Physical force gets expansive meaning in SCOTUS interpretation of domestic-violence gun ban

Article here. Excerpt:

'The U.S. Supreme Court has held that offensive touching can qualify as a “misdemeanor crime of domestic violence” that disqualifies the perpetrator from owning a gun.

The court ruled (PDF) in the case of James Alvin Castleman, who pleaded guilty to the misdemeanor offense of intentionally or knowingly causing bodily injury to the mother of his child. Though the court was unanimous in holding that Castleman’s conviction disqualified him from possessing a gun under federal law, a debate emerged over the meaning of domestic violence.

One the one side was Justice Sonia Sotomayor, who wrote the opinion for the court, and on the other was Justice Antonin Scalia, who was among three concurring justices. Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. wrote the second concurrence, joined by Justice Clarence Thomas.
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In his concurrence, Scalia agreed that Castleman’s conviction disqualified him from owning a gun, but he took issue with Sotomayor’s “inventive, nonviolent definition” of physical force.
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The court ignores accepted definitions of domestic violence, Scalia said, opting instead to cite expansive definitions in an amicus brief by the National Network to End Domestic Violence and publications issued by the Justice Department’s Office on Violence Against Women. As an example of the broad definition, Scalia cited amici's description of domestic violence as acts that humiliate, isolate, frighten and blame; excessive monitoring of a woman's behavior; repeated accusations of infidelity; and controlling contact with others.

“The offerings of the Department of Justice’s Office on Violence Against Women are equally capacious and (to put it mildly) unconventional,” Scalia said. Its publications describe domestic violence as a pattern of abusive behavior used to maintain control over another, undermining a partner's sense of self-worth, name-calling, and damaging a partner's relationship with children, he said.

“Of course," Scalia said, "these private organizations and the Department of Justice’s (nonprosecuting) Office are entitled to define 'domestic violence’ any way they want for their own purposes—purposes that can include (quite literally) giving all domestic behavior harmful to women a bad name. (What is more abhorrent than violence against women?) But when they (and the court) impose their all-embracing definition on the rest of us, they not only distort the law, they impoverish the language. When everything is domestic violence, nothing is.”'