Orders of Protection and Second Amendment Rights in Mississippi

Orders of Protection are designed to protect victims from abusers in domestic violence situations. Orders of Protection can be temporary, or final, but both provide legal protection for a victim and family members from an abuser.

            An Order of Protection can prohibit an abuser from doing some of following things:

1.      Abusing, harassing, stalking, following, or threatening protected persons in any manner, including electronic means.

2.      Contacting the protected persons from contact by phone, electronic communication, communication through a third party, or in-person communication.

3.      Coming within a certain distance of the protected persons.

Courts in Mississippi, Texas, and Louisiana also had the discretion to prohibit abusers from possessing firearms until February 2023. That is until the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit issued its opinion in the case styled U.S. v. Rahimi on February 2, 2023. The Fifth Circuit ruled that prohibiting abusers from possessing firearms is unconstitutional under the Second Amendment. This allows abusers to still possess firearms although an Order of Protection is in place against them.

This landmark decision currently only affects persons and courts in Mississippi, Texas, and Louisiana, because the Fifth Circuit only has jurisdiction over cases from those states. A Petition for a Writ of Certiorari, or a request for the Supreme Court of the United States to review a lower court’s ruling, has been filed in an attempt to overturn the Fifth Circuit’s ruling in U.S. v. Rahimi. However, the ruling in U.S. v. Rahimi is still currently valid law in Mississippi, Texas, and Louisiana, and restrains courts in those states from removing or prohibiting an abuser from possessing firearms as a form of relief under an Order of Protection.

Although courts in Fifth Circuit states can no longer prohibit an abuser from possessing firearms, you should still make the court aware and law enforcement aware of the specific firearms an abuser has at a hearing, or during an emergency situation.