On June 21, 2024, the Supreme Court issued its opinion in US v. Rahimi, a case with high stakes for the safety of people experiencing intimate partner violence (IPV). The Court’s majority opinion in Rahimi upheld the federal law prohibiting domestic abusers subject to restraining orders from possessing or purchasing firearms against a Second Amendment challenge. The decision was seen as an enormous relief to many concerned about protecting IPV victims from gun violence. But, as described in this blog, the decision in Rahimi should not be viewed as a major victory. The decision maintains the status quo—it does nothing to reduce the high rates of IPV-related homicide by firearm, especially among Black women. The federal law that was upheld by the Court continues to be only as protective as it is applied by state governments. Furthermore, the Court’s decision in Rahimi did not significantly alter its Second Amendment jurisprudence, as articulated in NYSRPA v. Bruen (2022), that requires the government to demonstrate a “history and tradition” of gun regulation to withstand a constitutional challenge.
The high rate of intimate partner violence and easy access to firearms in the United States are a toxic combination. The rate of IPV against women in the US is 56 percent higher than in peer countries and US women are 21 times more likely to be killed by a firearm than women in other high-income countries. IPV victims are five times more likely to be killed when their abuser has access to a firearm. Moreover, IPV-related firearm violence is even more acute for Black women, who experience a significantly higher risk for homicide than white women. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), data collected from 24 states based on biological sex (AL, AZ, AR, CA, CO, GA, IL, IN, IA, KS, LA, MD, MI, MO, NV, NY, NC, OH, OK, PA, SC, TN, TX, and VA) reflect that 649 females were killed with a gun by domestic abusers in 2020. That number constitutes 80 percent of the 821 female homicides by family members in that year for states that report both deaths by firearm and the relationship between perpetrator and victim.
The decision maintains the status quo—it does nothing to reduce the high rates of IPV-related homicide by firearm, especially among Black women.
The Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) was originally enacted in 1994 and as part of the US Code expressly prohibited the:
Disposal of firearms to, or receipt or possession of firearms by, persons who are subject to domestic violence protection orders. Section 922(d)(8) prohibits the knowing transfer of a firearm to a person who is subject to a court order that restrains the person from harassing, stalking, or threatening an intimate partner or child of such intimate partner, and section 922(g)(8) prohibits the receipt or possession of a firearm or ammunition by such a person.
Under the US system of federalism, as outlined under the Constitution and related case law, the federal government cannot require states to enforce federal law (though they may encourage or discourage certain actions). To realize the fullest impact of a federal law, states pass conforming laws that increase the likelihood that they will enforce provisions, such as barring an abuser under a restraining order from owning or possessing a gun. Without the added force of state law, federal law is unevenly and sometimes weakly enforced at the state level. Studying state IPV firearm laws shows us to what extent states are enforcing these federal laws, and to what effect. The importance of the recent Rahimi decision in this realm is that it preserves both federal law and the many state laws that have been enacted to enforce it. Importantly, it reaffirms to states that passing an IPV firearm law is not a violation of the Second Amendment—an argument that is often used by opponents of implementing state IPV firearm laws.
As of 2024, according to Everytown Gun Law Navigator, 32 states and the District of Columbia further support the VAWA’s aims with additional state legislation that prohibits abusers under final domestic violence restraining orders from possessing or buying a firearm. Until 2022, VAWA only applied to spouses or ex-spouses, partners living under the same domicile, or individuals with children in common. When the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act (BSCA) was enacted in 2022 in response to the tragic shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, the federal VAWA provisions on firearm prohibitions were extended to dating partners. Of the total number of states that have adopted parallel laws on gun prohibitions for individuals under final domestic violence restraining orders, only 23 of those states and the District of Columbia extend this protection to victims of abuse by dating partners.
One research study led by Carolina Díez and including contributions from Regional Gun Violence Research Consortium members Sandro Galea, Kristin Goss, and Michael Siegel, compared states with IPV-related firearm laws and those without them over 25 years. They found that state IPV-firearm laws reduce intimate partner homicide by firearm by 14 percent when restraining orders are combined with orders for the abuser to relinquish firearms. Additional research by April Zeoli and colleagues demonstrated that “restraining order firearm prohibitions are associated with a 10 percent decline in intimate partner homicide” by dating partners, and were most effective when a judge orders the relinquishment of a firearm at the time of issuing the restraining order. These findings point to the need for additional research in the area of implementation of federal and state law. The passage of domestic violence firearm laws that are upheld in the courts has led to the reduction of women being murdered by guns accessed by their abusers. However, in order to be most effective, they have to be implemented successfully in the courts where judges are responsible for issuing domestic violence-related restraining orders with specific prohibitions against gun possession. Two of us (Sidorsky and Schiller) are currently researching judicial decision-making with respect to issuing gun prohibitions for domestic violence abusers in bail hearings and final resolution of domestic violence cases.
Intimate partner violence continues to plague people regardless of race, ethnicity, or socioeconomic status. However, among those who experience IPV, Black women are at higher risk for homicide compared to white women. For Black women, the intersection of firearms and IPV is particularly alarming because while Black women make up 14 percent of the US population, they are three times more likely than white women to be killed by a male partner. These disparities are seen across the nation, with firearm homicide deaths disproportionately concentrated among Black women in every region in the US.
While there is room for celebration related to the recent Supreme Court ruling to disarm IPV perpetrators, the unique challenges faced by Black women who might want to access domestic violence restraining orders with firearm prohibitions still warrant serious attention. Data show that only an estimated 56 percent of nonfatal domestic violence incidents are reported to the police, which means a large number of victims are not coming forward. Given well-known racial disparities in the treatment of women and men of color in the judicial system, Black women may be reluctant to reach out to law enforcement out of concern that they may not be taken seriously, or that they or their abusers may experience prejudice or unjust treatment from the criminal justice system. More typically, Black women reach out to the criminal justice system when the violence becomes severe or when they are trying to prevent a lethal outcome.
For Black women, the intersection of firearms and IPV is particularly alarming because while Black women make up 14 percent of the US population, they are three times more likely than white women to be killed by a male partner.
Black women face further intersecting issues compounding their ability to seek help when they experience IPV. When Black women appear before the court to request legal interventions involving violent relationships, including restraining orders, they may experience barriers in the legal process based on the ways in which they are perceived. For example, Black women may be stereotyped based on constructs of race, class, and gender when appearing before the court, thereby impacting the decision-making process about whether or not to grant a restraining order. They also may not be viewed by law enforcement and judges as the archetypical victim of IPV when compared to white women. Specifically, judges’ implicit biases may lead to a perception that Black women are stronger than white women, incapable of being harmed, and therefore less vulnerable. Racism and discriminatory treatment affect legal avenues for protecting the safety of Black IPV victims.
The Supreme Court’s decision in Rahimi, while vital in preserving existing legal protections for IPV victims, does not change the dual, intersecting crises of IPV and firearm violence. As discussed above, while research demonstrates that firearm restrictions reduce IPV-related homicides, state laws and their implementation remain highly variable. Furthermore, the Court’s decision in Rahimi reinforced the “history and tradition” test established in Bruen. Bruen requires the government to demonstrate that there be a “historical analogue”—a comparable law on the books at the time of the founding to contemporary firearm regulation in order to withstand a Second Amendment challenge. The Court did not, however, apply this standard strictly in Rahimi. Rahimi, who was subject to a restraining order after assaulting his partner and who had engaged in multiple incidents endangering others with a firearm, challenged the federal law as a violation of his Second Amendment rights.
Writing for the majority, Chief Justice John Roberts, applied Bruen by citing as historical analogues two types of laws from the 18th century—surety laws—which required people harming others or misusing firearms to post a bond, and “going armed” laws, which permitted disarming those who use weapons to terrorize the public. These laws, the Court found, demonstrated that the “challenged regulation is consistent with the principles that underpin our regulatory tradition.” Justice Clarence Thomas, author of the Bruen majority opinion, vehemently disagreed in his Rahimi dissent, saying that none of the “historical regulations” presented by the government sufficiently paralleled the modern-day federal law, noting that he would have found the federal law a violation of Rahimi’s Second Amendment rights. In her concurrence, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson powerfully rebuked Bruen as unworkable, saying that lower courts are finding “little method to [its] madness.” Citing some of the statistics about IPV and firearms detailed in this blog, Justice Sotomayor concluded that Bruen “hamstrings” the courts and legislatures by not allowing them “to give full consideration to the real and present stakes of the problems facing our society today.”
In the wake of Rahimi, IPV and gun violence researchers and stakeholders will need to continue building on public understanding of existing research that demonstrates the strong connection between IPV and firearm access in order to ensure evidence-based policies and practices that are equitably implemented and enforced.
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Elizabeth Tobin-Tyler is associate professor of health services, policy and practice at Brown University School of Public Health.
Esprene Liddell-Quintyn is a postdoctoral fellow at The New Jersey Gun Violence Research Center at Rutgers University.
Kaitlin Sidorsky is associate professor of political science and public policy at Ramapo College of New Jersey.
Wendy Schiller is the Howard R. Swearer interim director of the Thomas J. Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs, director of the A. Alfred Taubman Center for American Politics and Policy, and the Alison S. Ressler professor of political science at Brown University.
All are members of the Regional Gun Violence Research Consortium.