The Supreme Court Is Taking a Case That Could Let ‘Unintentional’ Domestic Abusers Own Guns

http://www.thetrace.org/2015/10/supreme-court-domestic-violence-misdemeanor-voisine-armstrong/

e Supreme Court agreed on Friday to hear a case about the gun rights of two men found to have committed domestic abuse in Maine. Central to the Justices’ eventual decision is this question: What kind of domestic abuse do you have to be convicted of to have your gun rights taken away?
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According to the documents submitted to the Supreme Court, Voisine (one of the petitioners) was charged with domestic violence in June 2003 after slapping his girlfriend while he was intoxicated. During the incident, his girlfriend had called 911 and told authorities that it was not the first time Voisine had hurt her. He pleaded guilty to the misdemeanor crime of simple assault, resulting in a conviction. Authorities didn’t learn that Voisine owned a gun until 2009, after a stranger reported to the police that Voisine had killed a bald eagle with a rifle. (The Wall Street Journal notes that Voisine may have been the first person to kill one of the birds in the state since President Franklin Roosevelt signed a law granting them protected status 75 years ago.)