Jun. 21—Local law enforcement officials agree with the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision Friday to uphold a gun control law intended to protect domestic violence victims.

The law prohibits individuals under domestic violence restraining orders from possessing firearms.

“People who commit violence and are arrested should not be free to possess weapons,” said Effingham County Sheriff Paul Kuhns. “I think that’s something they forfeit when they commit a violent crime.”

Kuhns said that of the instances where the sheriff’s office has been ordered to remove firearms from the home, the biggest reason is protective orders.

While it’s not frequent, Effingham Police Chief Jason McFarland said it’s not unusual for city police to handle domestic violence calls. However, McFarland said firearms are rarely displayed, threatened or utilized in conjunction with a domestic battery or incident.

“We do take the orders of protection in those various types of court orders very seriously,” he said.

McFarland noted that when someone under a judge-ordered restraining order is banned from possessing a firearm, that person is given due process.

“The person has had the opportunity to appear for their behalf and offer testimony, so this isn’t arbitrarily someone making a decision to remove firearms. This person has had their day in court,” he said.

Vickie Smith, former CEO of Illinois Coalition Against Domestic Violence, lauded the decision.

“We’re relieved and very happy that the Supreme Court saw fit in an 8-1 decision to uphold the law that’s been in place since 1994 that restricts guns on people who have orders of protection against them. We see the danger of that, so we’re very pleased that that’s the decision they came to,” she said.

The Illinois Coalition Against Domestic Violence is a nonprofit membership organization comprised of 54 agencies around the state that provide direct services to domestic violence victims. ICADV provides training, technical assistance, membership and policy support to its members, including SWAN (Stopping Woman Abuse Now), which serves Effingham County.

Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul said in a statement released Friday that he is pleased to see the U.S. Supreme Court uphold what he calls longstanding, commonsense tools that protect victims of domestic violence and prevent gun violence.

A coalition of 25 attorneys general, co-led by Raoul and District of Columbia Attorney General Brian Schwalb, urged the U.S. Supreme Court to review the case, United States v. Rahimi. Rahimi was under a domestic violence restraining order issued by a state court in Texas for assaulting and shooting at his girlfriend.

Rahimi’s case reached the Supreme Court after prosecutors appealed a ruling that threw out his conviction for possessing guns while subject to a restraining order.

“Firearms are the leading cause of intimate partner homicides — more so than all other weapons combined. Studies have shown that an abuser is five times more likely to murder an intimate partner if a firearm is in the home. Laws like the federal law upheld today and similar protections in Illinois that bar abusers from accessing firearms have successfully reduced intimate partner homicide,” Raoul said in the statement.

Cathy Griffith can be reached at cathy.griffith@effinghamdailynews.com or 618-510-9180.