WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Wednesday issued a broad interpretation of a federal law that makes it a crime for people convicted of domestic violence to possess guns.

The court refused to consider a challenge to the law based on the Second Amendment, saying that argument had received only a “cursory nod” in the briefs. Instead, the court considered the meaning of the term domestic violence, with the majority concluding that it encompassed acts “that one might not characterize as ‘violent’ in a nondomestic context.”

The case concerned James A. Castleman, a Tennessee man who in 2001 was convicted of assault in state court for causing bodily injury to the mother of his child. Court records do not say precisely what he did or what injuries the woman sustained.

When Mr. Castleman was indicted under the federal gun law, he argued that it did not apply to him because his state conviction did not qualify as a crime of domestic violence. Though the federal law defines a “misdemeanor crime of domestic violence” as one involving the use of physical force, he argued that the state law under which he was charged did not require proof of such force.