[Congressional Record Volume 169, Number 184 (Tuesday, November 7, 2023)]
[Senate]
[Pages S5373-S5374]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                           U.S. Supreme Court

  Mr. MURPHY. Mr. President, I wish this were not true--and it is true 
in the United States and nowhere else--but, on average, 70 women across 
this country are killed each month by an intimate partner, a husband or 
a boyfriend mostly, and most all of those murders are at the hands of a 
perpetrator with a firearm.
  In the United States, women are 21 times more likely to be killed by 
a gun than women living in any other high-income nation. I get it that 
the numbers that we throw around when talking about the gun violence 
epidemic sometimes can get a little numbing and overwhelming, but that 
is a really damming, unconscionable statistic.
  If you live in America as a woman--the most affluent, most powerful 
country in the world--you are not twice as likely to die as women in 
other countries at the hands of a firearm, you are not 5 times more 
likely, you are not 10 times more likely, you are 21 times more likely, 
living in the United States of America, to die from a gunshot wound as 
a woman than women living in any other high-income country.
  I am not talking about comparing the United States to some war-
ravaged, developing nation in the middle of civil conflict. I am 
talking about comparing the United States to other peer nations. That 
is unacceptable.
  We made progress last year. We made progress last year because 
Republicans and Democrats came together and said you shouldn't be able 
to have a gun anywhere in this country if you have a judicial history, 
if you have a conviction related to domestic violence. So we changed 
the law. We limited something called the boyfriend loophole so that 
whether you are a spouse or an intimate partner or a dating partner, 
you now can't get your hands on a weapon--you can't buy one, can't have 
a weapon--if you have been convicted of a domestic violence charge. 
That was good news.
  The reason that we did that, despite the fact that the gun lobby 
opposed it, is because the American public has just made up their mind 
on this question.
  In general, on most questions about keeping dangerous weapons away 
from dangerous people, 89 percent of Americans have already decided 
that they just would rather we err on the side of caution.
  Specifically, on this question of prohibiting abusers--domestic 
abusers--from owning guns, 83 percent of Americans support that. It is 
really hard to get 83 percent of Americans to support anything in this 
country. This is maybe the most popular public policy intervention in 
America today, stopping domestic abusers from getting firearms.
  The gun lobby and the gun industry, which want to sell weapons to 
everybody, regardless of their criminal status, cannot win that fight 
here in the U.S. Senate. They lost that fight last year because the 
American public has made up its mind. You are likely not getting 
reelected to Congress from a swing State or a swing district if you are 
voting against measures to take guns away from domestic abusers.
  But here is the problem with the state of American politics today: 
There are now two legislative lawmaking bodies. One of them is the U.S. 
Congress. The other is across the street at the Supreme Court. So over 
and over again, when an industry or a rightwing interest group can't 
move the laws of Congress in their favor because the American public is 
so wildly against their priority, they just shift the venue of the 
fight across the street to the Supreme Court. That is what is happening 
right now, as we speak, on this question of keeping guns away from 
domestic abusers.
  Today, the Supreme Court is hearing the case of United States v. 
Rahimi. Let me tell you a little bit about Zackey Rahimi. He was a drug 
dealer with a history of armed violence toward intimate partners and a 
history of firing guns in public places.
  In the winter of 2019, Rahimi had an argument with his girlfriend in 
a parking lot. She tried to walk away from the argument, knowing about 
his penchant for violence. But he grabbed her wrist. He knocked her to 
the ground. He then dragged her back to the car, picking her up and 
throwing her into the vehicle, causing her to hit her head on the side 
of the vehicle. Upon realizing that a person witnessed the assault, 
Rahimi retrieved a gun and fired a shot into the air, during which time 
his girlfriend escaped.
  It won't surprise you that his girlfriend went and got a restraining 
order against him. He was vicious and violent, firing guns in public 
into the air as a means to threaten her. She went and got a restraining 
order. That restraining order required Rahimi to be noticed to the 
criminal background check system so that he couldn't own or buy guns. 
Eighty-three percent of

[[Page S5374]]

Americans think that is a great idea: Somebody with that kind of 
dangerous history, with an active restraining order against them, 
should not be able to buy a gun or possess guns. That was the law in 
Texas at the time. It worked for this woman who was being badly abused, 
and her life was unquestionably under threat.

  Rahimi thinks that he should have the guns. He thinks that 
notwithstanding his long criminal history, the restraining order, that 
the Constitution requires him, a domestic abuser, to have weapons. So 
he has brought a case that has reached the Supreme Court asking to 
invalidate all laws that keep weapons away from domestic abusers who 
are the subject of restraining orders.
  If this case is decided in his favor, it is not just an outrage, it 
is not just dangerous; it is a frontal assault on democracy because 
what it would say is that the Supreme Court--not the U.S. Congress, not 
the elected branch of government--is going to micromanage the decisions 
as to who can have a gun and who can't have a gun. They will decide who 
is dangerous and who is not dangerous. That should make you really 
nervous if the outcome of this case is to decide that Zackey Rahimi is 
a responsible individual, capable of owning and possessing more 
weapons.
  Later in that year, Rahimi threatened another woman with a gun, which 
resulted, that time, in a charge of aggravated assault. Rahimi then 
participated in five separate shootings--five separate shootings--all 
of which were in public places. Rahimi was arrested and convicted of 
possessing a firearm. He was ultimately sentenced for these crimes for 
a long time in jail.
  Restraining orders are designed to look at someone, assess their 
penchant for violence, and then take guns away from them to protect a 
spouse or a woman or a girlfriend. Rahimi was violent. He was wildly 
violent after the restraining order. This is exactly whom the law in 
Texas is designed to protect us from. Yet we are perhaps weeks away 
from the Supreme Court invalidating that law, invalidating 
Connecticut's law, invalidating Georgia's laws so that domestic 
abusers, with histories of vicious assault, can get their hands back on 
weapons.
  But this should come as no surprise to Americans because we have won 
this fight, this fight to start moving the laws of this country toward 
common sense. We want people to have a right to own firearms. I believe 
in the Second Amendment. I believe the Second Amendment protects the 
right of private gun ownership. I do. But I think that there is a class 
of individuals--a pretty small class of individuals--who have 
demonstrated so clearly that they are so dangerous and so irresponsible 
with firearms that they should not have them. It is a small class of 
individuals. Zackey Rahimi is clearly in that class. And the idea that 
we are weeks away from somebody like him being able to get guns again 
should shake this country to its foundation.
  Maybe the Supreme Court listens to America; maybe they don't. But 
this country needs to understand the gravity of the decision that is 
being made and the wholesale shift that will occur in legislating on 
the question of gun safety.
  If Rahimi wins this case, we are no longer in charge. The Supreme 
Court will now, on a case-by-case basis, decide who can have a gun and 
who can't. Frankly, that is bad for progressives and supporters of gun 
violence prevention. That is bad for conservatives as well because once 
the Supreme Court gets in the business of that kind of micromanaging, 
we are all out of jobs. We will just show up to work, punch our clock 
but have really nothing to do because they ultimately will pull the 
strings. They will substitute themselves as the new governing 
policymaking body in this country.
  With the stakes so high for women's safety in this country, with 70 
women dying every month at the hands of an intimate partner, we cannot 
let that happen.
  I yield the floor.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Republican whip.