Compares domestic violence convictions to traffic
offenses
By Samuel Warde
EDITOR'S NOTE: While the US Supreme Court ignored Thomas's argument, the RI General Assembly pretty much followed Thomas's opinion by refusing to enact legislation to broaden the ban on Rhode Island domestic abusers from owning guns.
The Supreme Court handed down three opinions on
Monday: one a landmark case handing
pro-choice advocates the biggest Supreme Court victory on
abortion in decades; another opinion overturning former Virginia governor
Robert F. McDonnell’s public-corruption conviction and “imposing higher standards for federal
prosecutors who charge public officials with wrongdoing;”
and a third opinion holding that a federal “law prohibiting gun ownership does
extend to individuals convicted of reckless domestic assault.”
As PolicyMic reports that “In
February, the Voisine v. the United States case moved Justice
Clarence Thomas, famously silent, to ask his first question during oral arguments in 10 years. “
At the time, he asked U.S. Assistant to the Solicitor
General Ilana Eisenstein whether “recklessness” is reason enough to
warrant a “lifetime ban on possession of a gun, which, at least as of now, is a
constitutional right.”
Justice Kagan
delivered the 6-2 opinion of the court on Monday explaining that: “the federal
ban on firearms possession applies to any person with a prior misdemeanor
conviction for the ‘use… of physical force’ against a domestic relation. That
language, naturally read, encompasses acts of force undertaken recklessly – i.e.,
with conscious disregard of a substantial risk of harm.”
As Reason reports: “Writing in dissent,
Justice Clarence Thomas, joined by Justice Sonia Sotomayor, rejected the
majority’s ‘overly broad conception of a use of force.’ In the Thomas-Sotomayor
view, ‘the majority blurs the distinction between recklessness and intentional
wrongdoing’ and thereby does a grave injustice to criminal defendants.”
In his dissent, Thomas
writes that the law prohibiting gun ownership based on misdemeanor assault “is
already overly broad;” Thomas goes on to claim that the law could divest others
– such as mothers disciplining their children – of the Second Amendment right
to bear arms.
Writing of the
particular statute in question – Section 922(g)(9) – Thomas writes that the law
“is already very broad.”
It imposes a lifetime ban on gun ownership for a single intentional nonconsensual touching of a family member. A mother who slaps her 18-year-old son for talking back to her—an intentional use of force—could lose her right to bear arms forever if she is cited by the police under a local ordinance. The majority seeks to expand that already broad rule to any reckless physical injury or nonconsensual touch. I would not extend the statute into that constitutionally problematic territory.
Thomas goes on to
complain that this law could impose a “lifetime ban” for “all non-felony
domestic offenses,” likening them to other summary offenses, such as receiving
traffic citations:
Section 922(g)(9) does far more than “close [a] dangerous loophole” by prohibiting individuals who had committed felony domestic violence from possessing guns simply because they pleaded guilty to misdemeanors. It imposes a lifetime ban on possessing a gun for all non-felony domestic offenses, including so-called infractions or summary offenses. These infractions, like traffic tickets, are so minor that individuals do not have a right to trial by jury.
Continuing the
analogy, he writes: “Under the majority’s reading, a single conviction under a
state assault statute for recklessly causing an injury to a family member—such
as by texting while driving—can now trigger a lifetime ban on gun ownership.”
Samuel Warde is a writer, social and political activist, and all-around
troublemaker.