Barbara Pettis still remembers the phone call she received on the night of 24 August. On the other end of the line, a distraught voice told her that Jaylen Sarah Hasty, her great-grandniece from South Carolina, had been murdered.
“She had been shot five times by her ex-boyfriend, who had been stalking her. He was so determined to kill her that he left his car running,” Pettis said. “He jumped out of the car. He attacked her, dragged her into her apartment and shot her five times.
The Richland County Sheriff’s Department arrested Kenardo Bates, 31, in connection with the shooting. Deputies called the shooting a domestic violence incident.
According to the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence, 1 in 4 women in the United States experience severe physical violence at the hands of an intimate partner. That includes Pettis.
“I’ve had a broken nose, I’ve had a concussion, I’ve had black eyes and a swollen face and swollen jaw,” Pettis said. “I was choked to the point where I was unconscious. There was a gun. And I didn’t doubt for a minute that he was going to use it. The last time he put me in a chokehold. I saw evil in his face. I heard evil in his tone. And he said he was going to kill me.
Fearing for her life, Pettis took out a restraining order against her abuser, triggering a 1994 law that prohibits anyone with a domestic violence restraining order against them from owning a gun. She wishes her great-grandniece had done the same.
But that law, which has prevented tens of thousands of gun purchases by people with domestic violence restraining orders, now hangs in the balance at the Supreme Court. On Tuesday, the justices heard arguments in United States v. Rahimi.
The case, out of Texas, centres on Zackey Rahimi, who is currently serving a 6-year prison sentence. Rahimi was under a domestic violence restraining order when he was suspected of carrying out a series of shootings and threatening a woman with a gun. During the investigation, police found firearms in his home – a violation of the 1994 federal law.
A federal grand jury indicted Rahimi, who pleaded guilty. He was able to appeal his case after the nation’s highest court set a new legal standard for gun regulations nationwide in 2022.
“The question before the court is whether or not they will uphold this federal law that prevents those subject to domestic violence restraining orders from owning guns in light of their new test,” said CBS News legal analyst Jessica Levinson. “[The test] says that restrictions will only be upheld if they’re consistent with the history and tradition of the Second Amendment when it was ratified in the late 1700s.”
As Levinson points out, the Supreme Court’s ruling could affect other gun laws making their way through the nation’s lower courts.
“If the court rules in favour of Rahimi in this case, it really means that any similar laws that deal with restrictions on people who have been convicted of domestic violence, for example, all of those are going to fall,” Levinson said. “And I think the supporters of those laws would say it would make people much less safe.”
According to a study published in the American Journal of Public Health, women are five times more likely to die from domestic violence if the abuser has access to a firearm.
In Jaylen Hasty’s case, Pettis says that’s exactly what happened.
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry I didn’t give you the tools you needed,” she said, thinking of her great-grandniece. “I miss you and I love you so much.”
Pettis turns her pain into purpose by working at a Dallas shelter for survivors of domestic violence. Every week, she hosts a group meeting for other survivors – an open forum for women at the shelter to share their stories. She believes the Supreme Court justices should hear from them before deciding the fate of women like her.
“People sit there and make decisions without having an intelligent perspective on what this means,” says Pettis. “These people who are making laws have not been there. I feel like they need to come to places like this. I feel like they need to sit and talk to women like me who have been there and survived.