Turley: Supreme Court Swatted Down Hunter’s Hail Mary Pass

A recent case that came before the Supreme Court could have possibly helped Hunter Biden’s gun charges case.

Hunter needed the conservative-dominated court to overturn a ruling in United States v. Rahimi, which blocked those with domestic restraining orders from being able to purchase a weapon.

The court stunned everyone with an 8-1 ruling to uphold the ban, dealing Hunter’s a significant blow.

Sorry, Hunter

Prior to the court releasing its opinion, legal expert Jonathan Turley noted that if the course reversed the ruling, it could have helped Hunter Biden on his expected appeal of his conviction in the gun charges case.

Even though the cases' roots are unrelated, the legislation's heart is the constitutionality of denying someone their Second Amendment right in order to protect others.

Hunter’s attorneys crafted his defense much like the NRA did in the Rahimi case, so this was a crushing blow to their hopes.

Rahimi had threatened multiple women, as well as having been identified by police as the subject of other shootings, so he was far from the poster child to take this case to the Supreme Court, but this is what Hunter was hanging his hopes on.

Turley explained, “The Court found the federal statutes imposing a reasonable temporary limitation on this right. Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. wrote that ‘an individual found by a court to pose a credible threat to the physical safety of another may be temporarily disarmed consistent with the Second Amendment.’”

As Turley goes on to note, the key to this ruling falling in place is the “temporary” designation, as the rights are not being permanently lost.

This ties into Hunter Biden’s drug use at the time, which is now documented, so the restriction on the application clearly still applied to Hunter at the time he purchased the weapon.

This decision goes well beyond Hunter’s case, too, as it is yet again more proof of how well-balanced this court is, even though conservatives hold a 6-3 edge.

Just about everyone thought this case would be at least a 5-4 decision in favor of Rahimi, especially since the NRA had become involved in the case.

But, as Turley concluded, “Instead, the Court rendered a reasonable, balanced accommodation for public safety under the Second Amendment. It is not clear who is more disappointed: Hunter or the Court critics.”