Until 1871, it was a man’s legal right in every state in the country to beat his wife.
Alabama and Massachusetts made “wife beating” illegal in 1871, but it took another half century for this violence to be declared illegal in every state.
Now, in 2023, the safety of women is in the hands of our judicial system. On Tuesday, November 7, the Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in United States v. Rahimi, a challenge to a decision issued by the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals. In February, the Fifth Circuit struck down a federal law that prohibited individuals subject to domestic violence restraining orders from possessing guns, interpreting a Supreme Court ruling last year in New York State Rifle and Pistol Association v. Bruen.
The gun lobby and other extremists are hoping that a Supreme Court ruling in Rahimi, using the 2022 Bruen decision — which requires courts to focus on the historical interpretation of the Second Amendment — will restore the gun rights of domestic abusers.
We cannot let this happen. I am a woman who was shot by an angry man. While mine was not a case of domestic violence, I have firsthand experience, like far too many women in this country, with the devastation and trauma that can be wrought by a hateful, angry man who has access to a gun.
In data compiled by our organization, it was found that nearly one million women alive today report being shot or shot at by an intimate partner, while 4.5 million women report that an intimate partner threatened them using a gun. Men use domestic abuse to control women. Firearms make this control much easier for men and much deadlier for women.
In 1996, Senator Paul Wellstone said, “All too often the only difference between a battered woman and a dead woman is the presence of a gun.” Tragically, this is borne out by the data that we’ve collected. A woman is shot to death by an abusive partner every 14 hours. The presence of a gun makes it five times more likely that a domestic abuse victim will die.
As the Supreme Court considers the Rahimi case, justices will have a chance to clarify the court’s stance on the Second Amendment for the first time since the dangerous Bruen decision. They will also have the opportunity to demonstrate which rights we as a society value more highly: the right of women to live free from gun violence or the gun rights of domestic abusers.
Everyone deserves the right to live their life free from fear of violence. Survivors of intimate partner violence are often isolated and unable to participate in aspects of civic life like voting, because information like their address can get back to their abusers. Allowing guns to be accessed by people who have domestic violence restraining orders against them will only further isolate and dissuade survivors from participating in civic life.
At the time the Constitution was signed, domestic violence was viewed as a private matter. Today, we understand domestic violence to be not only morally and legally indefensible, but also a public matter that affects the safety and well-being of our entire society. Additionally, domestic violence and mass shootings are inextricably bound: According to one study, between 2014 and 2019, nearly 70% of mass shootings were related to domestic violence.
I believe in the Second Amendment. But as Justice Antonin Scalia wrote in the 2008 Heller decision, the Second Amendment right “was not unlimited.” This did not change with the Bruen decision in 2022, which upheld restrictions on gun possession as constitutional.
At GIFFORDS, we organize responsible gun owners who understand and agree that with rights come responsibilities. But the fact is that United States v. Rahimi does not concern responsible, law-abiding gun owners. It concerns individuals who have been deemed by a court to pose a serious risk to someone in their life. If the Supreme Court sides with the Fifth Circuit, they will be sending the message to every woman who has survived domestic abuse that her life is not worth protecting.
Extremists often seek to frame gun violence prevention laws as taking away rights and freedoms. But gun violence prevention laws also protect critically important rights and freedoms. I hope the justices of the United States Supreme Court do the right thing and side with the millions of women across the country who have been shot, harassed, and intimidated and not the angry men seeking to harm and control them.
Stay up-to-date with the politics team. Sign up for the Teen Vogue Take
