purchase more—replacing one deadly weapon with the exact same one.

The following year, after the temporary restraining order expired, he hunted her down to seek revenge. He ambushed her with a gun and threatened her life. Kate and her father barricaded the door to her house and shielded her then-4-year-old, but that didn't stop the bullets. Tom shot through the door, striking Kate, before gaining entry and shooting her and her father again point-blank. The toddler sheltered near the kitchen table, begging, "Don't do it, daddy! Don't shoot mommy." Miraculously, Kate, her father, and her son survived that day.

This is what's at stake when domestic abusers have access to guns: our safety and our lives. Kate's story is one of many before the U.S. Supreme Court in United States v. Rahimi in an amicus brief filed by March For Our Lives, which began oral arguments on Nov. 7. This case comes just a year after the Supreme Court threatened to turn America's gun safety laws on its head in its NYSRPA v. Bruen decision. Experts called the Bruen decision "illogical," as it countered decades if not centuries of settled Second Amendment jurisprudence, and endangers dozens of laws that protect our right not to be shot.

We're already feeling the repercussions of that decision. A lower court in Texas cited Bruen when it ruled in Rahimi that domestic abusers cannot have their firearms taken away, even if they pose a clear threat. It's a decision that demonstrates the perversity of the post-Bruen era that requires looking back 300 years to judge gun laws in 2023 and testing the extreme limits of that logic. But Rahimi has made its way up to the Supreme Court and now gives the court a chance to tidy up at least some of the mess it made.

In brief, Rahimi endangers a federal statute that even some pro-gun groups accept as an indispensable safeguard: prohibiting those under domestic violence protection orders from owning guns. As it stands, limiting abusers' access to firearms is legal and has been for decades. It's an essential tool in the toolbox of keeping people safe. But if upheld, Rahimi will arm abusers—who are five times more likely to murder female victims—and jeopardize the lives of women, children, and all Americans. People who are a demonstrable risk to others would be granted access to weapons that could cause more danger, even death. Just a few weeks ago, a judge in Maryland was shot and killed by a father and known domestic abuser after granting full custody to the mother, proving how quickly conflict can escalate into tragedy. Upholding Rahimi is an unacceptable risk, especially considering that most mass shootings involve domestic violence. For Kate, this means living with the knowledge that more Americans will face nightmares similar to her own—and they might not be lucky enough to survive. Every person with a conscience should be horrified by this real possibility.

The fact is, Bruen reset the Second Amendment landscape and put gun laws at risk of being ruled unconstitutional because of the partisan whims of the few rather than the very real needs of the many. We've seen these dangers over the last year, including in the extremism of the Rahimi decision.

Since Bruen, district courts have released contradictory opinions from one another on the very same laws. It underscores the fatal flaw of Bruen's logic—turning our courts into arbiters of history and using identical records to produce vastly different decisions.

But what happens when these ancient laws don't grant people of color and women the right to vote, let alone protect us from being shot dead by a domestic abuser? Our society has come a long way since the ratification of the Second Amendment. Still, in practically scribbling on the walls to reinterpret the Second Amendment, Bruen has threatened to bring us back to that barbaric and bigoted era, with lower courts stumbling through interpreting the Supreme Court's messy drawing. Rahimi is an opportunity to fix that and an opportunity the Court mustn't squander.

The Supreme Court can keep domestic abuse survivors and children alive by overturning Rahimi. It can clarify Bruen and affirm once and for all that we are a nation of laws, and our laws shouldn't require leaving our citizens in the crossfire. In fact, for the sake of people like Kate and the futures of millions across the country, it must. Our lives are on the line. No child, like Kate's son, should be held hostage by his armed father. No mother, like Kate, should lie shot and bleeding as her child begs for mercy. And no American should die at the hands of a domestic abuser.

Makennan McBryde, 21, is a legal associate at March For Our Lives and co-author of MFOL's amicus brief filed in United States v. Rahimi.

The views expressed in this article are the writer's own.