Supreme Court to hear case brought by ‘poster child’ for gun control, advocates say

Zackey Rahimi is an odd choice to be the face of the gun rights movement.

Prosecutors say he is a violent drug dealer with a history of domestic abuse and making threats, coupled with a short temper and a penchant for guns that has bred a string of shootings.

He shot at the home of one man who “started talking trash” online, shot at another man after a traffic collision, fired a gun in a neighborhood with children present and shot at a driver in yet another road rage incident, prosecutors said.

In 2021, after his friend’s credit card was declined at a fast-food restaurant, Rahimi pulled out a gun and fired into the air, prosecutors said.

Yet Rahimi’s attorney will go Tuesday before the Supreme Court to argue that his Second Amendment rights were violated when prosecutors charged him with — and a federal court convicted him of — possessing a firearm in defiance of a restraining order filed by his ex-girlfriend who accused him of domestic violence.

Rahimi’s attorneys disputed some horrific allegations against him in briefs to the high court. Still, they said the allegations aren’t relevant to the issue at stake, which is whether his gun rights can be stripped because of a domestic violence restraining order when he had no felony conviction.

Angela Ferrell-Zabala, executive director for Moms Demand Action, said Rahimi is the “poster child” for the reason the domestic violence gun prohibition exists in federal law.

“Domestic abusers do not have and never should have the constitutional right to possess a gun,” Ms. Ferrell-Zabala said. “Lives are on the line.”

The domestic violence prohibition has been on the books since 1994, when Congress said anyone subject to a court-issued protective order could not legally possess a firearm. Others prohibited from possessing firearms include convicted felons, dishonorably discharged veterans, illegal immigrants, unlawful drug users, fugitives and those deemed mentally infirm.

Rahimi first challenged the gun conviction in 2021 and lost.

Last year, the Supreme Court reaffirmed the Second Amendment’s fundamental guarantee of firearms rights in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association Inc. v. Bruen. The court said gun restrictions must be consistent with the understanding of rights at the nation’s founding when the Second Amendment was crafted.

The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which had ruled against Rahimi, reversed itself after the Bruen ruling and decided that the law could not withstand the high court’s historical test.

The court said it would be different had Rahimi been convicted of a crime and was not simply subject to a civil order.

The Bruen ruling has sparked several questions about the Second Amendment. Illegal immigrants have challenged their gun possession convictions by arguing that prohibition is unconstitutional. Drug users also have challenged the part of the law that applies to them.

Rahimi’s case marks the first such challenge to return to the high court.

Rahimi’s domestic violence restraining order sprang from a 2019 encounter with his girlfriend and the mother of his son. As they argued in a parking lot, he grabbed her, knocked her to the ground, dragged her to his car and shoved her inside, where she hit her head on the dashboard, prosecutors say.

Realizing that someone else saw the encounter, Rahimi grabbed a gun and fired a shot. His girlfriend fled amid the confusion, though prosecutors say Rahimi called her later to warn her to keep silent about the attack.

She went to court and won a two-year restraining order against Rahimi, which ordered him to stay away from her and banned him from possessing a gun.

Months later, he tried to contact the woman and was arrested one night after he showed up at her house. In November 2020, he was accused of threatening another woman with a gun and ended up with a state charge of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon.

Then came the string of five shootings in two months, according to prosecutors: two road rage incidents, one neighborhood shooting, the attack on the home of the man he feuded with on social media and the shooting after his friend’s credit card was declined.

Police searched Rahimi’s home and found two weapons and ammunition — along with a copy of the restraining order prohibiting him from possessing them.

Rahimi faced state and federal charges. The state cases in Texas are still pending, but Rahimi was convicted in U.S. District Court of violating the restraining order by possessing a gun. He was sentenced to 73 months in prison, followed by three years of supervised release.

Curt Levey, president of the Committee for Justice, said Rahimi is undoubtedly “a bad guy” and that could sway some of the justices.

“There is an old saying that bad facts make bad law, and Rahimi is a bad guy. He is a drug dealer who used a gun in anger on several occasions and was under a domestic violence restraining order for assaulting his girlfriend. These bad facts will likely work in favor of those who want to see the federal law in question upheld. The facts make Rahimi a poster child for the gun control lobby and may make for bad Second Amendment law here,” Mr. Levey said.

Josh Blackman, a professor at South Texas College of Law, said he thinks the justices who ruled in the majority in the Bruen case won’t be distracted by Rahimi’s rap sheet.

“There is not really a tradition of disarming people who merely have restraining orders against them, so if you take Bruen seriously, Rahimi should probably win,” Mr. Blackman said.

Rahimi seems to have given up on guns, according to his jailhouse letter to a Texas judge that HuffPost obtained. In the letter, he promised to “stay away from firearms & weapons.”

“I had firearms for the right reason in our place to be able to protect my family at all times especially for what we’ve went through in the past,” Rahimi wrote in an apology letter to the court. “But I’ll make sure to do whatever it takes to be able to do everything the right pathway.”

The case is U.S. v. Rahimi. A decision is expected by the end of June.