In Texas, Louisiana, and Mississippi, the federal law preventing domestic abusers from possessing firearms is now void. That’s thanks to a recent ruling by the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals in United States v. Rahimi, in which the court clearly indicated discomfort with the conclusion the Supreme Court forced it to reach.

A court order barred Zackey Rahimi from stalking a former girlfriend and from possessing a firearm. But Rahimi demonstrated spectacularly that he still had a gun. Within a two-month period, he fired multiple shots into the home of a narcotics customer, shot at the driver of a car involved in an accident with his car, returned after leaving the accident scene to fire more shots at the driver’s car, shot at a Texas constable’s vehicle, and fired multiple shots in the air when a friend’s credit card was declined at a restaurant. After a trial court rejected Rahimi’s claim that the Constitution entitled him to keep and bear his gun, he pleaded guilty to violating 18 U.S.C. § 922, which makes it illegal for those under court orders like his to possess any firearm or ammunition.

Even if “prohibiting the possession of firearms by someone subject to a domestic violence restraining order is a laudable policy goal,” the Fifth Circuit ruled earlier this month, the statute violated the Second Amendment. The court reached—or was forced to reach—that conclusion in a troubling way.

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