Last week, a federal judge in Texas held that the longstanding law prohibiting persons subject to domestic violence restraining orders from possessing firearms violates the Second Amendment. The court's decision in United States v. Perez-Gallan upends the legal regime created to protect survivors and poses a lethal threat to not just victims of domestic violence, but the public at large. The opinion relies on flawed historical analysis to strike down key domestic violence protections that we know save lives every day.

The court's erroneous decision relies on an unnecessarily restrictive application of the test set out in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen, the Supreme Court decision issued earlier this year that requires courts to look to historical precedents to justify modern-day firearms regulations. The flawed application of the Bruen test takes a "chainsaw," as the judge describes it, to the last half century's work by victims rights advocates, criminal justice reformers, women's rights activists, and local and state governments to end the epidemic of gender-based violence, which is most lethal when the perpetrator has a firearm.