The question
Whether a federal law that bars someone subject to a domestic-violence restraining order from possessing a gun violates the Second Amendment.
United States v. Rahimi
What the Court decided
The Court upheld a federal law that disarms people under domestic-violence restraining orders. It held that when a court has found a person to be a credible threat to another's safety, temporarily taking away their guns fits the nation's history of firearm regulation and does not violate the Second Amendment. The decision narrowed how broadly its earlier Bruen ruling reaches.
How the justices split
8-1The Court's opinion
Roberts, joined by Alito, Sotomayor, Kagan, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, Barrett, Jackson
American history includes laws disarming people found to be dangerous, such as surety and going-armed laws. A modern order temporarily disarming someone a court has found to be a credible threat to another fits that tradition, so the federal law is constitutional. The Second Amendment inquiry looks for a historical principle, not a identical historical twin.
Dissenting
Thomas, writing alone
The lone dissent argued the government identified no historical law that is a close enough match, and that under the Court's own Bruen test a modern gun restriction must have a well-established historical analogue, which this one lacks.
How we know · 3 sourced claims
The Court held that a person found by a court to be a credible threat to another's safety may be temporarily disarmed consistent with the Second Amendment.
Source: syllabus, Held, at 22-915
The Court grounded the ruling in historical surety and going-armed laws.
Source: opinion of the Court (Roberts, C.J.)
Roberts, C.J., wrote for an eight-Justice majority; Thomas, J., was the sole dissenter.
Source: syllabus, lineup