A mere 5 shootings in 6 weeks
Last week I shared a Slate piece that involved a reckless gun enthusiast who liked to use his gun as well as carry it, and a court ruling that said it is his RIGHT.
To refresh our memories:
The Second Amendment protects an individual’s right to possess a gun while under a restraining order for domestic violence, the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled on Thursday in a decision with alarming implications for gun violence in America.
Although mass shootings and intimate partner murders are heavily linked to domestic violence, the 5th Circuit held that the government cannot disarm alleged abusers solely because they are subject to a civil protective order. The court vacated the conviction of a man, Zackey Rahimi, who possessed a gun after allegedly assaulting his girlfriend, and invalidated the federal law that prevents alleged abusers from bearing arms.
Today What a Maroon alerted us to Ruth Marcus in the Washington Post with further details on Zackey Rahimi:
Over a six-week stretch from December 2020 to January 2021, Rahimi took part in five shootings around Arlington, Texas. He fired an AR-15 into the home of a man to whom he had sold Percocet. The next day, after a car accident, he pulled out a handgun, shot at the other driver and sped off — only to return, fire a different gun and flee again. Rahimi shot at a police car. When a friend’s credit card was declined at a fast-food restaurant, he fired several rounds into the air.
But the 5th Circuit smiles approvingly on his possession of these guns that he fires so casually and recklessly.
This is absurd. This man has shown a repeated pattern of violent behavior; any one of those five acts could have resulted in someone’s injury or death. A gun fired into the air got a woman killed here in my city–she was enjoying a birthday party in a friend’s garden when the stray bullet, fired miles away, took her life. This man should not only have ZERO access to weapons of any kind, but should be in prison.
It’s one thing, an absolutely batshit crazy thing, to have gun laws that allow people to have and carry an arsenal of weapons around that are designed to kill people first and foremost. It’s worse to allow them to keep possession of those weapons when they have been threatening a current or ex intimate partner (or anyone else). But to have person running around committing what I’m pretty sure are crimes, on the continuous, who is clearly unwell and has anger issues, is just… I don’t know what the fuck to say. It’s just a pity the motorist he shot at wasn’t one of the Judges on the 5th Circuit. They might not have been so sanguine about the situation.
The judge/s of the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals could be angling for post-judicial backup careers in the NRA bureaucracy. They might just possibly agree that ‘shoot first and ask questions later’ is a reasonable and justifiable way for ordinary citizens to go in the current domestic Wild West US situation.
If I lived in the US, my choice for open carry would be a bazooka. Guranteed to settle any argument, and pronto.
I’m very much in favor of peace officers taking that approach (if the suspect is actually armed)… Private citizens ought not be waving firearms around in public.
@4: Taking what approach?
The approach cited in the immediately preceding comment. That’s how conversation works. Please figure these things out for yourself instead of asking babyish questions.
The guy in James’s story @ 1 was convicted of second-degree manslaughter, acquitted of first-degree.
https://www.seattletimes.com/news/man-guilty-of-firing-stray-bullet-that-killed-woman-at-barbecue-near-bellingham/
There’s an ancient episode of CSI that revolves around just such an event. It was pretty clearly meant to educate the viewers – yo, shooting in the air can KILL people, don’t be doing that.
As noted previously, the court does seem to leave open the possibility of restricting the right to bear arms of classes of people who might be dangerous. I’d suggest one such class is “people with fingers”–they (we) seem to do most of the damage. People without fingers not so much, at least not until the gun manufacturers start marketing fingerless guns.
I remember an episode of The Rookies way back in the seventies that made a similar point. One of the rookies was admonished by the sergeant for firing a warning shot in the air: “What goes up must come down.”
Five shootings in six weeks? I’m surprised the court did not admonish him and demand two shootings in week seven to keep up his average.
I have a brother who is gun crazy. He worked for Pinkerton for a while, but his crazed habits led to his firing. That happened when he was working security at McDonald’s and fired his gun through the back fence (not for any good reason, just because he itched to fire it). This was in a residential area; McDonald’s was in the business area, of course, but there were houses lining the streets behind it, and there was an occupied house just on the other side of the fence, It’s lucky no one got hurt.
If that happened today, he could probably sue Pinkerton for firing him, and maybe even win. It’s hard to believe we were actually more sane in the 1970s, but in some ways, we were.
I have mixed feelings here. Protective orders aren’t convictions. And in practice in my area they’re often obtained by negotiation. Let’s say you have a case where you think there’s something there, but you aren’t sure you’ll win at trial (dueling accusations, no physical evidence, reports weeks after the events allegedly happen but immediately after an unrelated fight… all too common in domestic violence cases, especially misdemeanor ones), or, suppose trial isn’t likely to be for a while. What do you do? You get the accused in the room and basically say, “Look, you’ve got no reason to go near so-and-so anyway. They want an order telling you to stay away. Agreeing to this doesn’t mean you’re guilty, it just means you have to stay away, leave if they show up, etc. And that’s what you want to do already, right? You were just saying how they were crazy and you don’t want anything to do with them?”
Hopefully he agrees. You get the protective order unopposed, and if he violates it now you have something material and objective to nail him with. Maybe you never get him on the initial act, but the next time they have a vague, poorly defined fight that leaves no physical evidence, you don’t have to worry about who was right and whether there’s evidence. The fact that they were physically close enough to have the fight at all gives you your conviction.
The more restrictions you put on these things the less justification there is for obtaining them without a trial, and the less likely people are to agree to them, or to at least decline to oppose.
Patrick, I understand what you’re saying, but I see a major problem with the scenario. There is little anyone can do to enforce a restraining order until it’s been violated. By that time, it is often too late.
In this case, it’s almost as if the judge was using this case, where there is such an established history of violence, to demonstrate that there are no circumstances, no matter how dire, where someone can be deprived of their guns.
Since I favor strict regulations on gun ownership and use, coupled with requirements for classes on gun safety in order to obtain permits, I have little to no problem with saying this man shouldn’t have guns. As for the cases you describe, perhaps we would have fewer problems if guns were regulated. Then we only have to deal with men who beat up women, men who stab women, men who drive over women, men who lock women in the house…it’s too massive a problem to deal with already. My head hurts.
I like to link to this when the subject of gun control and the lack of it comes up.
http://davidbrin.blogspot.com/2007/01/brin-classics-jefferson-rifle.html
Not enough to fix the US, but it might actually be something that could be passed & would make things less bad.
I found this article really interesting… https://www.thirdway.org/report/the-two-decade-red-state-murder-problem
Perhaps not surprisingly, Red States have a consistently higher murder rate than Blue states, even after removing ‘large cities’ (i.e. lots of blacks and democrats) from the red states. Why? First thing listed is ‘more guns’.
Patrick, I have no idea how things work in the US, but in NZ you can apply for a protective order against a (ex)partner. You have to provide a justification, but it is fair there is a presumption that the order should be granted. If the person the order is granted against is a gun owner, then the Police will come around and collect their guns for safe storage. If that person doesn’t believe that the order is required, fair or in good faith, they can contest it and there will be a Court hearing. Even then, they can contest the gun possession part and that will result in the Court and Police evaluating the situation rather more closely. Remember, in NZ gun ownership requires a licence, a legitimate use for the guns, a good character test including interviews by the police of the gun owner, their partner or co-residents, and a non-related non-resident who knows the person well. It’s not a foolproof system by any stretch, but it strikes a conservative balance in favour of partner and wider society being safe. We have a high level of gun ownership, and a low level of gun crime by licensed owners.