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Texas Domestic Abusers Can’t Have Guns, But They Do

By federal and state law, domestic abusers in Texas are barred from owning guns. However, lack of enforcement means that many of them still do.

Federal law prohibits people convicted of domestic violence or under a domestic violence restraining order from buying or owning guns. That law was upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court in an 8-1 decision in 2024 thanks to a Tarrant County case. Zackey Rahim assaulted his then-girlfriend in 2019, leading to her filing a restraining order against him. Rahimi was ordered to surrender his guns, but did not do so. Instead, he went on to threaten another woman with a gun and angrily discharge his weapon in at least five public incidences.

Texas also has a state law that is supposed to protect domestic abuse victims from armed perpetrators. Texans under a protective order are prohibited from owning guns for five years and are required to relinquish them.

However, Texas has no law requiring that those gun owners prove they have relinquished their guns, not are law enforcement officials required to check if the gun owner has complied. Instead, the burden is often on the victims to alert authorities that their abuser still has access to firearms. Even then, it is not guaranteed that law enforcement will follow up.

Other states, such as California require proof of surrender. Consequently, California has a third of the number of intimate partner homicides despite also having  nine million more people. Guns were the weapons in most cases. In Texas, enforcement of the gun ban is completely up to the local authorities. They often cannot or will not follow up, particularly if the abuser in question is connected to law enforcement.

If the abuser tries to buy a gun under protective order or after a domestic violence conviction, they may be caught by the background check system. Of course, Texas has one of the famous gun show loopholes. Initially designed to allow family members to give firearms as presents, it’s become a source of weaponry for people who cannot buy a firearm legally. Person-to-person sales are exempt from most background check laws, and state officials and judges have worked hard to prevent that loophole from closing.

The result is a situation similar to Chicago. The city of Chicago has one of the highest rates of gun violence as well as some of the strictest gun regulations. Because of this, the city is often held up as proof gun laws do not work. However, the vast majority of guns recovered from crimes in Chicago were legally purchased from nearby Indiana. Laws that can be circumvented by an afternoon drive are not really laws in practice.

Likewise, Texas’s gun laws protecting domestic abuse victims have little weight. If no one makes the abuser disarm, and the abuser can buy a gun simply by going to the regular gun shows and swaps meets all over the state, then those laws effectively only exist to add charges after another violent, possibly fatal crime has occurred. 

Jef Rouner
Jef Rouner
Jef Rouner is an award-winning freelance journalist, the author of The Rook Circle, and a member of The Black Math Experiment. He lives in Houston where he spends most of his time investigating corruption and strange happenings. Jef has written for Houston Press, Free Press Houston, and Houston Chronicle.

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