RALEIGH — Campbell Law School Professor Gregory Wallace told national Spectrum News he was not surprised by the June 21 U.S. Supreme Court decision to uphold a federal gun control law intended to protect domestic violence victims.
In their first Second Amendment case since they expanded gun rights in 2022, the justices ruled 8-1 in favor of a 1994 ban on firearms for people under restraining orders to stay away from their spouses or partners. The justices reversed a ruling from the federal appeals court in New Orleans that had struck down the law.
Chief Justice John Roberts, writing for the court, said the law uses “common sense” and applies only “after a judge determines that an individual poses a credible threat” of physical violence. Justice Clarence Thomas, the author of the major 2022 Bruen ruling in a New York case, dissented.
Wallace was interviewed by Washington, D.C., reporter Harry Lee who said the justices overwhelmingly voted to retain red-flag laws, but what’s really interesting is how they decided this case, which is based on the Bruen decision. That decision said rather than consider public safety, the judges should only consider whether it is in the nation’s history of gun regulation.
“That’s really interesting because guns are very dangerous in domestic violence,” Lee continued. “Guns were used in more than half of domestic violence killings and more than 70 women are shot and killed each year with guns by their intimate partners. So it’s very interesting that public safety does seem to be a big factor, but it was not in the consideration of the judges when they made this decision,”
Wallace, however, said he was not surprised by the decision. “I think, particularly after listening to the oral arguments in this case, they predicted this kind of outcome. We do have a long historical tradition in this country of keeping firearms out of the hands of people who pose a credible threat of danger … so I don’t think this case is that surprising.”
Thomas writing the dissent says in part targeting dangerous persons led to the Second Amendment and it would be strange to permit the government to resurrect those same dangerous persons laws to chip away at that amendment’s guarantee.
Wallace added, “What I think he was talking about was the laws used by the British government to target their political opponents who were using violence.”
Wallace teaches constitutional law with an emphasis on religious freedom, the right to arms and free speech.
He earned an S.J.D. and LL.M. degrees from the University of Virginia School of Law. His doctoral dissertation was entitled “Higher Call: Foundations of Religious Freedom in American Constitutionalism.” He earned his J.D. degree with high honors from the University of Arkansas at Little Rock School of Law, where he graduated first in his class. He also has an M.A. degree with honors from Dallas Theological Seminary.
Before joining the Campbell Law faculty in 1995, Professor Wallace served as a law clerk to United States District Judge Susan Webber Wright.
He is co-author of the third edition and online chapters of “Firearms Law and the Second Amendment: Regulation, Rights, and Policy,” a law school textbook and treatise. His writings have been published in several law reviews, including the Tennessee Law Review, Florida State Law Review and Penn State Law Review. He has received the Dean’s Award for Faculty Excellence in Research.
Wallace is a member of the North Carolina Advisory Committee to the United States Civil Rights Commission and the North Carolina Chief Justice’s Commission on Professionalism. He has served on the North Carolina House of Representatives Select Committee on Community Relations, Law Enforcement and Justice and the North Carolina Supreme Court Advisory Committee on Permissible Political Conduct by Judges and Judicial Candidates.
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