Nov 8, 2023
Supreme Court Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito and John Roberts make terrifying arguments over not upholding a gun ban for domestic abusers in stunning Supreme Court debate. Jayar Jackson and Trae Crowder break it down on The Damage Report.
- 6 minutes
On Tuesday, the supreme court,
they appeared to uphold a 30 year federal
statute disarming people who are subject
to domestic violence protective orders.
Pretty good, but
should be pretty standard.
The law in question requires state and
federal courts to submit restraining
[00:00:17]
orders to the National Criminal
Background Check System,
which in turn blocks
an attempted gun purchase.
More than 77,000 gun sales have been
denied under that law since 1998.
Zackie Rahimi, I think Rahimi, a Texas
drug dealer who was indicted for gun
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possession in violation of a restraining
order obtained by his girlfriend.
He's challenging the ban as
lacking historical precedent.
And a federal appeals
court agreed with him and
said that the law should be struck down.
So I've got up to the supreme court.
And now justices Kavanaugh and Amy Coney
Barrett, they appeared to show support for
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the law.
Both suggested that even if there is not a
historical twin for a law banning guns for
people subject to domestic violence,
restraining orders,
the dangerousness of a person has long
been a basis for gun restrictions.
Two plus two is still four.
In the court's liberal justices, who have
been highly critical of the history and
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tradition test for gun restrictions.
They slammed the fact
that the ban on guns for
domestic abusers is even
in question before them.
They said, I'm a little troubled.
We have a history and tradition test
that requires a culling of the history
where only some people's history counts.
It's what Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson
said about that as well, too.
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So that was on the side of
at least it got through.
And then some of those lib justices
are like, why are we talking about this?
The same way I was thinking.
Who was against the decision
that turned this down?
Again, for domestic violence abusers
to go back and kill their partners?
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So Alito, Thomas and Roberts,
let's go into their thoughts.
We're told that there are situations in
which a family court judge who has to act
quickly and may not have any investigative
resources faces a he she said situation.
And the judge just says, well,
I'm gonna issue an order like
this against both the parties.
[00:02:01]
That's what Samuel Alito said.
Clarence Thomas,
he worried that the implications of
upholding the law might be too broad.
He says, what if someone is
considered not responsible for
not storing their firearms properly?
What he pointed out.
And then Chief Justice John Roberts
agreed with Thomas for some reason.
[00:02:17]
And he said,
responsibility is a very broad concept.
I mean, not taking your recycling
to the curb on Thursdays.
I mean, if it's a serious problem,
it's irresponsible.
Setting a bad example by yelling at
a basketball game in a particular way.
It seems to me that the problem with
responsibility is that what seems
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irresponsible to some people
might seem like, well,
that's not a big deal to others.
Maybe the folks who get shot with guns
that are left out since Clarence Thomas
brought up not storing
your firearms properly.
They might care about
that irresponsibility.
And if you get to take your
garbage out on your Thursday,
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you have to wait till next Thursday,
do it again.
You have a little bit of
a piling up of garbage.
But from last I checked, if your garbage
is piled up in your bin, the biggest
problem you might have is maybe some
raccoons and possum maybe getting into it.
Not your daughter being killed, just small
differences in the irresponsibility levels
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that they're talking about.
But if they can equate guns to being,
I forgot to check the mail, dad.
Then I think they're trying to make sure
this is minimized despite the fact that so
many people die at the hands of guns.
Specifically people who are out of their,
I guess,
safe parts of their brains when
they fly off the handle and
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are angry at their partner and
wanna come back and shoot them.
Just my thoughts, Trey.
>> Speaker 2: Yeah, yelling at
a basketball game feels a little different
than beating your wife for
what not, it's crazy.
It's just a wild point to even try to
make publicly as a Supreme Court justice.
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You would hope this is why the whole
gun debate is so frustrating,
is because this is where the bar is for
one side of the debate.
You know what I mean?
Even this, a lot of these justices,
and like you said, it's wild to me.
It's controversial, whether or
not domestic abusers should be armed.
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We already know they're dangerous.
You don't want people to be armed and
dangerous, right?
We should take the armed
part away if we can.
At the very least, this is up for debate.
But it is because of they immediately get
into some version of the slippery slope
argument or whatever.
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We got to look at the implications.
It's like, not really.
No, you don't, because the implications
for not doing this are far graver.
More people will be shot.
More people who are already victims will
be shot to death if you strike this down.
And then they say there's no
historical precedent for it, and
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that's why you can't do it.
Well, yeah, domestic abuse used to be
legal and encouraged for 200 years.
You know what I mean?
Of course, there's not a historic and
traditional precedent for a law,
specifically this one.
It's just so ridiculous.
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I was never a hardcore gun
control guy like I used to be.
Now I have kids in school, and I'm
desperate for us to do something about it.
But that's what I'm saying.
You can't even start
the conversation cuz it's nothing.
They give no ground.
The hardcore gun nuts.
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It's like, it doesn't matter how
reasonable it sounds to
your average person.
They're like, no,
that's completely untenable.
And that's why it's one of the more
frustrating issues we have.
[CROSSTALK] results in so
many people dying.
So the stakes are so high and
they still stand their ground, for
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lack of a better phrase.
>> Speaker 1: Yeah, I like to point
out sometimes when they say what?
77,000 guns were taken away from
potential domestic abusers since 98 or
under that law.
How many people are alive today that would
not have been alive from those 77,000 guns
that potentially got in
the hands of domestic abusers?
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And maybe many of those domestic abusers
would not have used their guns on their
partners, but many would have.
>> Right.
>> Speaker 1: Cuz we
know that's what happens.
So it's not like it's sight
of the normalcy of reality.
It happens, and
there's big numbers behind it.
So it's a matter of whether or
not you care enough to save those lives or
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at least try to save those lives.
Cuz the assumption is, my God, if you
take the gun away from the guy who's
a potential abuser, he might get hurt.
Someone might run up on him,
and he needs his gun.
What about the person who
has already been threatened?
Just saying.
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