Supreme Court to hear arguments on gun law dealing with domestic violence restraining orders
Ruth Glenn knows from harrowing personal experience the danger of putting a gun in the hands of a violent spouse or partner, the issue at the heart of a case before the Supreme Court.
On a beautiful June evening in 1992, Glenn was shot three times, twice in the head, and left for dead outside a Denver car wash.
The shooter was her estranged husband, Cedric, who was under a court order to stay away from Glenn. But there was no federal law on the books at the time that prohibited him from having a gun.
Two years later, Congress put such a law in place, prohibiting people facing domestic violence restraining orders from having guns. “He would not have been able to access that gun if we had these current laws in place,” Glenn said in an interview with The Associated Press that took place outside the Supreme Court.
The high court is hearing arguments Tuesday in a challenge to the 1994 law. 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.”
Glenn, the president of Survivor Justice Action, is allied with gun control groups that are backing the Biden administration's defense of the law.
Gun rights organizations are supporting Zackey Rahimi, the Texas man whose challenge to the law led to the Supreme Court case.