Supreme Court rules on whether domestic abusers are allowed guns in huge case that could spell bad news for Hunter Biden

The Supreme Court has issued a major gun ruling that allows a federal gun ban against domestic violence abusers to remain intact — in a ruling that could undermine Hunter Biden’s appeal of his conviction on another gun charge.

The 8-1 decision, written by Chief Justice John Roberts, finds that someone determined to pose a credible threat can infringe on their Second Amendment rights to a limited extent.

“Our tradition of firearms regulation allows the government to disarm individuals who pose a credible threat to the physical safety of others,” Roberts wrote for the majority.

Justice Clarence Thomas, who was close to an absolutist on the Second Amendment right to bear arms, disagreed.

Hunter Biden was convicted this month in Wilmington federal court on gun charges for lying when he swore he wasn’t using drugs on a form required to purchase a gun.

Hunter’s legal team has vowed to vigorously fight the conviction and has prepared an appeal based on Second Amendment gun rights protections.

If the court had ruled the other way, it might have signaled that the law on which Hunter’s conviction was based could itself have been unconstitutional.

It’s the Supreme Court’s first major decision on the issue since 2022, when the court expanded gun rights.

It concerns Zackey Rahimi, a Texas man accused of beating his girlfriend.

Rahimi had been involved in several shootings and admitted to authorities that he was subject to a domestic violence restraining order. He had weapons in his home, which violated that order.

The law restricts gun ownership by people under domestic violence restraining orders. The court held that when it has been determined by a court that an individual poses a credible threat to the physical safety of another, that individual may be temporarily disarmed in accordance with the Second Amendment.”

The ruling comes amid a years-long wave of mass shootings in the US and standoffs in Washington over President Biden’s key gun proposals, such as a renewed ban on so-called assault weapons.

In 2022, Congress passed a measure and Biden signed a law that imposed stricter background checks on gun buyers, along with provisions intended to encourage state “red flag” laws that target people considered a threat, and a provision that closed the “crony loophole” that prohibits the sale of guns to convicted abusers .

A senior Biden campaign adviser responded to the ruling with a statement saying, “No American should overlook the surprising reality behind today’s decision: Protecting domestic violence survivors from gun violence should never be a question, but the fact that it even had to be considered shows how extreme Donald Trump and the gun lobby are.”

The decision came as the Supreme Court issued several rulings, but none addressing presidential immunity