Stephen Voisine, the named petitioner in today’s [June 27, 2016] key U.S. Supreme Court decision on guns, along with two prominent murderers killed by police this month show just how porous American gun laws are and what steps are needed to promote greater safety.

To some, Voisine is a perfect exemplar of the law-abiding citizen exercising his Second Amendment rights and fighting to retain them against the wildly over-zealous gun-controlling tendencies of the federal government.  Justice Clarence Thomas was so moved by Voisine’s righteous struggle that he spoke at oral argument for the first time in over ten years, incredulous that the government would try to permanently suspend Voisine’s constitutional rights for nothing more than a misdemeanor conviction.

But the NRA’s version of a “law-abiding citizen” is often someone who should not have access to a gun – as most of our affluent competitor nations have long since realized.  When Voisine appeared in federal court for sentencing in February 2012 on federal charges of killing a bald eagle and unlawfully possessing a gun, the judge pointed out that Voisine had managed to accumulate 15 convictions for charges ranging from domestic assault and violation of a protection order to violation of release conditions and harassment by telephone.  While he initially denied shooting the eagle, he later defended his action by claiming he thought it was a large hawk.  As the judge noted, “it is bad enough to shoot our national bird out of the sky but even if he mistook it for a hawk, it is illegal to shoot a hawk in Maine.”

But isn’t killing an eagle in violation of federal law enough to lose your gun rights?  Not if you are only caught once – that is just a misdemeanor.

But didn’t Congress vote almost unanimously in 1996 to prohibit gun possession by those convicted of misdemeanor domestic violence?  Indeed, they did.  So how could Voisine claim that federal law didn’t bar him from having guns?  Voisine had slapped his girlfriend so forcibly that he knocked her to the kitchen floor, where her daughter found her.  The police, responding to the mother’s call to 911, arrested Voisine and took multiple rifles from his house.  Since Voisine pled guilty to the assault charges, why wasn’t this case closed?

Justice Thomas was persuaded by Voisine’s contention that he only acted recklessly in causing injury to his domestic partner and he should retain his guns because his conviction did not clearly establish that he knowingly or purposely used force on his beloved.  Fortunately, the Supreme Court ruled 6-2 that one could not circumvent the federal gun prohibition by claiming that the domestic violence that led to the conviction was merely committed recklessly.  Justice Thomas condemned this “expansive” statutory interpretation, which enables “a single minor reckless injury or offensive touching [to cause] someone to lose his right to bear arms forever….”

Justice Thomas is incorrect.  Voisine’s misdemeanor conviction for domestic violence was at the core of what Congress contemplated as reflected in the 1996 Congressional Record:  “anyone who attempts or threatens violence against a loved one has demonstrated that he or she poses an unacceptable risk, and should be prohibited from possessing firearms.”  Indeed, the Maine statute to which Voisine pled guilty only prohibited reckless behavior if it constituted “a gross deviation from the standard of conduct that a reasonable and prudent person would observe in the same situation.”

Voisine was certainly not someone who was innocently tripped up by an overly broad statute.  Over the years, he ignored four different restraining orders issued to protect women he was dating, and once entered the home of an ex-wife that he was barred from contacting.  Given the research that the risk that a domestically abused partner will be killed is 20 times higher when a gun is present in the home, I think we should feel fortunate that Voisine only killed an eagle with the guns that he should not have possessed.

But wait, since he was convicted of domestic violence in 2005, how did he get his guns years later?  This is yet another example of lax gun regulation in America:  Maine was one of 13 states that had never submitted a single domestic violence record to the FBI background-check data base.  With no record in the system, Voisine could buy his gun from any of tens of thousands of licensed sellers – who are more numerous than the number of Starbucks, McDonald’s, and grocery stores, combined!  Of course, until we have universal background checks, even if the licensed dealers were foreclosed, any private sale to Voisine could proceed without a background check.

Which brings us to Omar Mateen, the mass shooter in Orlando earlier this month.  In the NRA lexicon, he was a “law-abiding citizen” who had a constitutional right to possess assault weapons with high-capacity magazines – at least until he killed the first of his 49 victims.  But we now know that he battered his first wife, which underscores yet again why we must promote efforts to eliminate the gun rights of all who commit domestic violence and back that up with efforts to seize their guns and prevent purchases from any seller.

Domestic violence also reared its ugly head a few days ago outside Houston, Texas, when a rabid gun enthusiast killed two members of her family.  Christy Sheats chose her husband’s 45th birthday to open fire on him and her two daughters.  Both girls died as they ran from their house, with the mother returning to the house to reload before shooting her oldest girl again.

How could anyone have seen this coming?  Once again, as is the case in so many of these murders, the gun was a critical component of the crime and there was ample opportunity to remove guns from the “law-abiding citizen” before the murdering started since crisis intervention teams had been sent to the home repeatedly to deal with the mother’s turmoil, doubtless the product of mental illness.  As with Newtown killer Adam Lanza, the family clearly had to know of the serious mental illness and steps should have been taken to bar gun possession.  Ironically, Sheats posted in March that “It would be horribly tragic if my ability to protect myself or my family were to be taken away, but that’s exactly what Democrats are determined to do by banning semi-automatic handguns.”  Tragic, indeed.

John J. Donohue III is the C. Wendell and Edith M. Carlsmith Professor of Law at Stanford Law School.