U.S. v. Rahimi Explained

Can the government take guns away from someone under a domestic violence restraining order, even though no such law existed when the Second Amendment was ratified?

In this TalksOnLaw Brief, Joel Cohen talks with Joseph Blocher, the Lanty L. Smith '67 Distinguished Professor of Law at Duke Law School and Faculty Director of the Duke Center for Firearms Law, just hours after the Supreme Court decided United States v. Rahimi. Professor Blocher explains what the Court held, how it refined the test from New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen, and which questions it left open.

The Law and the Petitioner

The case concerned 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(8), which bars people subject to certain domestic violence restraining orders from possessing firearms while the order is in effect. Zackey Rahimi became subject to such an order after assaulting his girlfriend; he had notice, a chance to contest it, and agreed to an order finding he posed a credible threat to her safety. He was later accused of a series of shootings. Professor Blocher notes that, unlike the carefully chosen plaintiffs in District of Columbia v. Heller, Rahimi was a criminal defendant whose public defenders made the best arguments available. He also stresses the stakes: intimate partner homicide is a leading cause of death for women, and most such killings involve guns.

Clarifying the Bruen Test

The Fifth Circuit had struck down the law as an outlier the founders would not have accepted, because founding-era statutes did not disarm domestic abusers. In an opinion by Chief Justice Roberts, the Supreme Court reversed, 8-1. Professor Blocher explains that the majority faulted the lower court for searching for a “historical twin” rather than reasoning by analogy from the principles underlying historical laws. Surety laws and laws against going armed to terrify the public, the Court said, support a principle that the government may disarm people who pose a clear threat of physical violence. In his view, the decision loosens the historical-analogue test without abandoning it. Justice Thomas, the author of Bruen, dissented alone, arguing that no historical law matched and that Rahimi could instead be prosecuted criminally.

What Rahimi Leaves Open

Professor Blocher calls Rahimi close to the easiest possible case: an individualized judicial finding of a credible threat, after notice and a hearing. For that reason, he doubts it resolves challenges to broader laws, such as the felon-in-possession ban in § 922(g)(1), or limits on drug users, people under indictment, minors, high-capacity magazines, and red flag orders. He expects the Court to keep taking Second Amendment cases.

What to Know Now

That expectation has proved accurate. Rahimi remains the Court's leading statement of how to reason from history, and § 922(g)(8) remains in force. In 2026, in United States v. Hemani, the Court unanimously agreed that prosecuting a regular marijuana user under the drug-user ban in § 922(g)(3) was inconsistent with the Second Amendment, while leaving room for laws aimed at people shown to be impaired or dangerous. The same term, in Wolford v. Lopez, the Court struck down Hawaii's rule barring licensed carriers from private property open to the public without the owner's express permission. The felon ban has drawn many as-applied challenges, and lower courts are divided, but the Supreme Court has so far declined to take up the question. Supporters of gun regulation read Rahimi as confirming that dangerous people can be disarmed; gun rights advocates emphasize that the government still bears the burden of showing a historical tradition for each law.