NNEDV Supports Supreme Court’s Decision to Review Rahimi Ruling

July 10, 2023

The National Network to End Domestic Violence (NNEDV) is pleased with the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to review the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals ruling in U.S. v. Rahimi, which struck down 30 years of federal law prohibiting those under a protective order for domestic violence from possessing firearms in Texas, Louisiana, and Mississippi. NNEDV joined a coalition of domestic violence prevention and gun violence prevention groups to file an amicus brief urging the Court to take up the case in order to overturn the Fifth Circuit’s dangerous and misguided decision.

Domestic violence and firearms are a lethal combination. Nationwide, an average of three women are killed by a current or former partner every day; when a male abuser has access to a firearm, the risk that he will choose to shoot and kill a female partner increases by 1,000%.

The Fifth Circuit’s decision to strike down a federal law aimed to help protect survivors from this dangerous, and often lethal, circumstance was not only wrong, but it needlessly put thousands of survivors and their children in imminent danger. The Court will now have the opportunity to overturn the three-judge panel’s decision to put a dangerous abuser’s access to firearms over the safety of a survivor.

NNEDV will work with our membership of the 56 state and U.S. territorial coalitions against domestic violence to urge the Court to place survivor safety front and center and overturn the Fifth Circuit’s egregiously dangerous ruling.

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The National Network to End Domestic Violence (NNEDV) represents the 56 state and U.S. territorial coalitions against domestic violence. NNEDV is a social change organization working to create a social, political, and economic environment in which domestic violence no longer exists. NNEDV works to make domestic violence a national priority, change the way society responds to domestic violence, and strengthen domestic violence advocacy at every level.