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| A new SCOTUS ruling makes it illegal for domestic abusers to own guns. |
Gun control is a “hot button
issue” in the United States these days, and it will likely remain so for some
time. At the core of the issue for many people is the availability of guns,
which are notoriously easy to obtain in this country. Gun control advocates
argue that such easy access has, in part, given rise to an increase in gun
crimes and especially in mass shootings--a problem that rarely occurred in
decades before the end of the assault weapon ban.
While there are provisions that
prevent some people from buying guns, they are generally easy to circumvent,
sometimes without even breaking the law. There also aren’t many of them, which
is why a
recent ruling by the Supreme Court of the United States could be very
important to the gun control debate. In Voisine
v. United States, they upheld lower court rulings that “reckless” domestic
assaults count as misdemeanors capable of preventing someone from purchasing a
gun.
The case revolved around
several plaintiffs who had plead guilty to assault and then, some years later,
been found to own guns and charged with purchasing those guns illegally. They
argued that this rule didn’t apply because it could not be proven that the
assaults they committed were premeditated in any way, essentially arguing that
they were “crimes of passion.”
The courts didn’t necessarily
disagree with that, but by upholding the lower court rulings, they’ve set the
precedent that, whether “reckless” or not, domestic abuse convictions make one
ineligible for gun ownership.
The ruling is a victory for gun control advocates
and women’s right’s advocates, who have long been urging the justice system to
take domestic abuse more seriously. Many murders in the United States develop
from existing violent relationships, and denying people with a history of
domestic abuse the right to own guns, some of those crimes may be prevented.
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