Domestic abusers cannot own guns, US Supreme Court rules

People placed under restraining orders for domestic violence do not have a right to own guns, the Supreme Court has ruled.

The 8-1 decision upholds a 30-year-old law that bars those with restraining orders for domestic abuse from owning firearms.

At the centre of the case was Zackey Rahimi, a Texas man who was indicted under the 1994 law but filed an appeal after the court significantly expanded gun rights in a 2022 ruling.

In that ruling, the court decided the US constitution's guarantee of the right “to keep and bear arms” protects a broad right to carry a handgun outside the home for self-defence.

It also created a new test for gun laws, saying they must be rooted in "historical tradition".

That allowed Rahimi to appeal against his conviction under the 1994 law, arguing it did not pass the new test, and take the fight all the way to the country's highest court.

During a November hearing, Rahimi's lawyer, James Matthew Wright, said he could find no historical precedent for people being disarmed, save those convicted of a felony - which does not include the subjects of restraining orders.

The US government, wanting to keep the law in place, argued that "dangerous" individuals, such as loyalists to Britain in the American Revolutionary War era, had been disarmed in the past.

The government's lawyer also said women living in a home with an armed domestic abuser were five times more likely to be murdered.

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