Supreme Court justices on Tuesday appeared receptive to arguments in support of preserving a federal law that bans individuals under domestic violence restraining orders from possessing firearms. 

The 1994 law was struck down by the New Orleans-based 5th US Circuit Court of Appeals earlier this year after the panel of judges ruled that it failed a test set by the Supreme Court’s landmark 2022 ruling in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association, Inc. v. Bruen, which requires gun laws to be “consistent with the nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation.”

Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar, who argued on behalf of the Biden administration, told the court that the law – intended to protect victims of domestic abuse – is in line with the country’s longstanding practice of restricting dangerous people, such as “loyalists, rebels, minors, individuals with mental illness, felons and drug addicts” from accessing firearms. 

“Guns and domestic are a deadly combination,” Prelogar added. 

Zackey Rahimi, the petitioner in the case, was accused of hitting his girlfriend and firing his gun at a witness in a Fort Worth, Texas, parking lot in December 2019.

Rahimi’s girlfriend obtained a protective order against him in February 2020, after Rahimi threatened to shoot her, according to the Justice Department. 

Eleven months later, Rahimi’s apartment was searched by police and firearms were found. He pleaded guilty to violating the federal gun law, setting the case in motion. 

“You don’t have any doubt that your client is a dangerous person, do you?” Chief Justice John Roberts asked Rahimi’s lawyer, J. Matthew Wright, on Tuesday. 

Wright responded that it depends on the meaning of “dangerous.” 

“Well, it means someone who’s shooting, you know, at people. That’s a good start,” Roberts replied.

Justice Brett Kavanaugh expressed concern that backing the 5th Circuit’s ruling could threaten the background check system which the Biden administration claims has prevented 75,000 gun sales over the last 25 years to individuals under domestic violence protective orders.

Justice Elena Kagan argued that “there seems to be a fair bit of division and a fair bit of confusion about what Bruen means and what Bruen requires in the lower courts,” referencing the court’s June 2022 decision. 

Since the high court’s ruling in Bruen, lower courts have used the precedent to overturn several longstanding gun control laws in states across the country.

The lower courts used the precedent to repeal New York City’s gun licensing regime, which allowed city officials to turn down applicants for firearms based on their “moral character;” rule against California’s 33-year-old law banning assault weapons; and block New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham’s emergency order suspending the right to carry firearms in public in Albuquerque and the surrounding county. 

The Supreme Court is expected to make a decision in US v. Rahimi in the summer of 2024.