WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court upheld a broad federal gun-control law Tuesday that strips gun rights from the many thousands of people who have been convicted of any domestic-violence crime.
In a 7-2 decision, the justices ruled that the federal ban on gun possession was intended to keep “firearms out of the hands of domestic abusers,” Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said.
The law covers not only people who have felony convictions, she said, but also misdemeanors involving an assault against a former or current spouse or live-in partner, as well as a child, a parent or others who live together in the home.
“Firearms and domestic strife are a potentially deadly combination nationwide,” Ginsburg wrote.
She cited a report from the National Institute of Justice that found about 1.3 million women and 835,000 men are assaulted physically by a spouse or partner each year. Many more such offenses are never reported, the report found.
The court settled a linguistic dispute over how to read the law. Since 1968, federal law has prohibited felons from having a firearm. That ban was extended in 1996 to cover a “misdemeanor crime of domestic violence.” Some judges read this narrowly to mean the law did not apply to people who were charged with assaulting or physically threatening someone with whom they had once lived. These judges said the law applied only to those who were convicted or who pleaded guilty to a “domestic violence” crime.
Some states have laws against “domestic violence” and charge offenders under it. Other states and prosecutors routinely charge offenders with assault or battery.
In the ruling, United States vs. Hayes, the court said the gun ban applies to all such offenses as long as it can be shown there was a domestic relationship between the offender and the victim.
The ruling reinstates an illegal-gun-possession charge against Randy Hayes, a West Virginia man who was found to have three guns in 2004. He had on his record a 1994 misdemeanor for battery against a woman who “was cohabiting with him.” Hayes had argued that the federal gun-control law did not apply because he had been convicted of “generic battery,” not a “domestic violence” law. The 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, Va., agreed.
Had the Supreme Court agreed, it could have restored gun rights to thousands of people in 25 states that do have on the books a specific “domestic violence” law, according to the Brady Center for Handgun Violence.
Bush administration lawyers appealed to the Supreme Court, which reinstated the broad view of the federal law Tuesday.
The case did not involve the Second Amendment and the constitutional right to “keep and bear arms.”
Other rulings Tuesday
• The court dealt a setback to public employee unions in states including Idaho and Utah. In a 6-3 ruling, it said those states may forbid agencies from collecting union political dues from employees.
Such laws are rare, but the court said they do not violate the First Amendment rights of the unions.
• The court limited the federal government’s authority to hold land in trust for Indian tribes. The court’s ruling applies to tribes recognized by the federal government after the 1934 Indian Reorganization Act.
The U.S. government argued that the law allows it to take land into trust for tribes regardless of when they were recognized, but Justice Clarence Thomas said in his majority opinion that the law “unambiguously refers to those tribes that were under the federal jurisdiction” when it was enacted.
The ruling comes in a case involving the Rhode Island-based Narragansett Indian Tribe — formally recognized in 1983 — and a 31-acre tract of land the tribe purchased in rural Charlestown. At issue was whether the land should be subject to state law, including a prohibition on casino gambling, or whether the parcel should be governed by tribal and federal law.
Indian-rights advocates said Congress intended for the law to set a new standard for future relationships with all tribes, regardless of when they were recognized.
It remains unclear how many tribes could be affected by Tuesday’s ruling.
• A member of the Northern Arapaho tribe who killed a bald eagle for use in a Native American ceremony could face up to a year in jail after the court decided not to hear his appeal.
The court’s ruling Monday is the latest turn in a long-running legal dispute over the rights of American Indians to kill eagles for religious purposes.
Winslow Friday has acknowledged that he shot and killed a bald eagle without a permit on the Wind River Reservation in central Wyoming for use in his tribe’s 2005 Sun Dance.
The high court’s ruling means that Friday will face a misdemeanor charge in federal court in Wyoming. He could face up to a year in jail and a $100,000 fine if convicted.
