Supreme Court Hears Case Limiting Gun Rights for Perpetrators of Domestic Violence

Last week, the Supreme Court heard a U.S. government challenge arguing that a gun ban for perpetrators of domestic violence should be applied to all 50 states. Despite being a federal ban, the law is inconsistently applied because not all states apply gun bans keeping firearms from felons to perpetrators of domestic violence, which is considered a "misdemeanor."

Allison Stevens of Women's eNews explains the technicalities that prevent enforcement of the law in certain states:

At the foundation of the case is the federal Gun Control Act of 1968, which barred convicted felons from possessing firearms.

For decades that law was rarely applied to domestic violence cases because most of those cases were treated as misdemeanors rather than felonies.

But in 1996, Congress amended the law to apply to those convicted of misdemeanor crimes of domestic violence. The bill was known as the "Lautenberg Amendment," named after Sen. Frank Lautenberg, the New Jersey Democrat who championed it.

But the amendment did not entirely close the loophole because of a discrepancy in legal terminology among the states.

At the time the amendment passed, 17 states had specific laws criminalizing "domestic violence" misdemeanors.

The rest did not use that term.

Instead they categorized cases of domestic violence under broader terms such as assault, battery, kidnapping, rape or murder. That rendered the Lautenberg Amendment inapplicable in those states.

By: Emily Douglas, RH Reality Check