Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/23pdf/22-915_8o6b.pdf
Page Number: 34.0

6 

UNITED STATES v. RAHIMI 

GORSUCH, J., concurring 

and history.  597 U. S., at 19.  Perhaps judges’ jobs would 
be easier if they could simply strike the policy balance they 
prefer.  And a principle that the government always wins 
surely would be simple for judges to implement.  But either 
approach would let judges stray far from the Constitution’s
promise.  See Heller, 554 U. S., at 634. 

One  more  point:    Our  resolution  of  Mr.  Rahimi’s  facial 
challenge to §922(g)(8) necessarily leaves open the question
whether the statute might be unconstitutional as applied in
“particular circumstances.”  Salerno, 481 U. S., at 751.  So, 
for  example,  we  do  not  decide  today  whether  the  govern-
ment may disarm a person without a judicial finding that
he  poses  a  “credible  threat”  to  another’s  physical  safety. 
§922(g)(8)(C)(i); see ante, at 8.  We do not resolve whether 
the  government  may  disarm  an  individual  permanently.
See ante, at 14 (stressing that, “like surety bonds of limited 
duration,  Section  922(g)(8)’s  restriction  was  temporary  as
applied  to  [Mr.]  Rahimi”).  We  do  not  determine  whether 
§922(g)(8) may be constitutionally enforced against a per-
son who uses a firearm in self-defense.  Notably, the surety
laws that inform today’s decision allowed even an individ-
ual found to pose a threat to another to “obtain an exception
if he needed his arms for self-defense.”  Ante, at 12; see also 
post, at 23 (THOMAS, J., dissenting).  Nor do we purport to
approve in advance other laws denying firearms on a cate-
gorical basis to any group of persons a legislature happens
to  deem,  as  the  government  puts  it,  “not  ‘responsible.’”  
Ante,  at  17  (quoting  Brief  for  United  States  6);  see  Tr.  of 
Oral Arg. 31–32; see also post, at 27 (opinion of THOMAS, J.) 
(“Not  a  single  Member  of  the  Court  adopts  the  Govern-
ment’s theory”).

We  do  not  resolve  any  of  those  questions  (and  perhaps 
others like them) because we cannot.  Article III of the Con-
stitution  vests  in  this  Court  the  power  to  decide  only  the 
“ ‘actual  cas[e]’ ”  before  us,  “ ‘not  abstractions.’ ”    Public 
Workers v. Mitchell, 330 U. S. 75, 89 (1947).  And the case