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Commentary By Ilya Shapiro

MI Responds: United States v. Rahimi

Governance Supreme Court

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Ilya Shapiro, senior fellow and director of constitutional studies at the Manhattan Institute, reacts to this morning's decision in the Supreme Court case United States v. Rahimi:

"Rahimi is interesting on two levels. First, its holding that person who has been found by a court to pose a credible threat to the physical safety of another may be temporarily disarmed shows that the Court’s Second Amendment jurisprudence is measured and reasonable. Second, and most significantly going forward, there’s a fascinating interplay among the separate concurrences of Justices Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, and Barrett—the three Trump appointees—about the nature of originalism and what a text/structure/history approach means for jurisprudence. Scholars and pundits will be referencing this dialogue as much or more for that as for its decision about a particular firearms regulation. It all shows that originalism is a rigorous intellectual enterprise, not some post-hoc rationalization for conservative outcomes as its bad-faith critics allege."

Ilya Shapiro is a senior fellow and director of constitutional studies at the Manhattan Institute. His forthcoming book is called Lawless: The Miseducation of America's Elites. To book interviews with Ilya Shapiro, please reach out to Grace Twehous at gtwehous@manhattan.institute

Photo by Richard Sharrocks/Getty Images