High court rules on Tarrant County case

The U.S. Supreme Court on Friday upheld a law that prevents people subject to a restraining order for domestic violence from possessing firearms.

Why it matters: The court says there's a solid historical tradition of disarming people because they pose an immediate threat to someone else's safety.

• The case, which originated in Tarrant County, is one of few limits on gun ownership to survive at the Supreme Court level.

Zoom in: Zackey Rahimi, of Arlington, assaulted his girlfriend in 2019 and threatened to shoot her if she told anyone, according to court documents.

• A court granted her a restraining order, which meant that Rahimi was prohibited from possessing firearms.
• He was later suspected of multiple unrelated shootings. A search of his home turned up two guns and he was arrested.

The intrigue: The 5th Circuit Court of Appeals — the most conservative appeals court in the country — initially ruled against Rahimi and upheld the firearms ban.

• The court later withdrew its decision and said Rahimi won because there wasn't a sufficiently long tradition of suspending Second Amendment rights for domestic violence restraining orders.
• The case made its way to the Supreme Court, with the U.S. as the plaintiff and Rahimi as the defendant. He wrote in a 2023 letter from jail that he no longer wanted guns.

Reality check: The Supreme Court says the practice of taking firearms from certain people is as old as the U.S.

• "Since the founding, our Nation's firearm laws have included provisions preventing individuals who threaten physical harm to others from misusing firearms," Chief Justice John Roberts wrote in the majority opinion.

The other side: Justice Clarence Thomas dissented, arguing that the government should only be able to disarm people after they've been convicted of a crime and not on the basis of a restraining order.