The Supreme Court heard arguments on Tuesday in its first big gun rights case since it declared a sweeping test for reviewing gun regulations in 2022 that has upended decades of law and caused chaos throughout the lower federal courts.

In United States v. Rahimi, Zackey Rahimi is challenging the constitutionality of the 1994 federal law that makes it a felony for people placed under domestic violence protective orders to possess firearms. A civil court in Texas placed Rahimi under such an order for allegedly assaulting his girlfriend; prosecutors later accused him of going on a shooting rampage with guns that he was not allowed to possess.

Rahimis case catapulted to national attention in February, when the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals overturned that 1994 federal law a decision critics said privileged the gun rights of abusers over the safety of their victims . It did so by claiming to apply the historical test the Supreme Court laid out in its 2022 decision in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association Inc. v. Bruen. For a law restricting gun rights to pass constitutional muster under the new standard laid out in that ruling by Justice Clarence Thomas, it had to stem from a tradition of firearm regulation dating back to some time between 1791 when the Bill of Rights became law and the end of the Civil War.

The Bruen ruling led to a flood of controversial and often contradictory decisions in which lower courts overturned or limited long-standing gun safety laws, including age restrictions on handgun purchases in Texas, a ban on ghost guns in Delaware and multiple rulings questioning elements of laws barring felons and drug offenders from possessing firearms.

On Tuesday, the federal government, represented by Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar, argued in defense of the law prohibiting gun possession by domestic abusers. Prelogar said lower courts, including the 5th Circuit, misinterpreted the Supreme Courts test in Bruen by reading the requirement for a historical analog too narrowly.

Prelogar argued that Bruen did not require an identical twin or a deadringer analog. Instead of nitpicking historical analogs in the law like requiring a ban on gun possession for domestic abusers in the era of the Founding Fathers Prelogar said courts should look to enduring principles that can be found in comparable laws. And the principle at issue in Rahimi is whether the government has banned people from possessing firearms based on their dangerousness, according to Prelogar.

The principle is clear: You can disarm dangerous persons. ... This is an easy case, she told the court.