Professor Jacob Charles Interviewed on US Supreme Court Case, United States v. Rahimi

Professor Jacob D. Charles is interviewed on the AirTalk Radio episode "Why History Is at the Center of the SCOTUS Case Looking at Gun Rights and Domestic Abusers," the NPR 1A Radio episode "What Could United States v. Rahimi Mean for the Gun Rights of Domestic Abusers," and the National Constitution Center podcast episode "The Constitutionality of Firearms Bans for Domestic Violence Abusers," regarding the US Supreme Court case United States v. Rahimi. In Rahimi, the Court will decide on the constitutionality of a federal law aimed at disarming people who are subject to domestic violence restraining orders.

From AirTalk Radio:

The high court is hearing arguments Tuesday in a challenge to a 1994 law that prohibited violent spouses and partners from having firearms. The closely watched case is the first one involving guns to reach the justices since their landmark Bruen decision last year expanded gun rights and changed the way courts evaluate whether restrictions on firearms violate the constitutional right to “keep and bear arms.” Firearms are the most common weapon used in homicides of spouses, intimate partners, children or relatives in recent years, according to data from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Guns were used in more than half, 57%, of those killings in 2020, a year that saw an overall increase in domestic violence during the coronavirus pandemic. Seventy women a month, on average, are shot and killed by intimate partners, according to the gun control group Everytown for Gun Safety. Rahimi’s case reached the Supreme Court after prosecutors appealed a ruling that threw out his conviction for possessing guns while subject to a restraining order. But even though Rahimi was hardly “a model citizen,” Wilson wrote, the law at issue could not be justified by looking to history. That’s the test Justice Clarence Thomas laid out in his opinion for the court in Bruen. That word, history, has become integral in how this ruling could shake out. And not everyone interprets what history means the same in this case. Joining to discuss is Jacob Charles, associate professor of law at Pepperdine Law School, and Laura Edwards, Class of 1921 Bicentennial Professor in the History of American Law and Liberty at Princeton University.

The episode may be found at AirTalk Radio

From NPR 1A Radio:

Guns, and who gets to have access to them, is one of the most hotly debated issues in our country. 

The Supreme Court will weigh in on gun rights once more in the coming months in the case of a 23-year-old Texas man named Zackey Rahimi.

His case challenges a federal law that’s been around for nearly two decades that strips gun ownership rights from people under domestic violence protection orders.

How should the high court regulate who gets access to guns? And how might the outcome of the case shape gun rights as we know them?

The episode may be found at NPR 1A Radio

From the National Constitution Center:

This week, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in a Second Amendment case, United States v. Rahimi. This case asks whether the federal government can ban gun possession by people subject to domestic-violence restraining orders. In this episode, we break down the arguments in the case and explore the future of the Second Amendment. Clark Neily of the Cato Institute and Pepperdine Law Professor Jacob Charles join Jeffrey Rosen, president and CEO of the National Constitution Center, to discuss.

The episode may be found at National Constitution Center