Abusers' Access to Guns Limited by Supreme Court Decision

Our friends at the Office on Violence Against Women (OVW) have posted an exciting update on their blog concerning the recent, unanimous ruling by the high court in United States vs. Castleman.  The ruling clarifies which Domestic Violence crimes qualify for firearms restrictions, previously limited by the Lautenberg Amendment:

In Castleman, the Supreme Court resolved this question by issuing a broad interpretation of the term “misdemeanor crime of domestic violence,” holding that convictions involving only “bodily injury” or “offensive touching” could qualify under the statute. Justice Sotomayor, writing for the majority, recognized that “‘[d]omestic violence’ is not merely a type of ‘violence’; it is a term of art encompassing acts that one might not characterize as ‘violent’ in a nondomestic context.” The Court further stated that, while a squeeze of the arm that causes a bruise may not be able to be described as “violence” in every context, “an act of this nature is easy to describe as ‘domestic violence,’ when the accumulation of such acts over time can subject one intimate partner to the other’s control.” With this decision, the Supreme Court confirms what we know all too well – that guns should not be in the hands of perpetrators of domestic violence.