Note on language: We use the terms “domestic violence” and “intimate partner violence” interchangeably. This is to respect the research referenced by the authors of studies/papers.
It’s October, which means it’s the start of a new SCOTUS term. Over the course of this term, the Supreme Court of the United States will hear numerous cases across a broad range of issues. Although many of these cases may not feel like they directly impact our day-to-day life, they do, and it’s important we consider how some cases will directly impact our collective fight for reproductive justice more than others.
One such case is United States v. Rahimi, which will determine the future of gun violence policies and the safety and security of victims of domestic violence. With October also being Domestic Violence Awareness Month, it is appropriate we use this time to discuss the connection between domestic violence, gun violence, abortion, and the Supreme Court.
For those who aren’t familiar, reproductive justice is the right to have children, not to have children, and to be able to parent the children we have in a safe and healthy environment. It is an analytical framework that requires us to apply an intersectional lens to all of the issues that we confront in our day-to-day lives.
People do not live their lives in a vacuum, which is why if you care about abortion access and reproductive rights, you cannot only be concerned with AHM v. FDA (the case about access to mifepristone that the Supreme Court is still deciding whether or not it will hear). You must also care about the cases before SCOTUS related to domestic violence, gun violence, and many other issues directly impacting our ability to live safe, healthy, and dignified lives.
This is why we must pay close attention to Rahimi.
It’s clear the U.S. has a gun violence problem. However, despite evidence supporting the importance of gun regulations, SCOTUS upended the method courts use to evaluate gun laws in June 2022 with their decision in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen. At issue in Bruen was whether New York’s law requiring residents carrying a firearm in public to obtain a license authorizing concealed carry and requiring proof of a special need for this concealed carry was constitutional.
Prior to the Bruen decision, the Supreme Court did not provide lower courts with clear guidance on how to evaluate and determine whether gun regulations violated the protections of the Second Amendment. So, when evaluating gun laws, lower courts could decide what standard of legal review they wanted to apply, with many courts choosing to apply some form of intermediate or strict scrutiny.
Under intermediate scrutiny, the court evaluates whether the law is well-tailored for achieving an important government interest, such as public safety. Under strict scrutiny, the court evaluates whether the law is narrowly tailored to serve a compelling government interest. SCOTUS ruled in Bruen that the Second Amendment confers a broad right for an individual to carry a gun outside the home and that gun regulations need to be consistent with the Second Amendment’s “historical” regulation of firearms.
In other words, the Supreme Court did away with the emphasis on a law at issue being in pursuit of an important or compelling government interest and instead shifted the focus and limited the analysis to how closely modern-day gun laws follow the historical tradition of firearm regulations. Now, government interests like public safety can only be considered if comparable historical laws did so as well.
Bruen dramatically changed how courts evaluate Second Amendment cases and, without clear guidance from the Supreme Court on comparing modern-day gun laws to historical laws, has created a new opportunity for gun regulations to be further challenged.
This brings us to today, with Rahimi, which will now be one of the first cases to test this new framework.
The central question of Rahimi is whether a federal law, 18 U.S.C. 922(g)(8), that prohibits people who are actively subject to domestic violence restraining orders (DVRO) from possessing firearms is constitutional under the Second Amendment.
Although it is a federal law at the heart of Rahimi, many states have similar laws. These provisions for firearm removal exist because evidence finds that the presence of a gun in a domestic violence situation increases the risk of homicide by 500%. And a study of intimate partner violence homicides found that 20% of the victims were not the partner themselves, but family members, friends, neighbors, persons who intervened, or bystanders.
The U.S. has a high prevalence of intimate partner violence, and DVROs are a critical court order that victims of domestic violence can seek for their safety – and, based on statistics, may also impact the safety of their family and friends.
What’s more, homicide is the leading cause of death among pregnant and postpartum people, and these deaths are often linked to intimate partner violence and firearms. While we’re aware of the maternal mortality crisis and its disproportionate impact on Black women and birthing people, it is equally important we grapple with the fact that pregnant and postpartum people are more likely to be victims of homicide than to die from obstetric or health-related conditions.
Of pregnancy-related homicides between 2009-2018, 68% involved a firearm, and Black women were at significantly higher risk of being killed. In addition to being at higher risk of pregnancy-related homicide, Black and Indigenous women report physical violence, sexual violence, and/or stalking by an intimate partner in their lifetime at a higher rate than non-Hispanic white women.
Black and Indigenous women are also the most likely to live in states that have banned or restricted abortion care, and abortion bans make the risk to people who are pregnant worse. Abortion bans and restrictions replicate the hallmarks of coercion and control in domestic violence by stripping people of their bodily autonomy and healthcare decision-making.
In fact, reproductive coercion and control is one tactic many people experiencing intimate partner violence face. This may present as controlling access to and use of contraception, forced pregnancy, abortion, and more. Abortion bans that force people to remain pregnant may be especially dangerous for victims of domestic violence, who may become financially dependent on their partner for support.
As a community, we need SCOTUS to understand the nuance and the impacts this case could have. SCOTUS must uphold this commonsense regulation as constitutional to continue to allow DVROs to include a provision for firearm removal to ensure people’s safety.
The statistics are already startling. No one should ever experience domestic violence or die because of it. Allowing people subject to DVROs to maintain possession of a firearm is a matter of life or death for victims.
And when we consider the relationship between domestic violence, gun violence, and abortion, it also presents as a matter of racial justice, with Black, Indigenous, and people of color communities disproportionately impacted. Addressing these violences is imperative if we are working towards a world where we can live safely as reproductive justice calls us to.
No one can know how SCOTUS will rule in any of their cases. What I do know is that it is terrifying that, once again, our fundamental rights and ability to live in a safe community are in the hands of the Court. We cannot take a siloed approach in our advocacy. Individuals lead multifaceted lives that require us to examine issues with an intersectional lens and fight alongside each other.
 |
Adrienne Ramcharan Assistant Director, State Policy |
