Power

The Originalist Case for Arming Domestic Abusers

In United States v. Rahimi, Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito have shown they're so desperate to give guns to domestic abusers.

Black woman beside a white woman with a gun and judge's gavel in the background
Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito are taking us back to 18th century norms with their originalist defenses in giving a domestic abuser a gun. Rewire News Group illustration

Meet Zackey Rahimi, someone who apparently has never met a situation he didn’t try to shoot his way out of, including family, random drivers, and Whataburger.

Jess and Imani are back to break down last week’s Supreme Court oral arguments in his case, United States v. Rahimi, which boils down to originalism on steroids. As Jess says Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar’s oral arguments showed, “If you believe in originalism like, really believe in it with your whole chest, then you also really believe in Christian patriarchy that includes men having dominion over women and children the same way that God has dominion over his creations. That’s how you enshrine that kind of dominionist religious belief into legal code. That idea of dominion as a philosophy is the basis of property law—and now it might become the basis of Second Amendment law.”

Transcript

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