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      US supreme court won’t hear case over bathrooms for transgender students

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      The US supreme court has decided it will not hear a case centering on the debate over bathrooms for transgender students.The decision came on Tuesday despite an appeal from Indiana’s metropolitan school district of Martinsville.Martinsville school district officials hoped the nation’s highest court would not require allowing transgender students to use the bathrooms of their choosing.But the supreme court rejected the case without comment.Federal appeals courts are divided over whether school policies enforcing restrictions on which bathrooms transgender students can use violate federal law or the US constitution.In the 2023 case court brought by the Martinsville metropolitan school district, the Chicago-based US seventh circuit court of appeals ruled in favor of transgender boys, granting them access to the boys’ bathroom.The seventh circuit’s opinion, written by judge Diane Wood, said that she expected the nation’s highest court to eventually be involved.Wood wrote: “Litigation over transgender rights is occurring all over the country, and we assume that at some point the supreme court will step in with more guidance than it has furnished so far.”The federal appeals court in Richmond, Virginia, also has ruled to allow transgender students to use the gendered bathroom with which they identify. But the US appellate court based in Atlanta ruled against granting that legal ability.Court battles over transgender rights are ongoing across the country. And at least nine states are restricting transgender students to bathrooms that match the sex they were assigned at birth.Some claim it’s a move in violation of Title IX, the US civil rights law passed in 1972 which prohibits sex discrimination at educational institutions that receive federal funding.In 2021, the supreme court rejected hearing a similar case involving a Virginia school, upholding a lower court’s ruling that the Gloucester county school board’s decision to prohibit a transgender boy from using the boy’s restroom was unlawful.Battles over transgender students’ right to play for their preferred sports teams are also taking place.Last year, supreme court justices decided against taking up a case that started after a West Virginia school district banned a transgender girl, Becky Pepper-Jackson, from competing for a girls’ track and cross-country teams. The decision upheld a lower court’s ruling that Pepper-Jackson could compete for the girls’ teams if she wanted.The Joe Biden administration last year weighed in on the debate, proposing that schools may block some transgender athletes from competing on sports teams that match their gender identities under certain circumstances while arguing against blanket bans.The Department of Education wrote in April 2023: “The proposed rule would establish that policies violate Title IX when they categorically ban transgender students from participating on sports teams consistent with their gender identity just because of who they are.“The proposed rule also recognizes that in some instances, particularly in competitive high school and college athletic environments, some schools may adopt policies that limit transgender students’ participation.”
      The Associated Press contributed to this report More

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      The supreme court now serves the billionaire donor class – let’s rein it in | Martin Luther King III and Arndrea Waters King

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      There is little doubt 2024 will be a consequential year as we enter a presidential election that will decide the future of American democracy. But while the race for the presidency will capture most of the headlines, a darker and more subtle governmental force continues to churn out devastating decisions that chip away at our fundamental freedoms.We’re talking, of course, about the US supreme court.This court – the governing body intended to safeguard the freedoms that are so crucial to the ideals of civil rights – has been weaponized by an extremist faction. One-third of the supreme court is dangerously political and was appointed by an individual who has repeatedly made clear he seeks to dismantle American democracy. Another three have spent their terms ignoring decades worth of legal precedent and prioritizing the interests of the elite few over the working people, families and communities that drive our nation forward.As a Maga supermajority, these justices have undone established rulings and legal norms in an attempt to reverse the progress of modern America and to systematically unravel Black political power. Those who pose the greatest threat to our freedoms will not only be on the ballot this November – they will be sitting in robes behind the bench.All we have to do is look at their track record to see what they’ll do next. For over a decade, extreme justices have issued legal rulings that force an unpopular and radical agenda on to the American people that is rooted in white supremacy.In just the past few years, these justices’ decisions have opened the door for extreme actors to gut the freedoms of communities of color – from passing anti-voting bills that make it harder for Black voters to cast ballots to abortion bans that disproportionately affect Black women. And the seeds they’ve planted are beginning to take root in the district courts and courts of appeal. The supreme court’s Maga supermajority dismantled affirmative action – taking away our most potent tool to level the playing field in higher education – and opened the door for gun violence to run rampant in the disastrous Bruen case. And this week, the court will hear oral arguments for a case that seeks to destroy the federal government’s ability to confront the most pressing issues of our time.Everywhere you look, you will see the story of a supreme court that has radicalized in service of its billionaire donors at the expense of Black Americans – gutting union power to attack workers’ rights, rolling back the clock on reproductive rights to strip people of the ability to make their own healthcare decisions, decimating environmental protections in service of corporations.After all, Black workers continue to have a higher union membership rate than white workers, despite making up just 14% of the US’s total population. Black women have 2.6 times the maternal mortality rate of white women. Black and Latino voters are disproportionately targeted by state-based voter suppression laws that require ID checks to cast a ballot.Black Americans continue to be targeted by conservative donor interests because our rights are intrinsically intertwined to American progress. If we strengthen our educational system, we increase access to colleges for Black and brown students. If we remove barriers to the ballot box, more elected officials will be elected to fight for civil rights. And that’s bad news for America’s billionaire donor class.The American people are taking notice of the ways in which the supreme court has corrupted the system – its approval rating sits at an all-time low, with three out of four voters supporting an ethics code. Now, we are taking matters into our own hands: after the court’s Dobbs decision shattered federal protections for abortion access, voters turned out in every single state that introduced a ballot measure to enshrine those protections into state constitutions.As the extreme rightwing plot to capture our democracy progresses, we need our elected officials to step in and do their jobs. That’s why we – alongside United for Democracy – are calling on leaders in Congress to rein in the supreme court. Congress must conduct immediate hearings, investigations and reforms to fix the institution that is harming the Americans it is tasked to protect.With the election right around the corner, and in the face of endless attacks aimed at dismantling my father’s legacy, Black voters will again be expected to “save democracy”. As our communities again prepare to out-organize voter suppression, we need those vying for votes to show that – on the other side of the victory speeches – they are committed to building a democracy that no longer needs saving, a democracy that reflects Dr Martin Luther King Jr’s vision.That means restoring integrity to the supreme court. More

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      US supreme court allows Idaho’s strict abortion ban to stand pending hearing

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      The US supreme court on Friday allowed Idaho to enforce its strict abortion ban, even in medical emergencies, while a legal fight continues.The justices said they would hear arguments in April and put on hold a lower court ruling that had blocked the Idaho law in hospital emergencies, based on a lawsuit filed by the Biden administration.Hospitals that receive Medicare funds are required by a federal law to provide emergency care, potentially including abortion, no matter if there’s a state law banning abortion, the administration argued.The legal fight followed the court’s decision to overturn Roe v Wade and allow states to severely restrict or ban abortion. The Joe Biden White House issued guidance about the law, the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act – or Emtala – two weeks after the high court ruling in 2022. The Democratic administration sued Idaho a month later.US district judge B Lynn Winmill in Idaho agreed with the administration. But in a separate case in Texas, a judge sided with the state.Idaho makes it a crime with a prison term of up to five years for anyone who performs or assists in an abortion.But the administration argues Emtala requires healthcare providers to perform abortions for emergency room patients when needed to treat an emergency medical condition, even if doing so might conflict with a state’s abortion restrictions.Those conditions include severe bleeding, pre-eclampsia and certain pregnancy-related infections.“For certain medical emergencies, abortion care is the necessary stabilizing treatment,” the solicitor general, Elizabeth Prelogar, wrote in an administration filing at the supreme court.The state argued that the administration was misusing a law intended to prevent hospitals from dumping patients and imposing “a federal abortion mandate” on states. “[Emtala] says nothing about abortion,” Idaho’s attorney general, Raul Labrador, told the court in a brief.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionJust on Tuesday, the federal appeals court in New Orleans came to the same conclusion as Labrador. A three-judge panel ruled that the administration cannot use Emtala to require hospitals in Texas to provide abortions for women whose lives are at risk due to pregnancy. Two of the three judges are appointees of Donald Trump, and the other was appointed by another Republican president, George W Bush.The appeals court affirmed a ruling by US district judge James Wesley Hendrix, also a Trump appointee. Hendrix wrote that adopting the Biden administration’s view would force physicians to place the health of the pregnant person over that of the fetus or embryo even though Emtala “is silent as to abortion”.After Winmill, an appointee of Democratic president Bill Clinton, issued his ruling, Idaho lawmakers won an order allowing the law to be fully enforced from an all-Republican, Trump-appointed panel of the ninth US circuit court of appeals. But a larger contingent of ninth circuit judges threw out the panel’s ruling and set arguments in the case for late January. More

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      US supreme court to hear appeal of Colorado ruling removing Trump from state ballot

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      The US supreme court will hear Donald Trump’s appeal of the Colorado ruling that he should be removed from the state ballot under the 14th amendment to the US constitution, for inciting an insurrection.The court issued a brief order on Friday, setting up a dramatic moment in American history.The case will be argued on 8 February. As the Republican presidential primary will then be well under way, with Iowa, New Hampshire and Nevada having voted – and as Trump has also been disqualified from the ballot in Maine, a ruling appealed in state court – a quick decision is expected.The Colorado primary is set for 5 March. The state government must begin mailing ballots to overseas voters on 20 January and to all others between 12 and 16 February. The ruling suspending Trump is stayed, however, as long as the supreme court appeal is ongoing.In the year of a high-stakes presidential election, the case is set to move rapidly, under a fierce spotlight. Carl Tobias, a law professor at the University of Richmond, said that with “oral argument set for 8 February, the appeal will be extremely expedited … thus, briefs will probably be due as soon as possible, maybe [in] a week or 10 days for each side.”The 14th amendment was approved after the civil war, meant to bar from office supporters of the rebel Confederate states. But it has rarely been used. Cases against Trump were mounted after he was impeached but acquitted by the Senate over the attack on Congress by his supporters on 6 January 2021, then swiftly came to dominate the Republican presidential primary for 2024, all while maintaining the lie that his defeat by Joe Biden in 2020 was the result of electoral fraud.Fourteenth-amendment challenges to Trump in other states have either failed or remain undecided.The Colorado supreme court ruled against Trump on 19 December but stayed the ruling until 4 January, pending appeal. That appeal came earlier this week, Trump’s lawyers arguing that only Congress could arbitrate such disputes and saying the relevant text in the 14th amendment – in section 3 – did not apply to the presidency or vice-presidency as they are not mentioned therein.ABC News has reported debates from the passage of the amendment, in 1866, in which the presidency was said to be covered.Prominent legal scholars including Laurence Tribe of Harvard and the retired conservative judge J Michael Luttig have said Trump should be disqualified from seeking the presidency under the 14th amendment.Luttig, who testified memorably before the House January 6 committee, called the Colorado ruling “historic … a monumental decision of constitutional law … masterful and … unassailable”. He has also said the US supreme court ruling will be “arguably … the single most important constitutional decision in all of our history”.Other voices, including conservative lawyers and professors and all Trump’s major opponents for the Republican nomination, have questioned whether section 3 applies to the presidency, or to someone not convicted of insurrection. Most (and some senior Democrats) have also said the Colorado ruling is anti-democratic, because only voters should decide Trump’s fitness for office.Luttig has countered such arguments, saying: “The 14th amendment itself, in section 3, answers the question whether disqualification is ‘anti-democratic’, declaring that it is not. Rather, it is the conduct that gives rise to disqualification that is anti-democratic, per the command of the constitution.”Trump also faces extensive legal jeopardy: he faces 91 criminal charges under four indictments, 17 concerning election subversion, and civil threats including cases over his business affairs and a defamation suit arising from an allegation of rape a judge said was “substantially true”.Nonetheless, he leads Republican polling by vast margins. Were the supreme court to rule against him in the Colorado case, the US would find itself in uncharted waters.On Friday, Steven Cheung, Trump’s spokesperson, said the campaign welcomed “a fair hearing at the supreme court to argue against the bad-faith, election-interfering, voter-suppressing, Democrat-backed and Biden-led, 14th amendment abusing decision” in Colorado.Cheung also claimed the Colorado case and others like it were “part of a well-funded effort by leftwing political activists hell-bent on stopping the lawful re-election of President Trump this November, even if it means disenfranchising voters”.Writing on his blog, Richard Hasen, an election law professor at the University of Los Angeles, California, pointed to uncertainties about how the supreme court case will unfold, given what he called a “blob” of a filing from Trump’s lawyers, while saying lawyers for Colorado “raised three questions, which somewhat overlap with Trump’s claims”.“This seems like it could be a free-for-all in arguments and briefing,” Hasen wrote, adding: “Buckle up; it’s going to be a wild ride from here on out.”That seems assured. The supreme court is not just dominated 6-3 by rightwingers who have delivered historic rulings including removing the federal right to abortion. It includes three justices installed when Trump was president.On Thursday, a Trump lawyer, Alina Habba, caused controversy when she told Fox News one such appointee, Brett Kavanaugh, would now “step up” for the man who put him on the court.Controversy also surrounds Clarence Thomas, the longest-serving justice whose wife, the rightwing activist Ginni Thomas, was involved in Trump’s election subversion.On Friday, Christina Harvey, executive director of the progressive advocacy group Stand Up America, said Thomas should not take part in the Colorado case.“The American people deserve a fair and impartial review … free from any conflicts of interest,” Harvey said. “Justice Thomas’s continued refusal to recuse himself from this case and others related to the efforts to overthrow the 2020 election … raises questions about the integrity of the judicial process and the influence of political bias.“As trust in the supreme court reaches new lows, decisions like these only reinforce Americans’ belief that supreme court justices are politicians in robes. To begin to restore public confidence in our nation’s highest court, Thomas must recuse himself.” More

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      Kavanaugh will ‘step up’ to keep Trump on ballots, ex-president’s lawyer says

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      Brett Kavanaugh, the US supreme court justice, will “step up” for Donald Trump and help defeat attempts to remove the former president from the ballot in Colorado and Maine for inciting an insurrection, a Trump lawyer said.“I think it should be a slam dunk in the supreme court,” Alina Habba told Fox News on Thursday night. “I have faith in them.“You know, people like Kavanaugh, who the president fought for, who the president went through hell to get into place, he’ll step up. Those people will step up. Not because they’re pro-Trump but because they’re pro-law, because they’re pro-fairness. And the law on this is very clear.”Kavanaugh was the second of three justices appointed by Trump, creating a 6-3 rightwing majority that has delivered major Republican victories including removing the federal right to abortion and loosening gun control laws.Habba’s reference to Trump “going through hell” was to a stormy confirmation during which Kavanaugh was accused of sexual assault, which he angrily denied. Trump reportedly wavered on Kavanaugh, only for senior Republicans to persuade him to stay strong.Observers were quick to notice Habba’s apparent invitation to corruption.Michael Kagan, a law professor at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, said: “Legal ethics alert. If … Kavanaugh feels in any way that he owes Trump and will ‘step up’, then [Habba] should be sanctioned by the bar for saying this on TV and thus trying to prejudice a proceeding.”Last month, the Colorado supreme court and the Maine secretary of state ruled that Trump should be removed from the ballot under the 14th amendment to the US constitution, passed after the civil war to stop insurrectionists holding office.Trump incited the deadly January 6 attack on Congress in 2021, an attempt to stop certification of his defeat by Joe Biden. Impeached but acquitted, he is now the frontrunner for the Republican presidential nomination this year.Trump has appealed both state rulings. In a supreme court filing in the Colorado case, lawyers argued that only Congress could resolve such a dispute and that the presidency was not an office of state as defined in the 14th amendment.The relevant text does not mention the presidency or vice-presidency. ABC News has reported exchanges in debate in 1866 in which those positions are covered.The supreme court has not yet said if it will consider the matter.Norm Eisen, a White House ethics tsar turned CNN legal analyst, said: “It’s likely … the supreme court will move to resolve this. They may do it quickly. They may not do it quickly because by filing this petition … Trump has stayed the Colorado proceedings. So at the moment he remains on the ballot. The supreme court does have to speak to it.”Habba said:“[Trump] has not been charged with insurrection. He has not been prosecuted for it. He has not been found guilty of it.”She then made her prediction about Kavanaugh and other justices “stepping up”. More

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      More Americans are stockpiling abortion pills without pregnancy – study

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      More Americans are now stockpiling abortion pills in case they get pregnant, according to new research published Tuesday.Before Roe v Wade was overturned in June 2022, Aid Access, an organization that mails abortion pills to people across the US, received an average of 25 requests a day from people seeking the pills despite not being pregnant. After the leak of the supreme court decision to overturn Roe, that average shot up to 247 requests each day, the research published on Tuesday found.That number fell after the actual decision, but rose again to 172 a day in April 2023, as US courts signaled a willingness to restrict the availability of a major abortion pill.People have been turning to Aid Access for “advance provision” pills since September 2021, after Texas enacted a six-week abortion ban but long before the US supreme court overturned Roe and abolished the national right to abortion. Now, with wide swathes of the US south and midwest under abortion bans, an online market to request and obtain abortion pills is thriving.The study tracks requests between the beginning of September 2021 and the end of April 2023. In December 2023, the US supreme court announced that it would hear arguments in a case regarding the future of mifepristone, a major abortion pill. That case is expected to be decided by this summer.In total, over the study’s time frame, Aid Access tracked roughly 48,400 advance provision requests. It received more requests for advance provision pills from states that were anticipated to enact bans – even more than the requests from states that did enact bans.“It seems to suggest that what people are reacting to is the threat of reduced access, the threat of curtailment of reproductive rights,” said Dr Abigail Aiken, an associate professor at the University of Texas at Austin and a co-author of the study. “When you think about what advanced provision is, that makes sense, right? Advanced provision is getting out ahead of things. Advanced provision is advanced planning. Advanced provision is a way to protect a potential need you might have in the future if you think access to the service that would fulfill that need is going away.”Over the study period, Aid Access also received more than 147,00 requests from people seeking to end their existing pregnancies. Medical experts widely agree that it is safe to “self-manage” your own abortion, or perform an abortion outside of the formal US healthcare system, using pills within the first trimester of pregnancy.Compared with the people who wanted to terminate their existing pregnancies, people who sought advance provision pills were more likely to be white, child-free and living in urban areas. Choosing from a list of reasons, they most frequently told Aid Access that they wanted the pills to “ensure personal health and choice” and to “prepare for possible abortion restrictions”.Aid Access was launched in 2018 by Dr Rebecca Gomperts, a Dutch physician and one of the most visible abortion providers in the world. Gomperts, who co-authored the study published Tuesday, previously founded Women on Web, an organization that, like Aid Access, shipped abortion pills. However, Women on Web didn’t provide pills to the United States. Ultimately, Gomperts decided that the state of abortion access in the country was too dire to ignore.Advance provision pills cost $150 and should arrive within a few days of ordering, according to Aid Access’s website. During the time frame of the study, most of the pills were being shipped by overseas pharmacies, Aiken said.Now, to send abortion pills, US-based physicians associated with Aid Access have begun to rely on what are known as “shield laws”: protections in Democratic states for abortion providers who prescribe pills for patients in abortion-hostile states. This transition to focusing on using US providers was part of the reason for the study’s conclusion in April, Aiken said.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“It made sense to look at a time period where the service was entirely outside of the formal US healthcare setting,” Aiken said. “Now, I think a lot of people would argue that it’s happening within the formal healthcare setting, because it’s US provider-led and -based.”But while the US providers in blue states may be operating with the formal healthcare system, their patients in red states are not necessarily afforded the system’s protections and guidance. Someone who wants to get a check-up after an abortion, or even just talk to their doctor about their experience, may not feel able to.“In terms of the experience of the person actually using the pills, it may still look a lot more like a self-managed abortion,” Aiken said. “What that means for the nature of the service is an ongoing, interesting question that we’re thinking about now in the research field.”There was not much data available on what people ended up doing with the advance provision pills, Aiken said, since only a fraction followed up with Aid Access. However, of that fraction, most people still had the pills on standby months later.Last year, Gompertstold the Guardian that she wanted people to stock up on pills to protect themselves.“Don’t wait for the decision. Just get the medication now, get it in your house, get it in your hands,” she said. “If you’re in a war zone and the war is coming, you also make sure you have enough food in your house. This is how it feels. It really is a war. It’s a war on women.” More

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      Trump appeals ruling that would keep him off Maine 2024 primary ballot

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      Donald Trump formally appealed a decision by Maine’s top election official to remove him from the ballot on Tuesday, asking a superior court to reverse the decision.Maine secretary of state Shenna Bellows, a Democrat, removed Trump from the ballot on 28 December, saying the former president had violated section 3 of the 14th amendment, which bars officials from holding office if they engage in insurrection or rebellion against the United States.The filing in the superior court for Kennebec county, which includes the state capitol of Augusta, accuses Bellows of bias, says that Trump did not have an adequate opportunity to present a defense, and claims Bellows did not have the authority to exclude him from the ballot.“The secretary’s ruling was the product of a process infected by bias and pervasive lack of due process; is arbitrary, capricious, and characterized by abuse of discretion; affected by error of law; ultra vires, and unsupported by substantial evidence on the record,” the filing says. “The secretary had no statutory authority to consider the challenges raised under section three of the 14th amendment.”Trump’s lawyers ask the court to vacate Bellows’ ruling and immediately place Trump on the ballot.Bellows has said her personal views played no role in her decision to remove Trump from the ballot. She reached her decision after holding an hours-long hearing on 15 December on the issue, during which Trump’s attorneys, as well as those challenging Trump’s eligibility, made their case before her.Trump is also expected to appeal a separate decision from the Colorado supreme court blocking him from the ballot for similar reasons. Both the Colorado Republican party and the voters who brought the case have asked the US supreme court to hear it.Section three of the 14th amendment, which was passed after the civil war to bar confederates from holding office, has never been used to disqualify a presidential candidate. The US supreme court is widely expected to ultimately decide the novel legal issue.Maine has four votes in the electoral college. Unlike nearly every other state, it does not award all of them to the winner of the statewide vote. Instead, the statewide winner gets two electoral votes, and the other two are allocated based on which candidate wins in each of the state’s two congressional districts.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionBiden earned three of Maine’s electoral votes in 2020 and Trump earned one. More

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      The major tests US gun control activists face in 2024

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      The grim statistics around mass shootings underscore a haunting reality for the US: despite recent legislative efforts at the state and federal levels, gun violence remains alarmingly common across the country.But gun safety groups say they remain undaunted in 2024, when they plan to push for more change through state legislatures and executive actions. And as voters turn their attention to a crucial election year, gun safety groups are also prepared to press candidates on their plans to curb gun violence.The simple statistics demonstrate what a weighty task it is. In December, a gunman carried out a shooting spree across two communities in central Texas, killing six people. The attack was the 39th mass shooting in the US last year, marking a new single-year record for the country. The previous record of 36 mass shootings had been set just one year prior.Gun reform groups will still face steep hurdles as they attempt to reduce the carnage.Republicans, who now control the House of Representatives, have shown little appetite for passing another federal gun safety bill, following the enactment of the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act in 2022. The supreme court’s conservative majority has similarly embraced a rather expansive definition of second amendment rights, jeopardizing gun safety laws passed at the state and federal level.For gun safety groups, the first significant test of 2024 will come in June, when the supreme court is expected to decide its next major second amendment case.United States v RahimiThe case centers on Zackey Rahimi, who was placed under a domestic violence restraining order after allegedly assaulting his then girlfriend and firing a gun in front of bystanders in 2019. Per federal law, those under such restraining orders are prohibited from purchasing or possessing firearms, but Rahimi is now challenging that statute based on another supreme court decision.In 2022, the supreme court overturned New York’s century-old regulation requiring that anyone seeking to carry a handgun in public must show “proper cause” to do so. The case, New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v Bruen, established a new test to determine the constitutionality of gun regulations. The conservative justices ruled that any gun regulation must be “consistent with the nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation”.The ruling has sparked a flurry of challenges to firearm regulations and forced gun safety advocates to search the historical record for analogous laws from the nation’s founding to defend their proposals. In the case of Rahimi, the conservative-leaning US court of appeals for the fifth circuit agreed with his argument that the law blocking those under domestic violence restraining orders from accessing firearms is inconsistent with historical gun laws and is thus unconstitutional.That ruling has now been appealed to the supreme court, which held oral arguments in the case in November. The justices’ decision could have far-reaching implications for the future of gun rights as well as the safety of survivors of domestic violence. According to a 2023 study, more than half of domestic violence homicides involve firearms.“The stakes are incredibly high in Rahimi because it would be the first time the supreme court strikes down a federal law on gun safety in decades. And of course, it’s a particularly important federal law,” said Nick Suplina, senior vice-president of law and policy for the gun safety group Everytown.The Rahimi ruling may also help clarify lower courts’ apparent confusion over applying the Bruen test. Thus far, courts have reached conflicting decisions over how to interpret the “historical tradition” of gun laws, said Jacob Charles, a professor at Pepperdine Caruso School of Law and a constitutional scholar focusing on the second amendment.“I certainly think that confusion is only growing,” Charles said. “We see circuit courts even disagree with one another and are kind of all over the place, the same way that the district courts have been. So I don’t think we’re having any more guidance until the [supreme] court weighs in more.”During the oral arguments, some of the court’s conservative justices appeared skeptical of the fifth circuit’s decision, seemingly hesitant to stretch gun rights to the point of protecting alleged domestic abusers. Even if the supreme court rules against Rahimi, the decision will probably not mark a sea change in conservative justices’ overall approach to the second amendment. Charles, who filed an amicus brief in the Rahimi case, suggested the justices may issue a narrow ruling that upholds the law regarding domestic violence protection orders but leaves the Bruen test intact.“That will still leave lots of other cases, like assault weapons bans, outside the scope of this new kind of revisionary guidance,” Charles said.That dynamic could complicate gun safety groups’ efforts to strengthen the nation’s gun laws, including their campaign to re-enact a federal assault weapons ban.‘A political issue that doesn’t need to be’The country’s worst mass shooting of 2023 unfolded in October in Lewiston, Maine, where a gunman killed 18 people at a bowling alley and a bar. The devastating attack prompted a change of heart for congressman Jared Golden, the conservative Democrat who represents Lewiston in the House of Representatives. Reversing his previous position, Golden announced he would now support reinstating the federal assault weapons ban, which expired in 2004.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“I have opposed efforts to ban deadly weapons of war,” Golden said. “The time has now come for me to take responsibility for this failure, which is why I now call on the United States Congress to ban assault rifles.”Gun safety groups praised Golden’s announcement, while noting that his new position brings him closer in line with voters’ stance on an assault weapons ban. According to a Fox News poll conducted in April, 61% of voters support banning assault weapons. Other proposed gun regulations, such as enacting universal background checks and mandating safe storage of firearms, enjoy even more widespread support among voters.“We’re hopeful that [Golden’s announcement] will spur others to be able to take some of that political courage and step out there,” said Vanessa Gonzalez, vice-president of government and political affairs for the gun safety group Giffords. “It’s a political issue that doesn’t need to be. We just need more folks to have the courage to say that and to step out on those issues.”The 2024 elections will provide gun safety groups with many opportunities to push sitting lawmakers and first-time candidates on enacting more firearm regulations.“We are continuing to look for younger elected officials or candidates who are not afraid to say gun violence in America has to stop and then actually see it through,” Gonzalez said. “And then on the flip side, what does it look like once [they are] elected to really hold them accountable for what they said they were going to do?”Suplina predicted that gun safety will play a prominent role in campaign ads and messaging in 2024, partly because the issue might help Democrats sway the independent voters who will be crucial in determining the outcomes of close races. An AP/Norc poll conducted over the summer found that 61% of independents believe gun laws should be made more strict.“If you want to win the middle of the American electorate, you have to be strong on gun safety,” Suplina said. “And being strong on gun safety means recognizing that assault weapons should not be in the hands of your average citizens.”So far, efforts to reinstate an assault weapons ban have met consistent resistance from Republicans in Congress. The Senate majority leader, Democrat Chuck Schumer, most recently reintroduced the assault weapons ban bill in December, but Republicans blocked the legislation from advancing. Even if Senate Democrats could get the bill passed, it would almost certainly fail in the Republican-controlled House.Despite the obstacles presented by a divided Congress, gun safety groups have found recent success at the state level, and they hope to build upon those wins in 2024. According to Everytown, state legislatures passed a record-breaking 130 gun safety bills in 2023 while blocking 95% of the gun lobby’s agenda.Gun safety groups are also exploring options beyond Congress as it pushes for change at the federal level. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives has proposed a new rule aimed at closing the so-called “gun show loophole”, which allows some private gun sellers to perform transactions without completing background checks on prospective buyers. Hundreds of thousands of gun safety proponents have already submitted comments in support of the proposed rule, according to Everytown.That campaign reflects gun safety groups’ overall goal to put more pressure on sellers and manufacturers of firearms in the year ahead. Such efforts may face resistance from conservative courts, but gun safety advocates fervently believe that the political momentum is on their side heading into 2024.“The state of the gun violence prevention movement in our country is strong and stronger than it’s ever been,” Suplina said. “Courts or no courts, Congress or no Congress, we’re going to really do a lot to animate the public to understand who it is that’s flooding the streets with guns and making money off of it while the rest of us suffer.” More