New York State Rifle & Pistol Association, Inc. v. Bruen

NOTICE: This opinion is subject to
formal revision before publication in the preliminary print of the
United States Reports. Readers are requested to notify the Reporter
of Decisions, Supreme Court of the United States, Washington,
D. C. 20543, of any typographical or other formal errors, in
order that corrections may be made before the preliminary print
goes to press.

															SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES

															_________________

															No. 20–843

															_________________

															New York State Rifle & Pistol Association,
Inc., et al., PETITIONERS v. Kevin P. Bruen, in his
official capacity as Superintendent of New York State Police,
et al.

															on writ of certiorari to the united states
court of appeals for the second circuit

															[June 23, 2022]

															Justice Thomas delivered the opinion of the
Court.

															In District of Columbia v. Heller , 554 U.S.
570 (2008), and McDonald v. Chicago , 561 U.S.
742 (2010), we recognized that the Second and Fourteenth
Amendments protect the right of an ordinary, law-abiding citizen to
possess a handgun in the home for self-defense. In this case,
petitioners and respondents agree that ordinary, law-abiding
citizens have a similar right to carry handguns publicly for their
self-defense. We too agree, and now hold, consistent with Heller and McDonald , that the Second and Fourteenth
Amendments protect an individual’s right to carry a handgun for
self-defense outside the home.

															The parties nevertheless dispute whether New
York’s licensing regime respects the constitutional right to carry
handguns publicly for self-defense. In 43 States, the government
issues licenses to carry based on objective criteria. But in six
States, including New York, the government further conditions
issuance of a license to carry on a citizen’s showing of some
additional special need. Because the State of New York issues
public-carry licenses only when an applicant demonstrates a special
need for self-defense, we conclude that the State’s licensing
regime violates the Constitution.

															I

															A

															New York State has regulated the public carry
of handguns at least since the early 20th century. In 1905, New
York made it a misdemeanor for anyone over the age of 16 to “have
or carry concealed upon his person in any city or village of [New
York], any pistol, revolver or other firearm without a written
license . . . issued to him by a police magistrate.” 1905
N. Y. Laws ch. 92, §2, pp. 129–130; see also 1908
N. Y. Laws ch. 93, §1, pp. 242–243 (allowing justices of
the peace to issue licenses). In 1911, New York’s “Sullivan Law”
expanded the State’s criminal prohibition to the possession of all
handguns—concealed or otherwise—without a government-issued
license. See 1911 N. Y. Laws ch. 195, §1, p. 443. New
York later amended the Sullivan Law to clarify the licensing
standard: Magistrates could “issue to [a] person a license to have
and carry concealed a pistol or revolver without regard to
employment or place of possessing such weapon” only if that person
proved “good moral character” and “proper cause.” 1913 N. Y.
Laws ch. 608, §1, p. 1629.

															Today’s licensing scheme largely tracks that of
the early 1900s. It is a crime in New York to possess “any firearm”
without a license, whether inside or outside the home, punishable
by up to four years in prison or a $5,000 fine for a felony
offense, and one year in prison or a $1,000 fine for a misdemeanor.
See N. Y. Penal Law Ann. §§265.01–b (West 2017), 261.01(1)
(West Cum. Supp. 2022), 70.00(2)(e) and (3)(b), 80.00(1)(a) (West
2021), 70.15(1), 80.05(1). Meanwhile, possessing a loaded firearm
outside one’s home or place of business without a license is a
felony punishable by up to 15 years in prison. §§265.03(3) (West
2017), 70.00(2)(c) and (3)(b), 80.00(1)(a).

															A license applicant who wants to possess a
firearm at home (or in his place of business) must convince
a “licensing officer”—usually a judge or law enforcement
officer—that, among other things, he is of good moral character,
has no history of crime or mental illness, and that “no good cause
exists for the denial of the license.” §§400.00(1)(a)–(n) (West
Cum. Supp. 2022). If he wants to carry a firearm outside his
home or place of business for self-defense, the applicant must
obtain an unrestricted license to “have and carry” a concealed
“pistol or revolver.” §400.00(2)(f ). To secure that license,
the applicant must prove that “proper cause exists” to issue it. Ibid. If an applicant cannot make that showing, he can
receive only a “restricted” license for public carry, which allows
him to carry a firearm for a limited purpose, such as hunting,
target shooting, or employment. See, e.g. , In re
O’Brien , 87 N.Y.2d 436 , 438–439, 663 N.E.2d 316 , 316–317 (1996); Babernitz v. Police
Dept. of City of New York , 65 App. Div. 2d 320, 324, 411
N.Y.S.2d 309, 311 (1978); In re O’Connor , 154 Misc. 2d
694, 696–698, 585 N.Y.S.2d 1000, 1003 (Westchester Cty. 1992).

															No New York statute defines “proper cause.” But
New York courts have held that an applicant shows proper cause only
if he can “demonstrate a special need for self-protection
distinguishable from that of the general community.” E.g. , In re Klenosky , 75 App. Div. 2d 793, 428 N.Y.S.2d 256,
257 (1980). This “special need” standard is demanding. For example,
living or working in an area “ ‘noted for criminal
activity’ ” does not suffice. In re Bernstein , 85
App. Div. 2d 574, 445 N.Y.S.2d 716, 717 (1981). Rather, New York
courts generally require evidence “of particular threats, attacks
or other extraordinary danger to personal safety.” In re
Martinek , 294 App. Div. 2d 221, 222, 743 N.Y.S.2d 80, 81
(2002); see also In re Kaplan , 249 App. Div. 2d 199,
201, 673 N.Y.S.2d 66, 68 (1998) (approving the New York City Police
Department’s requirement of “ ‘extraordinary personal danger,
documented by proof of recurrent threats to life or safety’ ”
(quoting 38 N. Y. C. R. R. §5–03(b))).

															When a licensing officer denies an application,
judicial review is limited. New York courts defer to an officer’s
application of the proper-cause standard unless it is “arbitrary
and capricious.” In re Bando , 290 App. Div. 2d 691,
692, 735 N.Y.S.2d 660, 661 (2002). In other words, the decision
“must be upheld if the record shows a rational basis for it.” Kaplan , 249 App. Div. 2d, at 201, 673 N. Y. S. 2d,
at 68. The rule leaves applicants little recourse if their local
licensing officer denies a permit.

															New York is not alone in requiring a permit to
carry a handgun in public. But the vast majority of States—43 by
our count—are “shall issue” jurisdictions, where authorities must
issue concealed-carry licenses whenever applicants satisfy certain
threshold requirements, without granting licensing officials
discretion to deny licenses based on a perceived lack of need or
suitability.[ 1 ] Meanwhile, only
six States and the District of Columbia have “may issue” licensing
laws, under which authorities have discretion to deny
concealed-carry licenses even when the applicant satisfies the
statutory criteria, usually because the applicant has not
demonstrated cause or suitability for the relevant license. Aside
from New York, then, only California, the District of Columbia,
Hawaii, Maryland, Massachusetts, and New Jersey have analogues to
the “proper cause” standard.[ 2 ]
All of these “proper cause” analogues have been upheld by the
Courts of Appeals, save for the District of Columbia’s, which has
been permanently enjoined since 2017. Compare Gould v. Morgan , 907 F.3d 659, 677 (CA1 2018); Kachalsky v. County of Westchester , 701 F.3d 81, 101 (CA2 2012); Drake v. Filko , 724 F.3d 426, 440 (CA3 2013); United States v. Masciandaro , 638 F.3d 458, 460 (CA4
2011); Young v. Hawaii , 992 F.3d 765, 773 (CA9 2021)
(en banc), with Wrenn v. District of Columbia , 864
F.3d 650, 668 (CADC 2017).

															B

															As set forth in the pleadings below,
petitioners Brandon Koch and Robert Nash are law-abiding, adult
citizens of Rensselaer County, New York. Koch lives in Troy, while
Nash lives in Averill Park. Petitioner New York State Rifle &
Pistol Association, Inc., is a public-interest group organized to
defend the Second Amendment rights of New Yorkers. Both Koch and
Nash are members.

															In 2014, Nash applied for an unrestricted
license to carry a handgun in public. Nash did not claim any unique
danger to his personal safety; he simply wanted to carry a handgun
for self-defense. In early 2015, the State denied Nash’s
application for an unrestricted license but granted him a
restricted license for hunting and target shooting only. In late
2016, Nash asked a licensing officer to remove the restrictions,
citing a string of recent robberies in his neighborhood. After an
informal hearing, the licensing officer denied the request. The
officer reiterated that Nash’s existing license permitted him “to
carry concealed for purposes of off road back country, outdoor
activities similar to hunting,” such as “fishing, hiking &
camping etc.” App. 41. But, at the same time, the officer
emphasized that the restrictions were “intended to prohibit [Nash] from carrying concealed in ANY LOCATION typically open to
and frequented by the general public.” Ibid. Between 2008 and 2017, Koch was in the same
position as Nash: He faced no special dangers, wanted a handgun for
general self-defense, and had only a restricted license permitting
him to carry a handgun outside the home for hunting and target
shooting. In late 2017, Koch applied to a licensing officer to
remove the restrictions on his license, citing his extensive
experience in safely handling firearms. Like Nash’s application,
Koch’s was denied, except that the officer permitted Koch to “carry
to and from work.” Id ., at 114.

															C

															Respondents are the superintendent of the New
York State Police, who oversees the enforcement of the State’s
licensing laws, and a New York Supreme Court justice, who oversees
the processing of licensing applications in Rensselaer County.
Petitioners sued respondents for declaratory and injunctive relief
under Rev. Stat. 1979, 42 U. S. C. §1983, alleging that
respondents violated their Second and Fourteenth Amendment rights
by denying their unrestricted-license applications on the basis
that they had failed to show “proper cause,” i.e. , had
failed to demonstrate a unique need for self-defense.

															The District Court dismissed petitioners’
complaint and the Court of Appeals affirmed. See 818 Fed. Appx. 99,
100 (CA2 2020). Both courts relied on the Court of Appeals’ prior
decision in Kachalsky , 701 F.3d 81, which had sustained New
York’s proper-cause standard, holding that the requirement was
“substantially related to the achievement of an important
governmental interest.” Id. , at 96.

															We granted certiorari to decide whether New
York’s denial of petitioners’ license applications violated the
Constitution. 593 U. S. ___ (2021).

															II

															In Heller and McDonald , we held
that the Second and Fourteenth Amendments protect an individual
right to keep and bear arms for self-defense. In doing so, we held
unconstitutional two laws that prohibited the possession and use of
handguns in the home. In the years since, the Courts of Appeals
have coalesced around a “two-step” framework for analyzing Second
Amendment challenges that combines history with means-end
scrutiny.

															Today, we decline to adopt that two-part
approach. In keeping with Heller , we hold that when the
Second Amendment’s plain text covers an individual’s conduct, the
Constitution presumptively protects that conduct. To justify its
regulation, the government may not simply posit that the regulation
promotes an important interest. Rather, the government must
demonstrate that the regulation is consistent with this Nation’s
historical tradition of firearm regulation. Only if a firearm
regulation is consistent with this Nation’s historical tradition
may a court conclude that the individual’s conduct falls outside
the Second Amendment’s “unqualified command.” Konigsberg v. State Bar of Cal ., 366 U.S.
36 , 50, n. 10 (1961).[ 3 ]

															A

															Since Heller and McDonald , the
two-step test that Courts of Appeals have developed to assess
Second Amendment claims proceeds as follows. At the first step, the
government may justify its regulation by “establish[ing] that the
challenged law regulates activity falling outside the scope of the
right as originally understood.” E.g. , Kanter v. Barr , 919 F.3d 437, 441 (CA7 2019) (internal quotation marks
omitted). But see United States v. Boyd , 999 F.3d
171, 185 (CA3 2021) (requiring claimant to show “ ‘a burden on
conduct falling within the scope of the Second Amendment’s
guarantee’ ”). The Courts of Appeals then ascertain the
original scope of the right based on its historical meaning. E.g. , United States v. Focia , 869 F.3d 1269,
1285 (CA11 2017). If the government can prove that the regulated
conduct falls beyond the Amendment’s original scope, “then the
analysis can stop there; the regulated activity is categorically
unprotected.” United States v. Greeno , 679 F.3d 510,
518 (CA6 2012) (internal quotation marks omitted). But if the
historical evidence at this step is “inconclusive or suggests that
the regulated activity is not categorically unprotected,”
the courts generally proceed to step two. Kanter , 919
F. 3d, at 441 (internal quotation marks omitted).

															At the second step, courts often analyze “how
close the law comes to the core of the Second Amendment right and
the severity of the law’s burden on that right.” Ibid. (internal quotation marks omitted) . The Courts of Appeals
generally maintain “that the core Second Amendment right is limited
to self-defense in the home .” Gould , 907 F. 3d,
at 671 (emphasis added). But see Wrenn , 864 F. 3d, at
659 (“[T]he Amendment’s core generally covers carrying in public
for self defense”). If a “core” Second Amendment right is burdened,
courts apply “strict scrutiny” and ask whether the Government can
prove that the law is “narrowly tailored to achieve a compelling
governmental interest.” Kolbe v. Hogan , 849 F.3d 114,
133 (CA4 2017) (internal quotation marks omitted). Otherwise, they
apply intermediate scrutiny and consider whether the Government can
show that the regulation is “substantially related to the
achievement of an important governmental interest.” Kachalsky , 701 F. 3d, at 96.[ 4 ] Both respondents and the United States largely agree
with this consensus, arguing that intermediate scrutiny is
appropriate when text and history are unclear in attempting to
delineate the scope of the right. See Brief for Respondents 37;
Brief for United States as Amicus Curiae 4.

															B

															Despite the popularity of this two-step
approach, it is one step too many. Step one of the predominant
framework is broadly consistent with Heller , which demands a
test rooted in the Second Amendment’s text, as informed by history.
But Heller and McDonald do not support applying
means-end scrutiny in the Second Amendment context. Instead, the
government must affirmatively prove that its firearms regulation is
part of the historical tradition that delimits the outer bounds of
the right to keep and bear arms.

															1

															To show why Heller does not support
applying means-end scrutiny, we first summarize Heller ’s
methodological approach to the Second Amendment.

															In Heller , we began with a “textual
analysis” focused on the “ ‘normal and ordinary’ ”
meaning of the Second Amendment’s language. 554 U. S., at
576–577, 578. That analysis suggested that the Amendment’s
operative clause—“the right of the people to keep and bear Arms
shall not be infringed”—“guarantee[s] the individual right to
possess and carry weapons in case of confrontation” that does not
depend on service in the militia. Id. , at 592.

															From there, we assessed whether our initial
conclusion was “confirmed by the historical background of the
Second Amendment.” Ibid. We looked to history because “it
has always been widely understood that the Second Amendment
. . . codified a pre-existing right.” Ibid. The Amendment “was not intended to lay down a novel principle but
rather codified a right inherited from our English ancestors.” Id. , at 599 (alterations and internal quotation marks
omitted). After surveying English history dating from the late
1600s, along with American colonial views leading up to the
founding, we found “no doubt, on the basis of both text and
history, that the Second Amendment conferred an individual right to
keep and bear arms.” Id. , at 595.

															We then canvassed the historical record and
found yet further confirmation. That history included the
“analogous arms-bearing rights in state constitutions that preceded
and immediately followed adoption of the Second Amendment,” id. , at 600–601, and “how the Second Amendment was
interpreted from immediately after its ratification through the end
of the 19th century,” id. , at 605. When the principal
dissent charged that the latter category of sources was
illegitimate “postenactment legislative history,” id. , at
662, n. 28 (opinion of Stevens, J.), we clarified that
“examination of a variety of legal and other sources to determine the public understanding of a legal text in the period after
its enactment or ratification” was “a critical tool of
constitutional interpretation,” id. , at 605 (majority
opinion).

															In assessing the postratification history, we
looked to four different types of sources. First, we reviewed
“[t]hree important founding-era legal scholars [who] interpreted
the Second Amendment in published writings.” Ibid. Second,
we looked to “19th-century cases that interpreted the Second
Amendment” and found that they “universally support an individual
right” to keep and bear arms. Id. , at 610. Third, we
examined the “discussion of the Second Amendment in Congress and in
public discourse” after the Civil War, “as people debated whether
and how to secure constitutional rights for newly freed slaves.” Id. , at 614. Fourth, we considered how post-Civil War
commentators understood the right. See id. , at 616–619.

															After holding that the Second Amendment
protected an individual right to armed self-defense, we also relied
on the historical understanding of the Amendment to demark the
limits on the exercise of that right. We noted that, “[l]ike most
rights, the right secured by the Second Amendment is not
unlimited.” Id. , at 626. “From Blackstone through the
19th-century cases, commentators and courts routinely explained
that the right was not a right to keep and carry any weapon
whatsoever in any manner whatsoever and for whatever purpose.” Ibid. For example, we found it “fairly supported by the
historical tradition of prohibiting the carrying of ‘dangerous and
unusual weapons’ ” that the Second Amendment protects the
possession and use of weapons that are “ ‘in common use at the
time.’ ” Id. , at 627 (first citing 4 W. Blackstone,
Commentaries on the Laws of England 148–149 (1769); then quoting United States v. Miller , 307
U.S. 174 , 179 (1939)). That said, we cautioned that we were not
“undertak[ing] an exhaustive historical analysis today of the full
scope of the Second Amendment” and moved on to considering the
constitutionality of the District of Columbia’s handgun ban. 554
U. S., at 627 . We assessed the lawfulness of that handgun ban
by scrutinizing whether it comported with history and tradition.
Although we noted that the ban “would fail constitutional muster”
“[u]nder any of the standards of scrutiny that we have applied to
enumerated constitutional rights,” id. , at 628–629, we did
not engage in means-end scrutiny when resolving the constitutional
question. Instead, we focused on the historically unprecedented
nature of the District’s ban, observing that “[f]ew laws in the
history of our Nation have come close to [that] severe
restriction.” Id. , at 629. Likewise, when one of the
dissents attempted to justify the District’s prohibition with
“founding-era historical precedent,” including “various restrictive
laws in the colonial period,” we addressed each purported analogue
and concluded that they were either irrelevant or “d[id] not
remotely burden the right of self-defense as much as an absolute
ban on handguns.” Id. , at 631–632; see id. , at
631–634. Thus, our earlier historical analysis sufficed to show
that the Second Amendment did not countenance a “complete
prohibition” on the use of “the most popular weapon chosen by
Americans for self-defense in the home.” Id. , at 629.

															2

															As the foregoing shows, Heller ’s
methodology centered on constitutional text and history. Whether it
came to defining the character of the right (individual or militia
dependent), suggesting the outer limits of the right, or assessing
the constitutionality of a particular regulation, Heller relied on text and history. It did not invoke any means-end test
such as strict or intermediate scrutiny.

															Moreover, Heller and McDonald expressly rejected the application of any “judge-empowering
‘interest-balancing inquiry’ that ‘asks whether the statute burdens
a protected interest in a way or to an extent that is out of
proportion to the statute’s salutary effects upon other important
governmental interests.’ ” Heller , 554 U. S., at
634 (quoting id. , at 689–690 (Breyer, J., dissenting)); see
also McDonald , 561 U. S., at 790–791 (plurality
opinion) (the Second Amendment does not permit—let alone
require—“judges to assess the costs and benefits of firearms
restrictions” under means-end scrutiny). We declined to engage in
means-end scrutiny because “[t]he very enumeration of the right
takes out of the hands of government—even the Third Branch of
Government—the power to decide on a case-by-case basis whether the
right is really worth insisting upon.” Heller , 554
U. S., at 634. We then concluded: “A constitutional guarantee
subject to future judges’ assessments of its usefulness is no
constitutional guarantee at all.” Ibid. Not only did Heller decline to engage in
means-end scrutiny generally, but it also specifically ruled out
the intermediate-scrutiny test that respondents and the United
States now urge us to adopt. Dissenting in Heller , Justice
Breyer’s proposed standard—“ask[ing] whether [a] statute burdens a
protected interest in a way or to an extent that is out of
proportion to the statute’s salutary effects upon other important
governmental interests,” id. , at 689–690 (dissenting
opinion)—simply expressed a classic formulation of intermediate
scrutiny in a slightly different way, see Clark v. Jeter , 486 U.S.
456 , 461 (1988) (asking whether the challenged law is
“substantially related to an important government objective”). In
fact, Justice Breyer all but admitted that his Heller dissent advocated for intermediate scrutiny by repeatedly invoking
a quintessential intermediate- scrutiny precedent. See Heller , 554 U. S., at 690, 696, 704–705 (citing Turner Broadcasting System , Inc. v. FCC , 520 U.S.
180 (1997)). Thus, when Heller expressly rejected that
dissent’s “interest-balancing inquiry,” 554 U. S., at 634
(internal quotation marks omitted), it necessarily rejected
intermediate scrutiny.[ 5 ]

															In sum, the Courts of Appeals’ second step is
inconsistent with Heller ’s historical approach and its
rejection of means-end scrutiny. We reiterate that the standard for
applying the Second Amendment is as follows: When the Second
Amendment’s plain text covers an individual’s conduct, the
Constitution presumptively protects that conduct. The government
must then justify its regulation by demonstrating that it is
consistent with the Nation’s historical tradition of firearm
regulation. Only then may a court conclude that the individual’s
conduct falls outside the Second Amendment’s “unqualified command.” Konigsberg , 366 U. S., at 50, n. 10.

															C

															This Second Amendment standard accords with
how we protect other constitutional rights. Take, for instance, the
freedom of speech in the First Amendment, to which Heller repeatedly compared the right to keep and bear arms. 554
U. S., at 582, 595, 606, 618, 634–635. In that context,
“[w]hen the Government restricts speech, the Government bears the
burden of proving the constitutionality of its actions.” United
States v. Playboy Entertainment Group , Inc. , 529 U.S.
803 , 816 (2000); see also Philadelphia Newspapers , Inc. v. Hepps , 475 U.S.
767 , 777 (1986). In some cases, that burden includes showing
whether the expressive conduct falls outside of the category of
protected speech. See Illinois ex rel. Madigan v. Telemarketing Associates , Inc. , 538 U.S.
600 , 620, n. 9 (2003). And to carry that burden, the
government must generally point to historical evidence about
the reach of the First Amendment’s protections. See, e.g. , United States v. Stevens , 559
U.S. 460 , 468–471 (2010) (placing the burden on the government
to show that a type of speech belongs to a “historic and
traditional categor[y]” of constitutionally unprotected speech
“long familiar to the bar” (internal quotation marks omitted)).

															And beyond the freedom of speech, our focus on
history also comports with how we assess many other constitutional
claims. If a litigant asserts the right in court to “be confronted
with the witnesses against him,” U. S. Const., Amdt. 6, we
require courts to consult history to determine the scope of that
right. See, e.g. , Giles v. California , 554 U.S.
353 , 358 (2008) (“admitting only those exceptions [to the
Confrontation Clause] established at the time of the founding”
(internal quotation marks omitted)). Similarly, when a litigant
claims a violation of his rights under the Establishment Clause,
Members of this Court “loo[k] to history for guidance.” American
Legion v. American Humanist Assn. , 588 U. S. ___,
___ (2019) (plurality opinion) (slip op., at 25). We adopt a
similar approach here.

															To be sure, “[h]istorical analysis can be
difficult; it sometimes requires resolving threshold questions, and
making nuanced judgments about which evidence to consult and how to
interpret it.” McDonald , 561 U. S., at 803–804 (Scalia,
J., concurring). But reliance on history to inform the meaning of
constitutional text—especially text meant to codify a pre-existing right—is, in our view, more legitimate, and
more administrable, than asking judges to “make difficult empirical
judgments” about “the costs and benefits of firearms restrictions,”
especially given their “lack [of] expertise” in the field. Id. , at 790–791 (plurality opinion).[ 6 ]

															If the last decade of Second Amendment
litigation has taught this Court anything, it is that federal
courts tasked with making such difficult empirical judgments
regarding firearm regulations under the banner of “intermediate
scrutiny” often defer to the determinations of legislatures. But
while that judicial deference to legislative interest balancing is
understandable—and, elsewhere, appropriate—it is not deference that
the Constitution demands here. The Second Amendment “is the very product of an interest balancing by the people” and it
“surely elevates above all other interests the right of
law-abiding, responsible citizens to use arms” for self-defense. Heller , 554 U. S., at 635. It is this balance—struck by
the traditions of the American people—that demands our unqualified
deference.

															D

															The test that we set forth in Heller and apply today requires courts to assess whether modern firearms
regulations are consistent with the Second Amendment’s text and
historical understanding. In some cases, that inquiry will be
fairly straightforward. For instance, when a challenged regulation
addresses a general societal problem that has persisted since the
18th century, the lack of a distinctly similar historical
regulation addressing that problem is relevant evidence that the
challenged regulation is inconsistent with the Second Amendment.
Likewise, if earlier generations addressed the societal problem,
but did so through materially different means, that also could be
evidence that a modern regulation is unconstitutional. And if some
jurisdictions actually attempted to enact analogous regulations
during this timeframe, but those proposals were rejected on
constitutional grounds, that rejection surely would provide some
probative evidence of unconstitutionality. Heller itself exemplifies this kind of
straightforward historical inquiry. One of the District’s
regulations challenged in Heller “totally ban[ned] handgun
possession in the home.” Id ., at 628. The District in Heller addressed a perceived societal problem—firearm
violence in densely populated communities—and it employed a
regulation—a flat ban on the possession of handguns in the
home—that the Founders themselves could have adopted to confront
that problem. Accordingly, after considering “founding-era
historical precedent,” including “various restrictive laws in the
colonial period,” and finding that none was analogous to the
District’s ban, Heller concluded that the handgun ban was
unconstitutional. Id., at 631; see also id., at 634
(describing the claim that “there were somewhat similar
restrictions in the founding period” a “false proposition”).

															New York’s proper-cause requirement concerns the
same alleged societal problem addressed in Heller : “handgun
violence,” primarily in “urban area[s].” Ibid. Following the
course charted by Heller , we will consider whether
“historical precedent” from before, during, and even after the
founding evinces a comparable tradition of regulation. Id., at 631. And, as we explain below, we find no such tradition in the
historical materials that respondents and their amici have
brought to bear on that question. See Part III–B, infra .

															While the historical analogies here and in Heller are relatively simple to draw, other cases
implicating unprecedented societal concerns or dramatic
technological changes may require a more nuanced approach. The
regulatory challenges posed by firearms today are not always the
same as those that preoccupied the Founders in 1791 or the
Reconstruction generation in 1868. Fortunately, the Founders
created a Constitution—and a Second Amendment—“intended to endure
for ages to come, and consequently, to be adapted to the various
crises of human affairs.” McCulloch v. Maryland , 4
Wheat. 316, 415 (1819) (emphasis deleted). Although its meaning is
fixed according to the understandings of those who ratified it, the
Constitution can, and must, apply to circumstances beyond those the
Founders specifically anticipated. See, e.g., United
States v. Jones , 565 U.S.
400 , 404–405 (2012) (holding that installation of a tracking
device was “a physical intrusion [that] would have been considered
a ‘search’ within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment when it was
adopted”).

															We have already recognized in Heller at
least one way in which the Second Amendment’s historically fixed
meaning applies to new circumstances: Its reference to “arms” does
not apply “only [to] those arms in existence in the 18th century.”
554 U. S., at 582. “Just as the First Amendment protects
modern forms of communications, and the Fourth Amendment applies to
modern forms of search, the Second Amendment extends, prima facie,
to all instruments that constitute bearable arms, even those that
were not in existence at the time of the founding.” Ibid. (citations omitted). Thus, even though the Second Amendment’s
definition of “arms” is fixed according to its historical
understanding, that general definition covers modern instruments
that facilitate armed self-defense. Cf. Caetano v. Massachusetts , 577 U.S. 411, 411–412 (2016) ( per
curiam ) (stun guns).

															Much like we use history to determine which
modern “arms” are protected by the Second Amendment, so too does
history guide our consideration of modern regulations that were
unimaginable at the founding. When confronting such present-day
firearm regulations, this historical inquiry that courts must
conduct will often involve reasoning by analogy—a commonplace task
for any lawyer or judge. Like all analogical reasoning, determining
whether a historical regulation is a proper analogue for a
distinctly modern firearm regulation requires a determination of
whether the two regulations are “relevantly similar.” C. Sunstein,
On Analogical Reasoning, 106 Harv. L. Rev. 741, 773 (1993).
And because “[e]verything is similar in infinite ways to everything
else,” id., at 774, one needs “some metric enabling the
analogizer to assess which similarities are important and which are
not,” F. Schauer & B. Spellman, Analogy, Expertise, and
Experience, 84 U. Chi. L. Rev. 249, 254 (2017). For instance,
a green truck and a green hat are relevantly similar if one’s
metric is “things that are green.” See ibid. They are not
relevantly similar if the applicable metric is “things you can
wear.”

															While we do not now provide an exhaustive survey
of the features that render regulations relevantly similar under
the Second Amendment, we do think that Heller and McDonald point toward at least two metrics: how and why the
regulations burden a law-abiding citizen’s right to armed
self-defense. As we stated in Heller and repeated in McDonald , “individual self-defense is ‘the central
component ’ of the Second Amendment right.” McDonald , 561
U. S., at 767 (quoting Heller , 554 U. S., at 599);
see also id., at 628 (“the inherent right of self-defense
has been central to the Second Amendment right”). Therefore,
whether modern and historical regulations impose a comparable
burden on the right of armed self-defense and whether that burden
is comparably justified are “ ‘ central ’ ”
considerations when engaging in an analogical inquiry. McDonald , 561 U. S., at 767 (quoting Heller , 554
U. S., at 599).[ 7 ]

															To be clear, analogical reasoning under the
Second Amendment is neither a regulatory straightjacket nor a
regulatory blank check. On the one hand, courts should not “uphold
every modern law that remotely resembles a historical analogue,”
because doing so “risk[s] endorsing outliers that our ancestors
would never have accepted.” Drummond v. Robinson , 9
F. 4th 217, 226 (CA3 2021). On the other hand, analogical reasoning
requires only that the government identify a well-established and
representative historical analogue , not a historical twin . So even if a modern-day regulation is not a dead
ringer for historical precursors, it still may be analogous enough
to pass constitutional muster.

															Consider, for example, Heller ’s
discussion of “longstanding” “laws forbidding the carrying of
firearms in sensitive places such as schools and government
buildings.” 554 U. S. , at 626. Although the historical
record yields relatively few 18th- and 19th-century “sensitive
places” where weapons were altogether prohibited— e.g., legislative assemblies, polling places, and courthouses—we are also
aware of no disputes regarding the lawfulness of such prohibitions.
See D. Kopel & J. Greenlee, The “Sensitive Places” Doctrine, 13
Charleston L. Rev. 205, 229–236, 244–247 (2018); see also
Brief for Independent Institute as Amicus Curiae 11–17. We
therefore can assume it settled that these locations were
“sensitive places” where arms carrying could be prohibited
consistent with the Second Amendment. And courts can use analogies
to those historical regulations of “sensitive places” to determine
that modern regulations prohibiting the carry of firearms in new and analogous sensitive places are constitutionally
permissible.

															Although we have no occasion to comprehensively
define “sensitive places” in this case, we do think respondents err
in their attempt to characterize New York’s proper-cause
requirement as a “sensitive-place” law. In their view, “sensitive
places” where the government may lawfully disarm law-abiding
citizens include all “places where people typically congregate and
where law-enforcement and other public-safety professionals are
presumptively available.” Brief for Respondents 34. It is true that
people sometimes congregate in “sensitive places,” and it is
likewise true that law enforcement professionals are usually
presumptively available in those locations. But expanding the
category of “sensitive places” simply to all places of public
congregation that are not isolated from law enforcement defines the
category of “sensitive places” far too broadly. Respondents’
argument would in effect exempt cities from the Second Amendment
and would eviscerate the general right to publicly carry arms for
self-defense that we discuss in detail below. See Part III–B, infra . Put simply, there is no historical basis for New York
to effectively declare the island of Manhattan a “sensitive place”
simply because it is crowded and protected generally by the New
York City Police Department.

															Like Heller , we “do not undertake an
exhaustive historical analysis . . . of the full scope of
the Second Amendment.” 554 U. S., at 626. And we acknowledge
that “applying constitutional principles to novel modern conditions
can be difficult and leave close questions at the margins.” Heller v. District of Columbia , 670 F.3d 1244, 1275
(CADC 2011) (Kavanaugh, J., dissenting). “But that is hardly unique
to the Second Amendment. It is an essential component of judicial
decisionmaking under our enduring Constitution.” Ibid. We
see no reason why judges frequently tasked with answering these
kinds of historical, analogical questions cannot do the same for
Second Amendment claims.

															III

															Having made the constitutional standard
endorsed in Heller more explicit, we now apply that standard
to New York’s proper-cause requirement.

															A

															It is undisputed that petitioners Koch and
Nash—two ordinary, law-abiding, adult citizens—are part of “the
people” whom the Second Amendment protects. See Heller , 554
U. S., at 580. Nor does any party dispute that handguns are
weapons “in common use” today for self-defense. See id. , at
627; see also Caetano , 577 U. S., at 411–412. We
therefore turn to whether the plain text of the Second Amendment
protects Koch’s and Nash’s proposed course of conduct—carrying
handguns publicly for self-defense.

															We have little difficulty concluding that it
does. Respondents do not dispute this. See Brief for Respondents
19. Nor could they. Nothing in the Second Amendment’s text draws a
home/public distinction with respect to the right to keep and bear
arms. As we explained in Heller , the “textual elements” of
the Second Amendment’s operative clause— “the right of the people
to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed”—“guarantee the
individual right to possess and carry weapons in case of
confrontation.” 554 U. S., at 592. Heller further
confirmed that the right to “bear arms” refers to the right to
“wear, bear, or carry . . . upon the person or in the
clothing or in a pocket, for the purpose . . . of being
armed and ready for offensive or defensive action in a case of
conflict with another person.” Id. , at 584 (quoting Muscarello v. United States , 524
U.S. 125 , 143 (1998) (Ginsburg, J., dissenting); internal
quotation marks omitted).

															This definition of “bear” naturally encompasses
public carry. Most gun owners do not wear a holstered pistol at
their hip in their bedroom or while sitting at the dinner table.
Although individuals often “keep” firearms in their home, at the
ready for self-defense, most do not “bear” ( i.e. , carry)
them in the home beyond moments of actual confrontation. To confine
the right to “bear” arms to the home would nullify half of the
Second Amendment’s operative protections.

															Moreover, confining the right to “bear” arms to
the home would make little sense given that self-defense is “the central component of the [ Second Amendment] right itself.” Heller , 554 U. S., at 599; see also McDonald ,
561 U. S., at 767. After all, the Second Amendment guarantees
an “individual right to possess and carry weapons in case of
confrontation,” Heller , 554 U. S., at 592, and
confrontation can surely take place outside the home.

															Although we remarked in Heller that the
need for armed self-defense is perhaps “most acute” in the home, id. , at 628, we did not suggest that the need was
insignificant elsewhere. Many Americans hazard greater danger
outside the home than in it. See Moore v. Madigan ,
702 F.3d 933, 937 (CA7 2012) (“[A] Chicagoan is a good deal more
likely to be attacked on a sidewalk in a rough neighborhood than in
his apartment on the 35th floor of the Park Tower”). The text of
the Second Amendment reflects that reality.

															The Second Amendment’s plain text thus
presumptively guarantees petitioners Koch and Nash a right to
“bear” arms in public for self-defense.

															B

															Conceding that the Second Amendment guarantees
a general right to public carry, contra, Young , 992
F. 3d, at 813, respondents instead claim that the Amendment
“permits a State to condition handgun carrying in areas ‘frequented
by the general public’ on a showing of a non- speculative need for
armed self-defense in those areas,” Brief for Respondents 19
(citation omitted).[ 8 ] To
support that claim, the burden falls on respondents to show that
New York’s proper-cause requirement is consistent with this
Nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation. Only if
respondents carry that burden can they show that the pre-existing
right codified in the Second Amendment, and made applicable to the
States through the Fourteenth, does not protect petitioners’
proposed course of conduct.

															Respondents appeal to a variety of historical
sources from the late 1200s to the early 1900s. We categorize these
periods as follows: (1) medieval to early modern England;
(2) the American Colonies and the early Republic; (3)
antebellum America; (4) Reconstruction; and (5) the late-19th and
early-20th centuries.

															We categorize these historical sources because,
when it comes to interpreting the Constitution, not all history is
created equal. “Constitutional rights are enshrined with the scope
they were understood to have when the people adopted them .” Heller , 554 U. S., at 634–635 (emphasis added). The
Second Amendment was adopted in 1791; the Fourteenth in 1868.
Historical evidence that long predates either date may not
illuminate the scope of the right if linguistic or legal
conventions changed in the intervening years. It is one thing for
courts to “reac[h] back to the 14th century” for English practices
that “prevailed up to the ‘period immediately before and after the
framing of the Constitution.’ ” Sprint Communications
Co. v. APCC Services , Inc. , 554 U.S.
269 , 311 (2008) (Roberts, C. J., dissenting). It is quite
another to rely on an “ancient” practice that had become “obsolete
in England at the time of the adoption of the Constitution” and
never “was acted upon or accepted in the colonies.” Dimick v. Schiedt , 293 U.S.
474 , 477 (1935).

															As with historical evidence generally, courts
must be careful when assessing evidence concerning English
common-law rights. The common law, of course, developed over time. Associated Gen. Contractors of Cal. , Inc. v. Carpenters , 459 U.S.
519 , 533, n. 28 (1983); see also Rogers v. Tennessee , 532 U.S.
451 , 461 (2001). And English common-law practices and
understandings at any given time in history cannot be
indiscriminately attributed to the Framers of our own Constitution.
Even “the words of Magna Charta ”—foundational as they were
to the rights of America’s forefathers—“stood for very different
things at the time of the separation of the American Colonies from
what they represented originally” in 1215. Hurtado v. California , 110 U.S.
516 , 529 (1884). Sometimes, in interpreting our own
Constitution, “it [is] better not to go too far back into antiquity
for the best securities of our liberties,” Funk v. United
States , 290 U.S.
371 , 382 (1933), unless evidence shows that medieval law
survived to become our Founders’ law. A long, unbroken line of
common-law precedent stretching from Bracton to Blackstone is far
more likely to be part of our law than a short-lived, 14th-century
English practice.

															Similarly, we must also guard against giving
postenactment history more weight than it can rightly bear. It is
true that in Heller we reiterated that evidence of “how the
Second Amendment was interpreted from immediately after its
ratification through the end of the 19th century” represented a
“critical tool of constitutional interpretation.” 554 U. S.,
at 605. We therefore examined “a variety of legal and other sources
to determine the public understanding of [the Second
Amendment] after its . . . ratification.” Ibid. And, in other contexts, we have explained that “ ‘a regular
course of practice’ can ‘liquidate & settle the meaning
of ’ disputed or indeterminate ‘terms & phrases’ ” in
the Constitution. Chiafalo v. Washington , 591
U. S. ___, ___ (2020) (slip op., at 13) (quoting Letter from
J. Madison to S. Roane (Sept. 2, 1819), in 8 Writings of James
Madison 450 (G. Hunt ed. 1908)); see also, e.g., Houston
Community College System v. Wilson , 595 U. S. ___,
___ (2022) (slip op., at 5) (same); The Federalist No. 37, p. 229
(C. Rossiter ed. 1961) (J. Madison); see generally C. Nelson, Stare Decisis and Demonstrably Erroneous Precedents, 87 Va.
L. Rev. 1, 10–21 (2001); W. Baude, Constitutional Liquidation,
71 Stan. L. Rev. 1 (2019). In other words, we recognize that
“where a governmental practice has been open, widespread, and
unchallenged since the early days of the Republic, the practice
should guide our interpretation of an ambiguous constitutional
provision.” NLRB v. Noel Canning , 573 U.S.
513 , 572 (2014) (Scalia, J., concurring in judgment); see also Myers v. United States , 272 U.S.
52 , 174 (1926); Printz v. United States , 521 U.S.
898 , 905 (1997).

															But to the extent later history contradicts what
the text says, the text controls. “ ‘[L]iquidating’
indeterminacies in written laws is far removed from expanding or
altering them.” Gamble v. United States , 587
U. S. ___, ___ (2019) (Thomas, J., concurring) (slip op., at
13); see also Letter from J. Madison to N. Trist (Dec. 1831), in 9
Writings of James Madison 477 (G. Hunt ed. 1910). Thus, “post-
ratification adoption or acceptance of laws that are inconsistent with the original meaning of the constitutional
text obviously cannot overcome or alter that text.” Heller ,
670 F. 3d, at 1274, n. 6 (Kavanaugh, J., dissenting); see
also Espinoza v. Montana Dept. of Revenue , 591
U. S. ___, ___ (2020) (slip op., at 15).

															As we recognized in Heller itself,
because post-Civil War discussions of the right to keep and bear
arms “took place 75 years after the ratification of the Second
Amendment, they do not provide as much insight into its original
meaning as earlier sources.” 554 U. S., at 614; cf. Sprint
Communications Co. , 554 U. S., at 312 (Roberts,
C. J., dissenting) (“The belated innovations of the mid- to
late-19th-century courts come too late to provide insight into the
meaning of [the Constitution in 1787]”). And we made clear in Gamble that Heller ’s interest in mid- to
late-19th-century commentary was secondary. Heller considered this evidence “only after surveying what it regarded as
a wealth of authority for its reading—including the text of the
Second Amendment and state constitutions.” Gamble , 587
U. S., at ___ (majority opinion) (slip op., at 23). In other
words, this 19th-century evidence was “treated as mere confirmation
of what the Court thought had already been established.” Ibid. A final word on historical method: Strictly
speaking, New York is bound to respect the right to keep and bear
arms because of the Fourteenth Amendment, not the Second. See, e.g. , Barron ex rel. Tiernan v. Mayor of
Baltimore , 7 Pet. 243, 250–251 (1833) (Bill of Rights applies
only to the Federal Government). Nonetheless, we have made clear
that individual rights enumerated in the Bill of Rights and made
applicable against the States through the Fourteenth Amendment have
the same scope as against the Federal Government. See, e.g. , Ramos v. Louisiana , 590 U. S. ___, ___ (2020)
(slip op., at 7); Timbs v. Indiana , 586 U. S.
___, ___–___ (2019) (slip op., at 2–3); Malloy v. Hogan , 378 U.S.
1 , 10–11 (1964). And we have generally assumed that the scope
of the protection applicable to the Federal Government and States
is pegged to the public understanding of the right when the Bill of
Rights was adopted in 1791. See, e.g ., Crawford v. Washington , 541 U.S.
36 , 42–50 (2004) ( Sixth Amendment); Virginia v. Moore , 553 U.S.
164 , 168–169 (2008) ( Fourth Amendment); Nevada Comm’n on
Ethics v. Carrigan , 564 U.S.
117 , 122–125 (2011) ( First Amendment).

															We also acknowledge that there is an ongoing
scholarly debate on whether courts should primarily rely on the
prevailing understanding of an individual right when the Fourteenth
Amendment was ratified in 1868 when defining its scope (as well as
the scope of the right against the Federal Government). See, e.g. , A. Amar, The Bill of Rights: Creation and
Reconstruction xiv, 223, 243 (1998); K. Lash, Re-Speaking the Bill
of Rights: A New Doctrine of Incorporation (Jan. 15, 2021)
(manuscript, at 2), https://papers.ssrn
.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3766917 (“When the people adopted
the Fourteenth Amendment into existence, they readopted the
original Bill of Rights, and did so in a manner that invested those
original 1791 texts with new 1868 meanings”). We need not address
this issue today because, as we explain below, the public
understanding of the right to keep and bear arms in both 1791 and
1868 was, for all relevant purposes, the same with respect to
public carry.

															*  *  *

															With these principles in mind, we turn to
respondents’ historical evidence. Throughout modern Anglo-American
history, the right to keep and bear arms in public has
traditionally been subject to well-defined restrictions governing
the intent for which one could carry arms, the manner of carry, or
the exceptional circumstances under which one could not carry arms.
But apart from a handful of late-19th-century jurisdictions, the
historical record compiled by respondents does not demonstrate a
tradition of broadly prohibiting the public carry of commonly used
firearms for self-defense. Nor is there any such historical
tradition limiting public carry only to those law-abiding citizens
who demonstrate a special need for self-defense.[ 9 ] We conclude that respondents have failed
to meet their burden to identify an American tradition justifying
New York’s proper-cause requirement. Under Heller ’s
text-and-history standard, the proper-cause requirement is
therefore unconstitutional.

															1

															Respondents’ substantial reliance on English
history and custom before the founding makes some sense given our
statement in Heller that the Second Amendment “codified a
right ‘inherited from our English ancestors.’ ” 554
U. S., at 599 (quoting Robertson v. Baldwin , 165
U.S. 275 , 281 (1897)); see also Smith v. Alabama , 124 U.S.
465 , 478 (1888). But this Court has long cautioned that the
English common law “is not to be taken in all respects to be that
of America.” Van Ness v. Pacard , 2 Pet. 137, 144
(1829) (Story, J., for the Court); see also Wheaton v. Peters , 8 Pet. 591, 659 (1834); Funk , 290 U. S.,
at 384. Thus, “[t]he language of the Constitution cannot be
interpreted safely except by reference to the common law and to
British institutions as they were when the instrument was framed
and adopted ,” not as they existed in the Middle Ages. Ex parte Grossman , 267 U.S.
87 , 108–109 (1925) (emphasis added); see also United
States v. Reid , 12 How. 361, 363 (1852).

															We interpret the English history that
respondents and the United States muster in light of these
interpretive principles. We find that history ambiguous at best and
see little reason to think that the Framers would have thought it
applicable in the New World. It is not sufficiently probative to
defend New York’s proper-cause requirement.

															To begin, respondents and their amici point to several medieval English regulations from as early as 1285
that they say indicate a longstanding tradition of restricting the
public carry of firearms. See 13 Edw. 1, 102. The most prominent is
the 1328 Statute of Northampton (or Statute), passed shortly after
Edward II was deposed by force of arms and his son, Edward III,
took the throne of a kingdom where “tendency to turmoil and
rebellion was everywhere apparent throughout the realm.” N.
Trenholme, The Risings in the English Monastic Towns in 1327, 6 Am.
Hist. Rev. 650, 651 (1901). At the time, “[b]ands of malefactors,
knights as well as those of lesser degree, harried the country,
committing assaults and murders,” prompted by a more general
“spirit of insubordination” that led to a “decay in English
national life.” K. Vickers, England in the Later Middle Ages 107
(1926).

															The Statute of Northampton was, in part, “a
product of . . . the acute disorder that still plagued
England.” A. Verduyn, The Politics of Law and Order During the
Early Years of Edward III, 108 Eng. Hist. Rev. 842, 850 (1993). It
provided that, with some exceptions, Englishmen could not “come
before the King’s Justices, or other of the King’s Ministers doing
their office, with force and arms, nor bring no force in affray of
the peace, nor to go nor ride armed by night nor by day, in Fairs,
Markets, nor in the presence of the Justices or other Ministers,
nor in no part elsewhere, upon pain to forfeit their Armour to the
King, and their Bodies to Prison at the King’s pleasure.” 2 Edw. 3
c. 3 (1328).

															Respondents argue that the prohibition on
“rid[ing]” or “go[ing] . . . armed” was a sweeping
restriction on public carry of self-defense weapons that would
ultimately be adopted in Colonial America and justify onerous
public-carry regulations. Notwithstanding the ink the parties spill
over this provision, the Statute of Northampton—at least as it was
understood during the Middle Ages—has little bearing on the Second
Amendment adopted in 1791. The Statute of Northampton was enacted
nearly 20 years before the Black Death, more than 200 years before
the birth of Shakespeare, more than 350 years before the Salem
Witch Trials, more than 450 years before the ratification of the
Constitution, and nearly 550 years before the adoption of the
Fourteenth Amendment.

															The Statute’s prohibition on going or riding
“armed” obviously did not contemplate handguns, given they did not
appear in Europe until about the mid-1500s. See K. Chase, Firearms:
A Global History to 1700, p. 61 (2003). Rather, it appears to
have been centrally concerned with the wearing of armor. See, e.g. , Calendar of the Close Rolls, Edward III, 1330–1333,
p. 131 (Apr. 3, 1330) (H. Maxwell-Lyte ed. 1898); id. ,
at 243 (May 28, 1331); id. , Edward III, 1327–1330, at 314
(Aug. 29, 1328) (1896). If it did apply beyond armor, it applied to
such weapons as the “launcegay,” a 10- to 12-foot-long lightweight
lance. See 7 Rich. 2 c. 13 (1383); 20 Rich. 2 c. 1 (1396).

															The Statute’s apparent focus on armor and,
perhaps, weapons like launcegays makes sense given that armor and
lances were generally worn or carried only when one intended to
engage in lawful combat or—as most early violations of the Statute
show—to breach the peace. See, e.g. , Calendar of the Close
Rolls, Edward III, 1327–1330, at 402 (July 7, 1328); id. ,
Edward III, 1333–1337, at 695 (Aug. 18, 1336) (1898). Contrast
these arms with daggers. In the medieval period, “[a]lmost everyone
carried a knife or a dagger in his belt.” H. Peterson, Daggers and
Fighting Knives of the Western World 12 (2001). While these knives
were used by knights in warfare, “[c]ivilians wore them for
self-protection,” among other things. Ibid. Respondents
point to no evidence suggesting the Statute applied to the smaller
medieval weapons that strike us as most analogous to modern
handguns.

															When handguns were introduced in England during
the Tudor and early Stuart eras, they did prompt royal efforts at
suppression. For example, Henry VIII issued several proclamations
decrying the proliferation of handguns, and Parliament passed
several statutes restricting their possession. See, e.g. , 6
Hen. 8 c. 13, §1 (1514); 25 Hen. 8 c. 17, §1 (1533); 33 Hen. 8 c. 6
(1541); Prohibiting Use of Handguns and Crossbows (Jan. 1537), in 1
Tudor Royal Proclamations 249 (P. Hughes & J. Larkin eds.
1964). But Henry VIII’s displeasure with handguns arose not
primarily from concerns about their safety but rather their
inefficacy. Henry VIII worried that handguns threatened
Englishmen’s proficiency with the longbow—a weapon many believed
was crucial to English military victories in the 1300s and 1400s,
including the legendary English victories at Crécy and Agincourt.
See R. Payne-Gallwey, The Crossbow 32, 34 (1903); L. Schwoerer, Gun
Culture in Early Modern England 54 (2016) (Schwoerer).

															Similarly, James I considered small
handguns—called dags—“utterly unserviceable for defence, Militarie
practise, or other lawful use.” A Proclamation Against Steelets,
Pocket Daggers, Pocket Dagges and Pistols (R. Barker printer 1616).
But, in any event, James I’s proclamation in 1616 “was the last one
regarding civilians carrying dags,” Schwoerer 63. “After this the
question faded without explanation.” Ibid. So, by the time
Englishmen began to arrive in America in the early 1600s, the
public carry of handguns was no longer widely proscribed.

															When we look to the latter half of the 17th
century, respondents’ case only weakens. As in Heller , we
consider this history “[b]etween the [Stuart] Restoration [in 1660]
and the Glorious Revolution [in 1688]” to be particularly
instructive. 554 U. S., at 592. During that time, the Stuart
Kings Charles II and James II ramped up efforts to disarm their
political opponents, an experience that “caused Englishmen
. . . to be jealous of their arms.” Id. , at
593.

															In one notable example, the government charged
Sir John Knight, a prominent detractor of James II, with violating
the Statute of Northampton because he allegedly “did walk about the
streets armed with guns, and that he went into the church of St.
Michael, in Bristol, in the time of divine service, with a gun, to
terrify the King’s subjects.” Sir John Knight’s Case , 3 Mod.
117, 87 Eng. Rep. 75, 76 (K. B. 1686). Chief Justice Holt explained
that the Statute of Northampton had “almost gone in desuetudinem ,” Rex v. Sir John Knight , 1 Comb.
38, 38–39, 90 Eng. Rep. 330 (K. B. 1686), meaning that the Statute
had largely become obsolete through disuse.[ 10 ] And the Chief Justice further explained that
the act of “go[ing] armed to terrify the King’s subjects”
was “a great offence at the common law ” and that the Statute
of Northampton “is but an affirmance of that law.” 3 Mod., at 118,
87 Eng. Rep., at 76 (first emphasis added). Thus, one’s conduct
“will come within the Act,”— i.e. , would terrify the King’s
subjects—only “where the crime shall appear to be malo animo,” 1
Comb., at 39, 90 Eng. Rep., at 330, with evil intent or malice.
Knight was ultimately acquitted by the jury.[ 11 ]

															Just three years later, Parliament responded by
writing the “predecessor to our Second Amendment” into the 1689
English Bill of Rights, Heller , 554 U. S., at 593,
guaranteeing that “Protestants . . . may have Arms for
their Defence suitable to their Conditions, and as allowed by Law,”
1 Wm. & Mary c. 2, §7, in 3 Eng. Stat. at Large 417 (1689).
Although this right was initially limited—it was restricted to
Protestants and held only against the Crown, but not Parliament—it
represented a watershed in English history. Englishmen had “never
before claimed . . . the right of the individual to
arms.” Schwoerer 156.[ 12 ]
And as that individual right matured, “by the time of the
founding,” the right to keep and bear arms was “understood to be an
individual right protecting against both public and private
violence.” Heller , 554 U. S., at 594.

															To be sure, the Statute of Northampton survived
both Sir John Knight’s Case and the English Bill of Rights,
but it was no obstacle to public carry for self-defense in the
decades leading to the founding. Serjeant William Hawkins, in his
widely read 1716 treatise, confirmed that “no wearing of Arms is
within the meaning of [the Statute of Northampton], unless it be
accompanied with such Circumstances as are apt to terrify the
People.” 1 Pleas of the Crown 136. To illustrate that proposition,
Hawkins noted as an example that “Persons of Quality” were “in no
Danger of Offending against this Statute by wearing common Weapons”
because, in those circumstances, it would be clear that they had no
“Intention to commit any Act of Violence or Disturbance of the
Peace.” Ibid. ; see also T. Barlow, The Justice of Peace 12
(1745). Respondents do not offer any evidence showing that, in the
early 18th century or after, the mere public carrying of a handgun
would terrify people. In fact, the opposite seems to have been
true. As time went on, “domestic gun culture [in England] softened”
any “terror” that firearms might once have conveyed. Schwoerer 4.
Thus, whatever place handguns had in English society during the
Tudor and Stuart reigns, by the time we reach the 18th century—and
near the founding—they had gained a fairly secure footing in
English culture.

															At the very least, we cannot conclude from this
historical record that, by the time of the founding, English law
would have justified restricting the right to publicly bear arms
suited for self-defense only to those who demonstrate some special
need for self-protection.

															2

															Respondents next point us to the history of
the Colonies and early Republic, but there is little evidence of an
early American practice of regulating public carry by the general
public. This should come as no surprise—English subjects founded
the Colonies at about the time England had itself begun to
eliminate restrictions on the ownership and use of handguns.

															In the colonial era, respondents point to only
three restrictions on public carry. For starters, we doubt that three colonial regulations could suffice to show a tradition
of public-carry regulation. In any event, even looking at these
laws on their own terms, we are not convinced that they regulated
public carry akin to the New York law before us.

															Two of the statutes were substantively
identical. Colonial Massachusetts and New Hampshire both authorized
justices of the peace to arrest “all Affrayers, Rioters,
Disturbers, or Breakers of the Peace, and such as shall ride or go
armed Offensively . . . by Night or by Day, in Fear or
Affray of Their Majesties Liege People.” 1692 Mass. Acts and Laws
no. 6, pp. 11–12; see 1699 N. H. Acts and Laws ch. 1.
Respondents and their amici contend that being “armed
offensively” meant bearing any offensive weapons, including
firearms. See Brief for Respondents 33. In particular, respondents’ amici argue that “ ‘offensive’ ” arms in the 1600s
and 1700s were what Blackstone and others referred to as
“ ‘dangerous or unusual weapons,’ ” Brief for Professors
of History and Law as Amici Curiae 7 (quoting 4 Blackstone,
Commentaries, at 148–149), a category that they say included
firearms, see also post, at 40–42 (Breyer, J.,
dissenting).

															Respondents, their amici , and the dissent
all misunderstand these statutes. Far from banning the carrying of
any class of firearms, they merely codified the existing common-law
offense of bearing arms to terrorize the people, as had the Statute
of Northampton itself. See supra , at 34–37. For instance,
the Massachusetts statute proscribed “go[ing] armed Offensively
. . . in Fear or Affray” of the people, indicating that
these laws were modeled after the Statute of Northampton to the
extent that the statute would have been understood to limit public
carry in the late 1600s . Moreover, it makes very little
sense to read these statutes as banning the public carry of all
firearms just a few years after Chief Justice Holt in Sir John
Knight’s Case indicated that the English common law did not do
so.

															Regardless, even if respondents’ reading of
these colonial statutes were correct, it would still do little to
support restrictions on the public carry of handguns today .
At most, respondents can show that colonial legislatures sometimes
prohibited the carrying of “dangerous and unusual weapons”—a fact
we already acknowledged in Heller . See 554 U. S., at
627. Drawing from this historical tradition, we explained there
that the Second Amendment protects only the carrying of weapons
that are those “in common use at the time,” as opposed to those
that “are highly unusual in society at large.” Ibid. (internal quotation marks omitted). Whatever the likelihood that
handguns were considered “dangerous and unusual” during the
colonial period, they are indisputably in “common use” for
self-defense today. They are, in fact, “the quintessential
self-defense weapon.” Id. , at 629. Thus, even if these
colonial laws prohibited the carrying of handguns because they were
considered “dangerous and unusual weapons” in the 1690s, they
provide no justification for laws restricting the public carry of
weapons that are unquestionably in common use today.

															The third statute invoked by respondents was
enacted in East New Jersey in 1686. It prohibited the concealed
carry of “pocket pistol[s]” or other “unusual or unlawful weapons,”
and it further prohibited “planter[s]” from carrying all pistols
unless in military service or, if “strangers,” when traveling
through the Province. An Act Against Wearing Swords, &c., ch.
9, in Grants, Concessions, and Original Constitutions of the
Province of New Jersey 290 (2d ed. 1881) (Grants and Concessions).
These restrictions do not meaningfully support respondents. The law
restricted only concealed carry, not all public carry, and its
restrictions applied only to certain “unusual or unlawful weapons,”
including “pocket pistol[s].” Ibid . It also did not apply to
all pistols, let alone all firearms. “Pocket pistols” had barrel
lengths of perhaps 3 or 4 inches, far smaller than the 6-inch to
14-inch barrels found on the other belt and hip pistols that were
commonly used for lawful purposes in the 1600s. J. George, English
Pistols and Revolvers 16 (1938); see also, e.g. , 14 Car. 2
c. 3, §20 (1662); H. Peterson, Arms and Armor in Colonial
America, 1526–1783, p. 208 (1956) (Peterson). Moreover, the
law prohibited only the concealed carry of pocket pistols;
it presumably did not by its terms touch the open carry of larger,
presumably more common pistols, except as to “planters.”[ 13 ] In colonial times, a “planter”
was simply a farmer or plantation owner who settled new territory.
R. Lederer, Colonial American English 175 (1985); New Jersey State
Archives, J. Klett, Using the Records of the East and West Jersey
Proprietors 31 (rev. ed. 2014),
https://www.nj.gov/state/archives/pdf/proprietors.pdf. While the
reason behind this singular restriction is not entirely clear,
planters may have been targeted because colonial-era East New
Jersey was riven with “strife and excitement” between planters and
the Colony’s proprietors “respecting titles to the soil.” See W.
Whitehead, East Jersey Under the Proprietary Governments 150–151
(rev. 2d ed. 1875); see also T. Gordon, The History of New Jersey
49 (1834).

															In any event, we cannot put meaningful weight on
this solitary statute. First, although the “planter” restriction
may have prohibited the public carry of pistols, it did not
prohibit planters from carrying long guns for
self-defense—including the popular musket and carbine. See Peterson
41. Second, it does not appear that the statute survived for very
long. By 1694, East New Jersey provided that no slave “be permitted
to carry any gun or pistol . . . into the woods, or
plantations” unless their owner accompanied them. Grants and
Concessions 341. If slave-owning planters were prohibited from
carrying pistols, it is hard to comprehend why slaves would have
been able to carry them in the planter’s presence. Moreover, there
is no evidence that the 1686 statute survived the 1702 merger of
East and West New Jersey. See 1 Nevill, Acts of the General
Assembly of the Province of New-Jersey (1752). At most eight years
of history in half a Colony roughly a century before the founding
sheds little light on how to properly interpret the Second
Amendment.

															Respondents next direct our attention to three
late-18th-century and early-19th-century statutes, but each
parallels the colonial statutes already discussed. One 1786
Virginia statute provided that “no man, great nor small, [shall] go
nor ride armed by night nor by day, in fairs or markets, or in
other places, in terror of the Country.” Collection of All Such
Acts of the General Assembly of Virginia ch. 21, p. 33
(1794).[ 14 ] A Massachusetts
statute from 1795 commanded justices of the peace to arrest “all
affrayers, rioters, disturbers, or breakers of the peace, and such
as shall ride or go armed offensively, to the fear or terror of the
good citizens of this Commonwealth.” 1795 Mass. Acts and Laws ch.
2, p. 436, in Laws of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. And
an 1801 Tennessee statute likewise required any person who would
“publicly ride or go armed to the terror of the people, or
privately carry any dirk, large knife, pistol or any other
dangerous weapon, to the fear or terror of any person” to post a
surety; otherwise, his continued violation of the law would be
“punished as for a breach of the peace, or riot at common law.”
1801 Tenn. Acts pp. 260–261.

															A by-now-familiar thread runs through these
three statutes: They prohibit bearing arms in a way that spreads
“fear” or “terror” among the people. As we have already explained,
Chief Justice Holt in Sir John Knight’s Case interpreted
this in Terrorem Populi element to require something more
than merely carrying a firearm in public. See supra , at
34–35. Respondents give us no reason to think that the founding
generation held a different view. Thus, all told, in the century
leading up to the Second Amendment and in the first decade after
its adoption, there is no historical basis for concluding that the
pre-existing right enshrined in the Second Amendment permitted
broad prohibitions on all forms of public carry.

															3

															Only after the ratification of the Second
Amendment in 1791 did public-carry restrictions proliferate.
Respondents rely heavily on these restrictions, which generally
fell into three categories: common-law offenses, statutory
prohibitions, and “surety” statutes. None of these restrictions
imposed a substantial burden on public carry analogous to the
burden created by New York’s restrictive licensing regime. Common-Law Offenses . As during the
colonial and founding periods, the common-law offenses of “affray”
or going armed “to the terror of the people” continued to impose
some limits on firearm carry in the antebellum period. But as with
the earlier periods, there is no evidence indicating that these
common-law limitations impaired the right of the general population
to peaceable public carry.

															For example, the Tennessee attorney general once
charged a defendant with the common-law offense of affray, arguing
that the man committed the crime when he “ ‘arm[ed] himself
with dangerous and unusual weapons, in such a manner as will
naturally cause terror to the people.’ ” Simpson v. State , 13 Tenn. 356, 358 (1833). More specifically, the
indictment charged that Simpson “with force and arms being arrayed
in a warlike manner . . . unlawfully, and to the great
terror and disturbance of divers good citizens, did make an
affray.” Id ., at 361. The Tennessee Supreme Court quashed
the indictment, holding that the Statute of Northampton was never
part of Tennessee law. Id. , at 359. But even assuming that
Tennesseans’ ancestors brought with them the common law associated
with the Statute, the Simpson court found that if the
Statute had made, as an “independent ground of affray,” the mere
arming of oneself with firearms, the Tennessee Constitution’s
Second Amendment analogue had “completely abrogated it.” Id. , at 360. At least in light of that constitutional
guarantee, the court did not think that it could attribute to the
mere carrying of arms “a necessarily consequent operation as terror
to the people.” Ibid. Perhaps more telling was the North Carolina
Supreme Court’s decision in State v. Huntly , 25
N. C. 418 (1843) ( per curiam ). Unlike the Tennessee
Supreme Court in Simpson , the Huntly court held that
the common-law offense codified by the Statute of Northampton was
part of the State’s law. See 25 N. C., at 421–422. However,
consistent with the Statute’s long-settled interpretation, the
North Carolina Supreme Court acknowledged “that the carrying of a
gun” for a lawful purpose “ per se constitutes no
offence.” Id. , at 422–423. Only carrying for a “wicked
purpose” with a “mischievous result . . . constitute[d a]
crime.” Id. , at 423; see also J. Haywood, The Duty and
Office of Justices of Peace 10 (1800); H. Potter, The Office and
Duties of a Justice of the Peace 39 (1816).[ 15 ] Other state courts likewise recognized that
the common law did not punish the carrying of deadly weapons per se , but only the carrying of such weapons “for the
purpose of an affray, and in such manner as to strike terror to the
people.” O’Neil v. State , 16 Ala. 65, 67 (1849).
Therefore, those who sought to carry firearms publicly and
peaceably in antebellum America were generally free to do so. Statutory Prohibitions . In the early to
mid-19th century, some States began enacting laws that proscribed
the concealed carry of pistols and other small weapons. As we
recognized in Heller , “the majority of the 19th-century
courts to consider the question held that [these] prohibitions on
carrying concealed weapons were lawful under the Second Amendment
or state analogues.” 554 U. S., at 626. Respondents
unsurprisingly cite these statutes[ 16 ]—and decisions upholding them[ 17 ]—as evidence that States were historically
free to ban public carry.

															In fact, however, the history reveals a
consensus that States could not ban public carry altogether.
Respondents’ cited opinions agreed that concealed-carry
prohibitions were constitutional only if they did not similarly
prohibit open carry. That was true in Alabama. See State v. Reid , 1 Ala. 612, 616, 619–621
(1840).[ 18 ] It was also true
in Louisiana. See State v. Chandler , 5 La. 489, 490
(1850).[ 19 ] Kentucky,
meanwhile, went one step further—the State Supreme Court invalidated a concealed-carry prohibition. See Bliss v. Commonwealth , 12 Ky. 90 (1822) . [ 20 ]

															The Georgia Supreme Court’s decision in Nunn v. State , 1 Ga. 243 (1846), is particularly
instructive. Georgia’s 1837 statute broadly prohibited “wearing” or
“carrying” pistols “as arms of offence or defence,” without
distinguishing between concealed and open carry. 1837 Ga. Acts 90,
§1. To the extent the 1837 Act prohibited “carrying certain weapons secretly ,” the court explained, it was “valid.” Nunn ,
1 Ga., at 251. But to the extent the Act also prohibited “bearing
arms openly ,” the court went on, it was “in conflict with
the Constitutio[n] and void .” Ibid. ; see also Heller , 554 U. S., at 612. The Georgia Supreme Court’s
treatment of the State’s general prohibition on the public carriage
of handguns indicates that it was considered beyond the
constitutional pale in antebellum America to altogether prohibit
public carry.

															Finally, we agree that Tennessee’s prohibition
on carrying “publicly or privately” any “belt or pocket pisto[l],”
1821 Tenn. Acts ch. 13, p. 15, was, on its face, uniquely
severe, see Heller , 554 U. S., at 629. That said, when
the Tennessee Supreme Court addressed the constitutionality of a
substantively identical successor provision, see 1870 Tenn. Acts
ch. 13, §1, p. 28, the court read this language to permit the
public carry of larger, military-style pistols because any
categorical prohibition on their carry would “violat[e] the
constitutional right to keep arms.” Andrews v. State ,
50 Tenn. 165, 187 (1871); see also Heller , 554 U. S.,
at 629 (discussing Andrews ).[ 21 ]

															All told, these antebellum state-court decisions
evince a consensus view that States could not altogether prohibit
the public carry of “arms” protected by the Second Amendment or
state analogues.[ 22 ] Surety Statutes . In the mid-19th century,
many jurisdictions began adopting surety statutes that required
certain individuals to post bond before carrying weapons in public.
Although respondents seize on these laws to justify the
proper-cause restriction, their reliance on them is misplaced.
These laws were not bans on public carry, and they typically
targeted only those threatening to do harm.

															As discussed earlier, Massachusetts had
prohibited riding or going “armed offensively, to the fear or
terror of the good citizens of this Commonwealth” since 1795. 1795
Mass. Acts and Laws ch. 2, at 436, in Laws of the Commonwealth of
Massachusetts. In 1836, Massachusetts enacted a new law
providing:

															“If any person shall go armed with a dirk,
dagger, sword, pistol, or other offensive and dangerous weapon,
without reasonable cause to fear an assault or other injury, or
violence to his person, or to his family or property, he may, on
complaint of any person having reasonable cause to fear an injury,
or breach of the peace, be required to find sureties for keeping
the peace, for a term not exceeding six months, with the right of
appealing as before provided.” Mass. Rev. Stat., ch. 134, §16.

															In short, the Commonwealth required any person
who was reasonably likely to “breach the peace,” and who, standing
accused, could not prove a special need for self-defense, to post a
bond before publicly carrying a firearm. Between 1838 and 1871,
nine other jurisdictions adopted variants of the Massachusetts
law.[ 23 ]

															Contrary to respondents’ position, these
“reasonable-cause laws” in no way represented the “direct
precursor” to the proper-cause requirement. Brief for Respondents
27. While New York presumes that individuals have no public
carry right without a showing of heightened need, the surety
statutes presumed that individuals had a right to public
carry that could be burdened only if another could make out a
specific showing of “reasonable cause to fear an injury, or breach
of the peace.” Mass. Rev. Stat., ch. 134, §16 (1836).[ 24 ] As William Rawle explained in an
influential treatise, an individual’s carrying of arms was
“sufficient cause to require him to give surety of the peace” only
when “attended with circumstances giving just reason to fear that
he purposes to make an unlawful use of them.” A View of the
Constitution of the United States of America 126 (2d ed. 1829).
Then, even on such a showing, the surety laws did not prohibit public carry in locations frequented by the general
community. Rather, an accused arms-bearer “could go on carrying
without criminal penalty” so long as he “post[ed] money that would
be forfeited if he breached the peace or injured others—a
requirement from which he was exempt if he needed
self-defense.” Wrenn , 864 F. 3d, at 661.

															Thus, unlike New York’s regime, a showing of
special need was required only after an individual was
reasonably accused of intending to injure another or breach the
peace. And, even then, proving special need simply avoided a fee
rather than a ban. All told, therefore, “[u]nder surety laws
. . . everyone started out with robust carrying rights”
and only those reasonably accused were required to show a special
need in order to avoid posting a bond. Ibid. These
antebellum special-need requirements “did not expand carrying for
the responsible; it shrank burdens on carrying by the (allegedly)
reckless.” Ibid. One Court of Appeals has nonetheless remarked
that these surety laws were “a severe constraint on anyone thinking
of carrying a weapon in public.” Young , 992 F. 3d, at
820. That contention has little support in the historical record.
Respondents cite no evidence showing the average size of surety
postings. And given that surety laws were “intended merely for
prevention” and were “not meant as any degree of punishment,” 4
Blackstone, Commentaries, at 249, the burden these surety statutes
may have had on the right to public carry was likely too
insignificant to shed light on New York’s proper-cause standard—a
violation of which can carry a 4-year prison term or a $5,000 fine.
In Heller , we noted that founding-era laws punishing
unlawful discharge “with a small fine and forfeiture of the weapon
. . . , not with significant criminal penalties,”
likely did not “preven[t] a person in the founding era from using a
gun to protect himself or his family from violence, or that if he
did so the law would be enforced against him.” 554 U. S., at
633–634. Similarly, we have little reason to think that the
hypothetical possibility of posting a bond would have prevented
anyone from carrying a firearm for self-defense in the 19th
century.

															Besides, respondents offer little evidence that
authorities ever enforced surety laws. The only recorded case that
we know of involved a justice of the peace declining to
require a surety, even when the complainant alleged that the
arms-bearer “ ‘did threaten to beat, wou[n]d, mai[m], and
kill’ ” him. Brief for Professor Robert Leider et al. as Amici Curiae 31 (quoting Grover v. Bullock ,
No. 185 (Worcester Cty., Aug. 13, 1853)); see E. Ruben & S.
Cornell, Firearm Regionalism and Public Carry: Placing Southern
Antebellum Case Law in Context, 125 Yale L. J. Forum 121, 130,
n. 53 (2015). And one scholar who canvassed 19th-century
newspapers—which routinely reported on local judicial matters—found
only a handful of other examples in Massachusetts and the District
of Columbia, all involving black defendants who may have been
targeted for selective or pretextual enforcement. See R. Leider,
Constitutional Liquidation, Surety Laws, and the Right To Bear Arms
15–17, in New Histories of Gun Rights and Regulation (J. Blocher,
J. Charles, & D. Miller eds.) (forthcoming); see also Brief for
Professor Robert Leider et al. as Amici Curiae 31–32.
That is surely too slender a reed on which to hang a historical
tradition of restricting the right to public carry.[ 25 ]

															Respondents also argue that surety statutes were
severe restrictions on firearms because the “reasonable cause to
fear” standard was essentially pro forma , given that
“merely carrying firearms in populous areas breached the peace” per se . Brief for Respondents 27. But that is a
counterintuitive reading of the language that the surety statutes
actually used. If the mere carrying of handguns breached the peace,
it would be odd to draft a surety statute requiring a complainant
to demonstrate “reasonable cause to fear an injury, or breach of
the peace,” Mass. Rev. Stat., ch. 134, §16, rather than a
reasonable likelihood that the arms-bearer carried a covered
weapon. After all, if it was the nature of the weapon rather than
the manner of carry that was dispositive, then the “reasonable
fear” requirement would be redundant.

															Moreover, the overlapping scope of surety
statutes and criminal statutes suggests that the former were not
viewed as substantial restrictions on public carry. For example,
when Massachusetts enacted its surety statute in 1836, it
reaffirmed its 1794 criminal prohibition on “go[ing] armed
offensively, to the terror of the people.” Mass. Rev. Stat., ch.
85, §24. And Massachusetts continued to criminalize the carrying of
various “dangerous weapons” well after passing the 1836 surety
statute. See, e.g. , 1850 Mass. Acts ch. 194, §1,
p. 401; Mass. Gen. Stat., ch. 164, §10 (1860). Similarly,
Virginia had criminalized the concealed carry of pistols since
1838, see 1838 Va. Acts ch. 101, §1, nearly a decade before it
enacted its surety statute, see 1847 Va. Acts ch. 14, §16. It is
unlikely that these surety statutes constituted a “severe”
restraint on public carry, let alone a restriction tantamount to a
ban, when they were supplemented by direct criminal prohibitions on
specific weapons and methods of carry.

															To summarize: The historical evidence from
antebellum America does demonstrate that the manner of
public carry was subject to reasonable regulation. Under the common
law, individuals could not carry deadly weapons in a manner likely
to terrorize others. Similarly, although surety statutes did not
directly restrict public carry, they did provide financial
incentives for responsible arms carrying. Finally, States could
lawfully eliminate one kind of public carry—concealed carry—so long
as they left open the option to carry openly . None of these historical limitations on the
right to bear arms approach New York’s proper-cause requirement
because none operated to prevent law-abiding citizens with ordinary
self-defense needs from carrying arms in public for that
purpose.

															4

															Evidence from around the adoption of the
Fourteenth Amendment also fails to support respondents’ position.
For the most part, respondents and the United States ignore the
“outpouring of discussion of the [right to keep and bear arms] in
Congress and in public discourse, as people debated whether and how
to secure constitutional rights for newly free slaves” after the
Civil War. Heller , 554 U. S., at 614. Of course, we are
not obliged to sift the historical materials for evidence to
sustain New York’s statute. That is respondents’ burden.
Nevertheless, we think a short review of the public discourse
surrounding Reconstruction is useful in demonstrating how public
carry for self-defense remained a central component of the
protection that the Fourteenth Amendment secured for all
citizens.

															A short prologue is in order. Even before the
Civil War commenced in 1861, this Court indirectly affirmed the
importance of the right to keep and bear arms in public. Writing
for the Court in Dred Scott v. Sandford , 19 How. 393
(1857), Chief Justice Taney offered what he thought was a parade of
horribles that would result from recognizing that free blacks were
citizens of the United States. If blacks were citizens, Taney
fretted, they would be entitled to the privileges and immunities of
citizens, including the right “to keep and carry arms wherever
they went .” Id. , at 417 (emphasis added). Thus, even
Chief Justice Taney recognized (albeit unenthusiastically in the
case of blacks) that public carry was a component of the right to
keep and bear arms—a right free blacks were often denied in
antebellum America.

															After the Civil War, of course, the exercise of
this fundamental right by freed slaves was systematically thwarted.
This Court has already recounted some of the Southern abuses
violating blacks’ right to keep and bear arms. See McDonald ,
561 U. S., at 771 (noting the “systematic efforts” made to
disarm blacks); id. , at 845–847 (Thomas, J., concurring in
part and concurring in judgment); see also S. Exec. Doc. No. 43,
39th Cong., 1st Sess., 8 (1866) (“Pistols, old muskets, and
shotguns were taken away from [freed slaves] as such weapons would
be wrested from the hands of lunatics”).

															In the years before the 39th Congress proposed
the Fourteenth Amendment, the Freedmen’s Bureau regularly kept it
abreast of the dangers to blacks and Union men in the postbellum
South. The reports described how blacks used publicly carried
weapons to defend themselves and their communities. For example,
the Bureau reported that a teacher from a Freedmen’s school in
Maryland had written to say that, because of attacks on the school,
“[b]oth the mayor and sheriff have warned the colored people to go
armed to school, (which they do,)” and that the “[t]he
superintendent of schools came down and brought [the teacher] a
revolver” for his protection. Cong. Globe, 39th Cong., 1st Sess.,
658 (1866); see also H. R. Exec. Doc. No. 68, 39th Cong., 2d
Sess., 91 (1867) (noting how, during the New Orleans riots, blacks
under attack “defended themselves . . . with such pistols
as they had”).

															Witnesses before the Joint Committee on
Reconstruction also described the depredations visited on Southern
blacks, and the efforts they made to defend themselves. One
Virginia music professor related that when “[t]wo Union men were
attacked . . . they drew their revolvers and held their
assailants at bay.” H. R. Rep. No. 30, 39th Cong., 1st Sess.,
pt. 2, p. 110 (1866). An assistant commissioner to the Bureau
from Alabama similarly reported that men were “robbing and
disarming negroes upon the highway,” H. R. Exec. Doc. No. 70,
39th Cong., 1st Sess., 297 (1866), indicating that blacks indeed
carried arms publicly for their self- protection, even if not
always with success. See also H. R. Exec. Doc. No. 329, 40th
Cong., 2d Sess., 41 (1868) (describing a Ku Klux Klan outfit that
rode “through the country . . . robbing every one they
come across of money, pistols, papers, &c.”); id. , at 36
(noting how a black man in Tennessee had been murdered on his way
to get book subscriptions, with the murderer taking, among other
things, the man’s pistol).

															Blacks had “procured great numbers of old army
muskets and revolvers, particularly in Texas,” and “employed them
to protect themselves” with “vigor and audacity.” S. Exec. Doc. No.
43, 39th Cong., 1st Sess., at 8. Seeing that government was
inadequately protecting them, “there [was] the strongest desire on
the part of the freedmen to secure arms, revolvers particularly.”
H. R. Rep. No. 30, 39th Cong., 1st Sess., pt. 3, at 102.

															On July 6, 1868, Congress extended the 1866
Freedmen’s Bureau Act, see 15Stat. 83, and reaffirmed that freedmen
were entitled to the “full and equal benefit of all laws and
proceedings concerning personal liberty [and] personal security
. . . including the constitutional right to keep and
bear arms .” §14, 14Stat. 176 (1866) (emphasis added). That same
day, a Bureau official reported that freedmen in Kentucky and
Tennessee were still constantly under threat: “No Union man or
negro who attempts to take any active part in politics, or the
improvement of his race, is safe a single day; and nearly all sleep
upon their arms at night, and carry concealed weapons during the
day.” H. R. Exec. Doc. No. 329, 40th Cong., 2d Sess., at
40.

															Of course, even during Reconstruction the right
to keep and bear arms had limits. But those limits were consistent
with a right of the public to peaceably carry handguns for
self-defense. For instance, when General D. E. Sickles issued a
decree in 1866 pre-empting South Carolina’s Black Codes—which
prohibited firearm possession by blacks—he stated: “The
constitutional rights of all loyal and well- disposed inhabitants
to bear arms will not be infringed; nevertheless this shall not be
construed to sanction the unlawful practice of carrying concealed
weapons. . . . And no disorderly person, vagrant, or
disturber of the peace, shall be allowed to bear arms.” Cong.
Globe, 39th Cong., 1st Sess., at 908–909; see also McDonald ,
561 U. S., at 847–848 (opinion of Thomas, J.).[ 26 ] Around the same time, the editors of
The Loyal Georgian, a prominent black-owned newspaper, were asked
by “A Colored Citizen” whether “colored persons [have] a right to
own and carry fire arms.” The editors responded that blacks had
“the same right to own and carry fire arms that other citizens have.” The Loyal Georgian, Feb. 3, 1866, p. 3, col.
4. And, borrowing language from a Freedmen’s Bureau circular, the
editors maintained that “[a]ny person, white or black, may be
disarmed if convicted of making an improper or dangerous use of
weapons,” even though “no military or civil officer has the right
or authority to disarm any class of people, thereby placing them at
the mercy of others.” Ibid. (quoting Circular No. 5,
Freedmen’s Bureau, Dec. 22, 1865); see also McDonald , 561
U. S., at 848–849 (opinion of Thomas, J.).[ 27 ]

															As for Reconstruction-era state regulations,
there was little innovation over the kinds of public-carry
restrictions that had been commonplace in the early 19th century.
For instance, South Carolina in 1870 authorized the arrest of “all
who go armed offensively, to the terror of the people,” 1870
S. C. Acts p. 403, no. 288, §4, parroting earlier
statutes that codified the common-law offense. That same year,
after it cleaved from Virginia, West Virginia enacted a surety
statute nearly identical to the one it inherited from Virginia. See
W. Va. Code, ch. 153, §8. Also in 1870, Tennessee essentially
reenacted its 1821 prohibition on the public carry of handguns but,
as explained above, Tennessee courts interpreted that statute to
exempt large pistols suitable for military use. See supra ,
at 46.

															Respondents and the United States, however,
direct our attention primarily to two late-19th-century cases in
Texas. In 1871, Texas law forbade anyone from “carrying on or about
his person . . . any pistol . . . unless he has
reasonable grounds for fearing an unlawful attack on his person.”
1871 Tex. Gen. Laws §1. The Texas Supreme Court upheld that
restriction in English v. State , 35 Tex. 473 (1871).
The Court reasoned that the Second Amendment, and the State’s
constitutional analogue, protected only those arms “as are useful
and proper to an armed militia,” including holster pistols, but not
other kinds of handguns. Id. , at 474–475. Beyond that
constitutional holding, the English court further opined
that the law was not “contrary to public policy,” id. , at
479, given that it “ma[de] all necessary exceptions” allowing
deadly weapons to “be carried as means of self-defense,” and
therefore “fully cover[ed] all wants of society,” id. , at
477.

															Four years later, in State v. Duke , 42 Tex. 455 (1875), the Texas Supreme Court modified
its analysis. The court reinterpreted Texas’ State Constitution to
protect not only military-style weapons but rather all arms “as are
commonly kept, according to the customs of the people, and are
appropriate for open and manly use in self-defense.” Id. , at
458. On that understanding, the court recognized that, in addition
to “holster pistol[s],” the right to bear arms covered the carry of
“such pistols at least as are not adapted to being carried
concealed.” Id. , at 458–459. Nonetheless, after expanding
the scope of firearms that warranted state constitutional
protection, Duke held that requiring any pistol-bearer to
have “ ‘reasonable grounds fearing an unlawful attack on
[one’s] person’ ” was a “legitimate and highly proper”
regulation of handgun carriage. Id. , at 456, 459–460. Duke thus concluded that the 1871 statute “appear[ed] to
have respected the right to carry a pistol openly when needed for
self-defense.” Id. , at 459.

															We acknowledge that the Texas cases support New
York’s proper-cause requirement, which one can analogize to Texas’
“reasonable grounds” standard. But the Texas statute, and the
rationales set forth in English and Duke , are
outliers. In fact, only one other State, West Virginia, adopted a
similar public-carry statute before 1900. See W. Va. Code, ch. 148,
§7 (1887). The West Virginia Supreme Court upheld that prohibition,
reasoning that no handguns of any kind were protected by the
Second Amendment, a rationale endorsed by no other court during
this period. See State v. Workman , 35 W. Va.
367, 371–374, 14 S.E. 9, 11 (1891). The Texas decisions therefore
provide little insight into how postbellum courts viewed the right
to carry protected arms in public.

															In the end, while we recognize the support that
postbellum Texas provides for respondents’ view, we will not give
disproportionate weight to a single state statute and a pair of
state-court decisions. As in Heller , we will not “stake our
interpretation of the Second Amendment upon a single law, in effect
in a single [State], that contradicts the overwhelming weight of
other evidence regarding the right to keep and bear arms for
defense” in public. 554 U. S., at 632.

															5

															Finally, respondents point to the slight
uptick in gun regulation during the late-19th century—principally
in the Western Territories. As we suggested in Heller ,
however, late-19th-century evidence cannot provide much insight
into the meaning of the Second Amendment when it contradicts
earlier evidence. See id. , at 614; supra , at
28.[ 28 ] Here, moreover,
respondents’ reliance on late-19th-century laws has several serious
flaws even beyond their temporal distance from the founding.

															The vast majority of the statutes that
respondents invoke come from the Western Territories. Two
Territories prohibited the carry of pistols in towns, cities, and
villages, but seemingly permitted the carry of rifles and other
long guns everywhere. See 1889 Ariz. Terr. Sess. Laws no. 13, §1,
p. 16; 1869 N. M. Laws ch. 32, §§1–2,
p. 72.[ 29 ] Two others
prohibited the carry of all firearms in towns, cities, and
villages, including long guns. See 1875 Wyo. Terr. Sess. Laws ch.
52, §1; 1889 Idaho Terr. Gen. Laws §1, p. 23. And one
Territory completely prohibited public carry of pistols everywhere , but allowed the carry of “shot-guns or rifles”
for certain purposes. See 1890 Okla. Terr. Stats., Art. 47, §§1–2,
5, p. 495.

															These territorial restrictions fail to justify
New York’s proper-cause requirement for several reasons. First, the
bare existence of these localized restrictions cannot overcome the
overwhelming evidence of an otherwise enduring American tradition
permitting public carry. For starters, “[t]he very transitional and
temporary character of the American [territorial] system” often
“permitted legislative improvisations which might not have been
tolerated in a permanent setup.” E. Pomeroy, The Territories and
the United States 1861–1890, p. 4 (1947). These territorial
“legislative improvisations,” which conflict with the Nation’s
earlier approach to firearm regulation, are most unlikely to
reflect “the origins and continuing significance of the Second
Amendment” and we do not consider them “instructive.” Heller , 554 U. S., at 614.

															The exceptional nature of these western
restrictions is all the more apparent when one considers the
miniscule territorial populations who would have lived under them.
To put that point into perspective, one need not look further than
the 1890 census. Roughly 62 million people lived in the United
States at that time. Arizona, Idaho, New Mexico, Oklahoma, and
Wyoming combined to account for only 420,000 of those
inhabitants—about two-thirds of 1% of the population. See Dept. of
Interior, Compendium of the Eleventh Census: 1890, Part
I.–Population 2 (1892). Put simply, these western restrictions were
irrelevant to more than 99% of the American population. We have
already explained that we will not stake our interpretation of the
Second Amendment upon a law in effect in a single State, or a
single city, “that contradicts the overwhelming weight of other
evidence regarding the right to keep and bear arms” in public for
self-defense. Heller , 554 U. S., at 632; see supra, at 57–58. Similarly, we will not stake our
interpretation on a handful of temporary territorial laws that were
enacted nearly a century after the Second Amendment’s adoption,
governed less than 1% of the American population, and also
“contradic[t] the overwhelming weight” of other, more
contemporaneous historical evidence. Heller , 554 U. S.,
at 632.

															Second, because these territorial laws were
rarely subject to judicial scrutiny, we do not know the basis of
their perceived legality. When States generally prohibited both
open and concealed carry of handguns in the late-19th century,
state courts usually upheld the restrictions when they exempted
army revolvers, or read the laws to exempt at least that category
of weapons. See, e.g. , Haile v. State , 38 Ark.
564, 567 (1882); Wilson v. State , 33 Ark. 557, 560
(1878); Fife v. State , 31 Ark. 455, 461 (1876); State v. Wilburn , 66 Tenn. 57, 60 (1872); Andrews , 50 Tenn., at 187.[ 30 ] Those state courts that upheld broader prohibitions
without qualification generally operated under a fundamental
misunderstanding of the right to bear arms, as expressed in Heller . For example, the Kansas Supreme Court upheld a
complete ban on public carry enacted by the city of Salina in 1901
based on the rationale that the Second Amendment protects only “the
right to bear arms as a member of the state militia, or some other
military organization provided for by law.” Salina v. Blaksley , 72 Kan. 230, 232, 83 P. 619, 620 (1905). That was
clearly erroneous. See Heller , 554 U. S., at 592.

															Absent any evidence explaining why these
unprecedented prohibitions on all public carry were
understood to comport with the Second Amendment, we fail to see how
they inform “the origins and continuing significance of the
Amendment.” Id. , at 614; see also The Federalist No. 37,
at 229 (explaining that the meaning of ambiguous
constitutional provisions can be “liquidated and ascertained by
a series of particular discussions and adjudications ” (emphasis
added)).

															Finally, these territorial restrictions deserve
little weight because they were—consistent with the transitory
nature of territorial government—short lived. Some were held
unconstitutional shortly after passage. See In re
Brickey , 8 Idaho 597, 70 P. 609 (1902). Others did not survive
a Territory’s admission to the Union as a State. See Wyo. Rev.
Stat., ch. 3, §5051 (1899) (1890 law enacted upon statehood
prohibiting public carry only when combined with “intent, or avowed
purpose, of injuring [one’s] fellow-man”). Thus, they appear more
as passing regulatory efforts by not-yet-mature jurisdictions on
the way to statehood, rather than part of an enduring American
tradition of state regulation.

															Beyond these Territories, respondents identify
one Western State—Kansas—that instructed cities with more than
15,000 inhabitants to pass ordinances prohibiting the public carry
of firearms. See 1881 Kan. Sess. Laws §§1, 23, pp. 79,
92.[ 31 ] By 1890, the only
cities meeting the population threshold were Kansas City, Topeka,
and Wichita. See Compendium of the Eleventh Census: 1890, at
442–452. Even if each of these three cities enacted prohibitions by
1890, their combined population (93,000) accounted for only 6.5% of
Kansas’ total population. Ibid. Although other Kansas cities
may also have restricted public carry unilaterally,[ 32 ] the lone late-19th-century state law
respondents identify does not prove that Kansas meaningfully
restricted public carry, let alone demonstrate a broad tradition of
States doing so.

															*  *  *

															At the end of this long journey through the
Anglo-American history of public carry, we conclude that
respondents have not met their burden to identify an American
tradition justifying the State’s proper-cause requirement. The
Second Amendment guaranteed to “all Americans” the right to bear
commonly used arms in public subject to certain reasonable,
well-defined restrictions. Heller , 554 U. S., at 581.
Those restrictions, for example, limited the intent for which one
could carry arms, the manner by which one carried arms, or the
exceptional circumstances under which one could not carry arms,
such as before justices of the peace and other government
officials. Apart from a few late-19th-century outlier
jurisdictions, American governments simply have not broadly
prohibited the public carry of commonly used firearms for personal
defense. Nor, subject to a few late-in-time outliers, have American
governments required law-abiding, responsible citizens to
“demonstrate a special need for self-protection distinguishable
from that of the general community” in order to carry arms in
public. Klenosky , 75 App. Div., at 793, 428
N. Y. S. 2d, at 257.

															IV

															The constitutional right to bear arms in
public for self-defense is not “a second-class right, subject to an
entirely different body of rules than the other Bill of Rights
guarantees.” McDonald , 561 U. S., at 780 (plurality
opinion). We know of no other constitutional right that an
individual may exercise only after demonstrating to government
officers some special need. That is not how the First Amendment
works when it comes to unpopular speech or the free exercise of
religion. It is not how the Sixth Amendment works when it comes to
a defendant’s right to confront the witnesses against him. And it
is not how the Second Amendment works when it comes to public carry
for self-defense.

															New York’s proper-cause requirement violates the
Fourteenth Amendment in that it prevents law-abiding citizens with
ordinary self-defense needs from exercising their right to keep and
bear arms. We therefore reverse the judgment of the Court of
Appeals and remand the case for further proceedings consistent with
this opinion.

															It is so ordered. Notes 1 See Ala. Code §13A–11–75
(Cum. Supp. 2021); Alaska Stat. §18.65.700 (2020); Ariz. Rev. Stat.
Ann. §13–3112 (Cum. Supp. 2021); Ark. Code Ann. §5–73–309 (Supp.
2021); Colo. Rev. Stat. §18–12–206 (2021); Fla. Stat. §790.06
(2021); Ga. Code Ann. §16–11–129 (Supp. 2021); Idaho Code Ann.
§18–3302K (Cum. Supp. 2021); Ill. Comp. Stat., ch. 430, §66/10
(West Cum. Supp. 2021); Ind. Code §35–47–2–3 (2021); Iowa Code
§724.7 (2022); Kan. Stat. Ann. §75–7c03 (2021); Ky. Rev. Stat. Ann.
§237.110 (Lexis Cum. Supp. 2021); La. Rev. Stat. Ann. §40:1379.3
(West Cum. Supp. 2022); Me. Rev. Stat. Ann., Tit. 25, §2003 (Cum.
Supp. 2022); Mich. Comp. Laws §28.425b (2020); Minn. Stat. §624.714
(2020); Miss. Code Ann. §45–9–101 (2022); Mo. Rev. Stat. §571.101
(2016); Mont. Code Ann. §45–8–321 (2021); Neb. Rev. Stat. §69–2430
(2019); Nev. Rev. Stat. §202.3657 (2021); N. H. Rev. Stat.
Ann. §159:6 (Cum. Supp. 2021); N. M. Stat. Ann. §29–19–4
(2018); N. C. Gen. Stat. Ann. §14–415.11 (2021); N. D.
Cent. Code Ann. §62.1–04–03 (Supp. 2021); Ohio Rev. Code Ann.
§2923.125 (2020); Okla. Stat., Tit. 21, §1290.12 (2021); Ore. Rev.
Stat. §166.291 (2021); 18 Pa. Cons. Stat. §6109 (Cum. Supp. 2016);
S. C. Code Ann. §23–31–215(A) (Cum. Supp. 2021); S. D.
Codified Laws §23–7–7 (Cum. Supp. 2021); Tenn. Code Ann.
§39–17–1366 (Supp. 2021); Tex. Govt. Code Ann. §411.177 (West Cum.
Supp. 2021); Utah Code §53–5–704.5 (2022); Va. Code Ann.
§18.2–308.04 (2021); Wash. Rev. Code §9.41.070 (2021); W. Va. Code
Ann. §61–7–4 (2021); Wis. Stat. §175.60 (2021); Wyo. Stat. Ann.
§6–8–104 (2021). Vermont has no permitting system for the concealed
carry of handguns. Three States—Connecticut, Delaware, and Rhode
Island—have discretionary criteria but appear to operate like
“shall issue” jurisdictions. See Conn. Gen. Stat. §29–28(b) (2021);
Del. Code, Tit. 11, §1441 (2022); R. I. Gen. Laws §11–47–11
(2002). Although Connecticut officials have discretion to deny a
concealed-carry permit to anyone who is not a “suitable person,”
see Conn. Gen. Stat. §29–28(b), the “suitable person” standard
precludes permits only to those “individuals whose conduct has
shown them to be lacking the essential character of temperament
necessary to be entrusted with a weapon.” Dwyer v. Farrell , 193 Conn. 7, 12, 475 A.2d 257, 260 (1984) (internal
quotation marks omitted). As for Delaware, the State has thus far
processed 5,680 license applications and renewals in fiscal year
2022 and has denied only 112. See Del. Courts, Super. Ct., Carrying
Concealed Deadly Weapon (June 9, 2022),
https://courts.delaware.gov/forms/download.aspx?ID=125408.
Moreover, Delaware appears to have no licensing requirement for
open carry. Finally, Rhode Island has a suitability requirement,
see R. I. Gen. Laws §11–47–11, but the Rhode Island Supreme
Court has flatly denied that the “[d]emonstration of a proper
showing of need” is a component of that requirement. Gadomski v. Tavares , 113 A.3d 387, 392 (2015).
Additionally, some “shall issue” jurisdictions have so-called
“constitutional carry” protections that allow certain individuals
to carry handguns in public within the State without any permit whatsoever. See, e.g. , A. Sherman, More States Remove
Permit Requirement To Carry a Concealed Gun, PolitiFact (Apr. 12,
2022),
https://www.politifact.com/article/2022/apr/12/more-states-remove-permit-requirement-carry-concea/
(“Twenty-five states now have permitless concealed carry laws
. . . The states that have approved permitless carry laws
are: Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa,
Georgia, Kansas, Kentucky, Maine, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana,
New Hampshire, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Dakota,
Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Vermont, West Virginia, and
Wyoming”). 2 See Cal. Penal Code Ann.
§26150 (West 2021) (“Good cause”); D. C. Code §§7–2509.11(1)
(2018), 22–4506(a) (Cum. Supp. 2021) (“proper reason,” i.e. ,
“special need for self-protection”); Haw. Rev. Stat. §§134–2 (Cum.
Supp. 2018), 134–9(a) (2011) (“exceptional case”); Md. Pub. Saf.
Code Ann. §5–306(a)(6)(ii) (2018) (“good and substantial reason”);
Mass. Gen. Laws, ch. 140, §131(d) (2020) (“good reason”);
N. J. Stat. Ann. §2C:58–4(c) (West Cum. Supp. 2021)
(“justifiable need”). 3 Rather than begin with
its view of the governing legal framework, the dissent chronicles,
in painstaking detail, evidence of crimes committed by individuals
with firearms. See post, at 1–9 (opinion of Breyer, J.). The
dissent invokes all of these statistics presumably to justify
granting States greater leeway in restricting firearm ownership and
use. But, as Members of the Court have already explained, “[t]he
right to keep and bear arms . . . is not the only
constitutional right that has controversial public safety
implications.” McDonald v. Chicago , 561 U.S.
742 , 783 (2010) (plurality opinion). 4 See Association of
N. J. Rifle & Pistol Clubs , Inc. v. Attorney General N. J. , 910 F.3d 106, 117 (CA3 2018);
accord, Worman v. Healey , 922 F.3d 26, 33, 36–39 (CA1
2019); Libertarian Party of Erie Cty. v. Cuomo , 970
F.3d 106, 127–128 (CA2 2020); Harley v. Wilkinson ,
988 F.3d 766, 769 (CA4 2021); National Rifle Assn. of Am. , Inc. v. Bureau of Alcohol , Tobacco , Firearms , and Explosives , 700 F.3d 185, 194–195 (CA5
2012); United States v. Greeno , 679 F.3d 510, 518
(CA6 2012); Kanter v. Barr , 919 F.3d 437, 442 (CA7
2019); Young v. Hawaii , 992 F.3d 765, 783 (CA9 2021)
(en banc); United States v. Reese , 627 F.3d 792,
800–801 (CA10 2010); GeorgiaCarry.Org , Inc. v. Georgia , 687 F.3d 1244, 1260, n. 34 (CA11 2012); United States v. Class , 930 F.3d 460, 463 (CADC
2019). 5 The dissent asserts that
we misread Heller to eschew means-end scrutiny because Heller mentioned that the District of Columbia’s handgun ban
“would fail constitutional muster” “[u]nder any of the standards of
scrutiny that we have applied to enumerated constitutional rights.” Heller , 554 U. S., at 628–629; see post, at 23
(opinion of Breyer, J.). But Heller ’s passing observation
that the District’s ban would fail under any heightened “standar[d]
of scrutiny” did not supplant Heller ’s focus on
constitutional text and history. Rather, Heller ’s comment
“was more of a gilding-the-lily observation about the extreme
nature of D.C.’s law,” Heller v. District of
Columbia , 670 F.3d 1244, 1277 (CADC 2011) (Kavanaugh, J.,
dissenting), than a reflection of Heller ’s methodology or
holding. 6 The dissent claims that Heller ’s text-and-history test will prove unworkable
compared to means-end scrutiny in part because judges are
relatively ill equipped to “resolv[e] difficult historical
questions” or engage in “searching historical surveys.” Post , at 26, 30. We are unpersuaded. The job of judges is
not to resolve historical questions in the abstract; it is to
resolve legal questions presented in particular cases or
controversies. That “legal inquiry is a refined subset” of a
broader “historical inquiry,” and it relies on “various evidentiary
principles and default rules” to resolve uncertainties. W. Baude
& S. Sachs, Originalism and the Law of the Past, 37 L. &
Hist. Rev. 809, 810–811 (2019). For example, “[i]n our adversarial
system of adjudication, we follow the principle of party
presentation.” United States v. Sineneng-Smith , 590
U. S. ___, ___ (2020) (slip op., at 3). Courts are thus
entitled to decide a case based on the historical record compiled
by the parties. 7 This does not mean that
courts may engage in independent means-end scrutiny under the guise
of an analogical inquiry. Again, the Second Amendment is the
“product of an interest balancing by the people ,” not the
evolving product of federal judges. Heller , 554 U. S.,
at 635 (emphasis altered). Analogical reasoning requires judges to
apply faithfully the balance struck by the founding generation to
modern circumstances, and contrary to the dissent’s assertion,
there is nothing “[i]roni[c]” about that undertaking. Post, at 30. It is not an invitation to revise that balance through
means-end scrutiny. 8 The dissent claims that
we cannot answer the question presented without giving respondents
the opportunity to develop an evidentiary record fleshing out “how
New York’s law is administered in practice, how much discretion
licensing officers in New York possess, or whether the proper cause
standard differs across counties.” Post, at 20. We disagree.
The dissent does not dispute that any applicant for an unrestricted
concealed-carry license in New York can satisfy the proper-cause
standard only if he has “ ‘ “a special need for
self-protection distinguishable from that of the general
community.” ’ ” Post, at 13 (quoting Kachalsky v. County of Westchester , 701 F.3d 81, 86
(CA2 2012)). And in light of the text of the Second Amendment,
along with the Nation’s history of firearm regulation, we conclude
below that a State may not prevent law-abiding citizens from
publicly carrying handguns because they have not demonstrated a
special need for self-defense. See infra , at 62. That
conclusion does not depend upon any of the factual questions raised
by the dissent. Nash and Koch allege that they were denied
unrestricted licenses because they had not “demonstrate[d] a
special need for self-defense that distinguished [them] from the
general public.” App. 123, 125. If those allegations are proven
true, then it simply does not matter whether licensing officers
have applied the proper-cause standard differently to other
concealed-carry license applicants; Nash’s and Koch’s
constitutional rights to bear arms in public for self-defense were
still violated. 9 To be clear, nothing in
our analysis should be interpreted to suggest the
unconstitutionality of the 43 States’ “shall-issue” licensing
regimes, under which “a general desire for self-defense is
sufficient to obtain a [permit].” Drake v. Filko , 724
F.3d 426, 442 (CA3 2013) (Hardiman, J., dissenting). Because these
licensing regimes do not require applicants to show an atypical
need for armed self-defense, they do not necessarily prevent
“law-abiding, responsible citizens” from exercising their Second
Amendment right to public carry. District of Columbia v. Heller , 554 U.S.
570 , 635 (2008). Rather, it appears that these shall-issue
regimes, which often require applicants to undergo a background
check or pass a firearms safety course, are designed to ensure only
that those bearing arms in the jurisdiction are, in fact,
“law-abiding, responsible citizens.” Ibid. And they likewise
appear to contain only “narrow, objective, and definite standards”
guiding licensing officials, Shuttlesworth v. Birmingham , 394 U.S.
147 , 151 (1969), rather than requiring the “appraisal of facts,
the exercise of judgment, and the formation of an opinion,” Cantwell v. Connecticut , 310
U.S. 296 , 305 (1940)—features that typify proper-cause
standards like New York’s. That said, because any permitting scheme
can be put toward abusive ends, we do not rule out constitutional
challenges to shall-issue regimes where, for example, lengthy wait
times in processing license applications or exorbitant fees deny
ordinary citizens their right to public carry. 10 Another medieval firearm
restriction—a 1541 statute enacted under Henry VIII that limited
the ownership and use of handguns (which could not be shorter than
a yard) to those subjects with annual property values of at least
£100, see 33 Hen. 8 c. 6, §§1–2—fell into a similar obsolescence.
As far as we can discern, the last recorded prosecutions under the
1541 statute occurred in 1693, neither of which appears to have
been successful. See King and Queen v. Bullock , 4 Mod. 147, 87 Eng. Rep. 315 (K. B. 1693); King v. Litten , 1 Shower, K. B. 367, 89 Eng. Rep. 644
(K. B. 1693). It seems that other prosecutions under the 1541
statute during the late 1600s were similarly unsuccessful. See King v. Silcot , 3 Mod. 280, 280–281, 87 Eng. Rep. 186
(K. B. 1690); King v. Lewellin , 1 Shower, K. B. 48,
89 Eng. Rep. 440 (K. B. 1689); cf. King and Queen v. Alsop , 4 Mod. 49, 50–51, 87 Eng. Rep. 256, 256–257 (K. B.
1691). By the late 1700s, it was widely recognized that the 1541
statute was “obsolete.” 2 R. Burn, The Justice of the Peace, and
Parish Officer 243, n. (11th ed. 1769); see also, e.g., The
Farmer’s Lawyer 143 (1774) (“entirely obsolete”); 1 G. Jacob,
Game-Laws II, Law-Dictionary (T. Tomlins ed. 1797); 2 R. Burn, The
Justice of the Peace, and Parish Officer 409 (18th ed. 1797)
(calling the 1541 statute “a matter more of curiosity than use”).
In any event, lest one be tempted to put much evidentiary weight on
the 1541 statute, it impeded not only public carry, but further
made it unlawful for those without sufficient means to “kepe in his
or their houses” any “handgun.” 33 Hen. 8 c. 6, §1. Of course, this
kind of limitation is inconsistent with Heller ’s historical
analysis regarding the Second Amendment’s meaning at the founding
and thereafter. So, even if a severe restriction on keeping
firearms in the home may have seemed appropriate in the mid-1500s,
it was not incorporated into the Second Amendment’s scope. We see
little reason why the parts of the 1541 statute that address public
carry should not be understood similarly. We note also that even
this otherwise restrictive 1541 statute, which generally prohibited
shooting firearms in any city, exempted discharges “for the defence
of [one’s] p[er]son or house.” §4. Apparently, the paramount need
for self-defense trumped the Crown’s interest in firearm
suppression even during the 16th century. 11 The
dissent discounts Sir John Knight’s Case , 3 Mod. 117, 87
Eng. Rep. 75, because it only “arguably” supports the view that an
evil-intent requirement attached to the Statute of Northampton by
the late 1600s and early 1700s. See post , at 37. But again,
because the Second Amendment’s bare text covers petitioners’ public
carry, the respondents here shoulder the burden of demonstrating
that New York’s proper-cause requirement is consistent with the
Second Amendment’s text and historical scope. See supra, at
15. To the extent there are multiple plausible interpretations of Sir John Knight’s Case , we will favor the one that is more
consistent with the Second Amendment’s command. 12 Even
Catholics, who fell beyond the protection of the right to have
arms, and who were stripped of all “Arms, Weapons, Gunpowder, [and]
Ammunition,” were at least allowed to keep “such necessary Weapons
as shall be allowed . . . by Order of the Justices of the
Peace . . . for the Defence of his House or Person.” 1
Wm. & Mary c. 15, §4, in 3 Eng. Stat. at Large 399
(1688). 13 Even
assuming that pocket pistols were, as East Jersey in 1686 deemed
them, “unusual or unlawful,” it appears that they were commonly
used at least by the founding. See, e.g. , G. Neumann, The
History of Weapons of the American Revolution 150–151 (1967); see
also H. Hendrick, P. Paradis, & R. Hornick, Human Factors
Issues in Handgun Safety and Forensics 44 (2008). 14 The
Virginia statute all but codified the existing common law in this
regard. See G. Webb, The Office and Authority of a Justice of Peace
92 (1736) (explaining how a constable “may take away Arms from such
who ride, or go, offensively armed, in Terror of the
People”). 15 The
dissent concedes that Huntly , 25 N. C. 418, recognized
that citizens were “ ‘at perfect liberty’  to carry for
‘lawful purpose[s].’ ” Post , at 42 (quoting Huntly , 25 N. C., at 423). But the dissent disputes
that such “lawful purpose[s]” included self-defense, because Huntly goes on to speak more specifically of carrying arms
for “business or amusement.” Id. , at 422–423. This is an
unduly stingy interpretation of Huntly . In particular, Huntly stated that “the citizen is at perfect liberty to
carry his gun” “[f]or any lawful purpose,” of which
“business” and “amusement” were then mentioned. Ibid. (emphasis added). Huntly then contrasted these “lawful
purpose[s]” with the “wicked purpose . . . to terrify and
alarm.” Ibid. Because there is no evidence that Huntly considered self-defense a “wicked purpose,” we think
the best reading of Huntly would sanction public carry for
self-defense, so long as it was not “in such [a] manner as
naturally will terrify and alarm.” Id. , at 423. 16 Beginning in 1813 with Kentucky, six
States (five of which were in the South) enacted laws prohibiting
the concealed carry of pistols by 1846. See 1813 Ky. Acts §1,
p. 100; 1813 La. Acts p. 172; 1820 Ind. Acts p. 39;
Ark. Rev. Stat. §13, p. 280 (1838); 1838 Va. Acts ch. 101, §1,
p. 76; 1839 Ala. Acts no. 77, §1. During this period, Georgia
enacted a law that appeared to prohibit both concealed and open
carry, see 1837 Ga. Acts §§1, 4, p. 90, but the Georgia
Supreme Court later held that the prohibition could not extend to
open carry consistent with the Second Amendment. See infra ,
at 45–46. Between 1846 and 1859, only one other State, Ohio, joined
this group. 1859 Ohio Laws §1, p. 56. Tennessee, meanwhile,
enacted in 1821 a broader law that prohibited carrying, among other
things, “belt or pocket pistols, either public or private,” except
while traveling. 1821 Tenn. Acts ch. 13, §1, p. 15. And the
Territory of Florida prohibited concealed carry during this same
timeframe. See 1835 Terr. of Fla. Laws p. 423. 17 See State v. Mitchell , 3 Blackf. 229 (Ind. 1833); State v. Reid , 1 Ala. 612, 616 (1840); State v. Buzzard , 4 Ark. 18 (1842); Nunn v. State , 1
Ga. 243 (1846); State v. Chandler , 5 La. 489 (1850); State v. Smith , 11 La. 633 (1856); State v. Jumel , 13 La. 399 (1858). But see Bliss v. Commonwealth , 12 Ky. 90 (1822). See generally 2 J. Kent,
Commentaries on American Law *340, n. b . 18 See Reid , 1 Ala., at 619 (holding that “the Legislature cannot
inhibit the citizen from bearing arms openly”); id. , at 621
(noting that there was no evidence “tending to show that the
defendant could not have defended himself as successfully, by
carrying the pistol openly, as by secreting it about his
person”). 19 See, e.g. , Chandler , 5 La., at 490 (Louisiana
concealed-carry prohibition “interfered with no man’s right to
carry arms (to use its words) ‘in full open view,’ which places men
upon an equality”); Smith , 11 La., at 633 (The “arms”
described in the Second Amendment “are such as are borne by a
people in war, or at least carried openly”); Jumel , 13 La.,
at 399–400 (“The statute in question does not infringe the right of
the people to keep or bear arms. It is a measure of police,
prohibiting only a particular mode of bearing arms which is
found dangerous to the peace of society”). 20 With
respect to Indiana’s concealed-carry prohibition, the Indiana
Supreme Court’s reasons for upholding it are unknown because the
court issued a one-sentence per curiam order holding the law
“not unconstitutional.” Mitchell , 3 Blackf., at 229.
Similarly, the Arkansas Supreme Court upheld Arkansas’ prohibition,
but without reaching a majority rationale. See Buzzard , 4
Ark. 18. The Arkansas Supreme Court would later adopt Tennessee’s
approach, which tolerated the prohibition of all public carry of
handguns except for military-style revolvers. See, e.g. , Fife v. State , 31 Ark. 455 (1876). 21 Shortly after Andrews , 50
Tenn. 165, Tennessee codified an exception to the State’s handgun
ban for “an[y] army pistol, or such as are commonly carried and
used in the United States Army” so long as they were carried
“openly in [one’s] hands.” 1871 Tenn. Pub. Acts ch. 90, §1; see
also State v. Wilburn , 66 Tenn. 57, 61–63 (1872); Porter v. State , 66 Tenn. 106, 107–108
(1874). 22 The
Territory of New Mexico made it a crime in 1860 to carry “any class
of pistols whatever” “concealed or otherwise.” 1860 Terr. of
N. M. Laws §§1–2, p. 94. This extreme restriction is an
outlier statute enacted by a territorial government nearly 70 years
after the ratification of the Bill of Rights, and its
constitutionality was never tested in court. Its value in
discerning the original meaning of the Second Amendment is
insubstantial. Moreover, like many other stringent carry
restrictions that were localized in the Western Territories, New
Mexico’s prohibition ended when the Territory entered the Union as
a State in 1911 and guaranteed in its State Constitution that
“[t]he people have the right to bear arms for their security and
defense, but nothing herein shall be held to permit the carrying of
concealed weapons.” N. M. Const., Art. II, §6 (1911); see infra , at 61. 23 See
1838 Terr. of Wis. Stat. §16, p. 381; Me. Rev. Stat., ch. 169,
§16 (1840); Mich. Rev. Stat., ch. 162, §16 (1846); 1847 Va. Acts
ch. 14, §16; Terr. of Minn. Rev. Stat., ch. 112, §18 (1851); 1854
Ore. Stat. ch. 16, §17, p. 220; D. C. Rev. Code ch. 141,
§16 (1857); 1860 Pa. Laws p. 432, §6; W. Va. Code, ch. 153, §8
(1868). 24 It is
true that two of the antebellum surety laws were unusually broad in
that they did not expressly require a citizen complaint to trigger
the posting of a surety. See 1847 Va. Acts ch. 14, §16; W. Va.
Code, ch. 153, §8 (1868). 25 The
dissent speculates that the absence of recorded cases involving
surety laws may simply “show that these laws were normally
followed.” Post, at 45. Perhaps. But again, the burden rests
with the government to establish the relevant tradition of
regulation, see supra, at 15, and, given all of the other
features of surety laws that make them poor analogues to New York’s
proper-cause standard, we consider the barren record of enforcement
to be simply one additional reason to discount their
relevance. 26 Respondents invoke General Orders No.
10, which covered the Second Military District (North and South
Carolina), and provided that “[t]he practice of carrying deadly
weapons, except by officers and soldiers in the military service of
the United States, is prohibited.” Headquarters Second Military
Dist., Gen. Orders No. 10 (Charleston, S. C., Apr. 11, 1867),
in S. Exec. Doc. No. 14, 40th Cong., 1st Sess., 64 (1867). We put
little weight on this categorical restriction given that the order
also specified that a violation of this prohibition would “render
the offender amenable to trial and punishment by military
commission,” ibid. , rather than a jury otherwise guaranteed
by the Constitution. There is thus little indication that these
military dictates were designed to align with the Constitution’s
usual application during times of peace. 27 That
said, Southern prohibitions on concealed carry were not always
applied equally, even when under federal scrutiny. One lieutenant
posted in Saint Augustine, Florida, remarked how local enforcement
of concealed-carry laws discriminated against blacks: “To sentence
a negro to several dollars’ fine for carrying a revolver concealed
upon his person, is in accordance with an ordinance of the town;
but still the question naturally arises in my mind, ‘Why is this
poor fellow fined for an offence which is committed hourly by every
other white man I meet in the streets?’ ” H. R. Exec. Doc. No.
57, 40th Cong., 2d Sess., 83 (1867); see also H. R. Rep. No. 16,
39th Cong., 2d Sess., 427 (1867). 28 We
will not address any of the 20th-century historical evidence
brought to bear by respondents or their amici . As with their
late-19th-century evidence, the 20th-century evidence presented by
respondents and their amici does not provide insight into
the meaning of the Second Amendment when it contradicts earlier
evidence. 29 The
New Mexico restriction allowed an exception for individuals
carrying for “the lawful defence of themselves, their families or
their property, and the same being then and there threatened with
danger.” 1869 Terr. of N. M. Laws ch. 32, §1, p. 72. The
Arizona law similarly exempted those who have “reasonable ground
for fearing an unlawful attack upon his person.” 1889 Ariz. Terr.
Sess. Laws no. 13, §2, p. 17. 30 Many
other state courts during this period continued the antebellum
tradition of upholding concealed carry regimes that seemingly
provided for open carry. See, e.g. , State v. Speller , 86 N. C. 697 (1882); Chatteaux v. State , 52 Ala. 388 (1875); Eslava v. State , 49
Ala. 355 (1873); State v. Shelby , 90 Mo. 302, 2 S.W.
468 (1886); Carroll v. State , 28 Ark. 99 (1872); cf. Robertson v. Baldwin , 165
U.S. 275 , 281–282 (1897) (remarking in dicta that “the right of
the people to keep and bear arms . . . is not infringed
by laws prohibiting the carrying of concealed
weapons”). 31 In
1875, Arkansas prohibited the public carry of all pistols. See 1875
Ark. Acts p. 156, §1. But this categorical prohibition was
also short lived. About six years later, Arkansas exempted “pistols
as are used in the army or navy of the United States,” so long as
they were carried “uncovered, and in [the] hand.” 1881 Ark. Acts
p. 191, no. 96, §§1, 2. 32 In
1879, Salina, Kansas, prohibited the carry of pistols but broadly
exempted “cases when any person carrying [a pistol] is engaged in
the pursuit of any lawful business, calling or employment” and the
circumstances were “such as to justify a prudent man in carrying
such weapon, for the defense of his person, property or family.”
Salina, Kan., Rev. Ordinance No. 268, §2. SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES

															_________________

															No. 20–843

															_________________

															New York State Rifle & Pistol Association,
Inc., et al., PETITIONERS v. Kevin P. Bruen, in his
official capacity as Superintendent of New York State Police,
et al.

															on writ of certiorari to the united states
court of appeals for the second circuit

															[June 23, 2022]

															Justice Alito, concurring.

															I join the opinion of the Court in full but add
the following comments in response to the dissent.

															I

															Much of the dissent seems designed to obscure
the specific question that the Court has decided, and therefore it
may be helpful to provide a succinct summary of what we have
actually held. In District of Columbia v. Heller , 554 U.S.
570 (2008), the Court concluded that the Second Amendment
protects the right to keep a handgun in the home for self-defense. Heller found that the Amendment codified a preexisting right
and that this right was regarded at the time of the Amendment’s
adoption as rooted in “ ‘the natural right of resistance and
self-preservation.’ ” Id., at 594. “[T]he inherent
right of self-defense,” Heller explained, is “central to the
Second Amendment right.” Id ., at 628.

															Although Heller concerned the possession
of a handgun in the home, the key point that we decided was that
“the people,” not just members of the “militia,” have the right to
use a firearm to defend themselves. And because many people face a
serious risk of lethal violence when they venture outside their
homes, the Second Amendment was understood at the time of adoption
to apply under those circumstances. The Court’s exhaustive
historical survey establishes that point very clearly, and today’s
decision therefore holds that a State may not enforce a law, like
New York’s Sullivan Law, that effectively prevents its law-abiding
residents from carrying a gun for this purpose.

															That is all we decide. Our holding decides
nothing about who may lawfully possess a firearm or the
requirements that must be met to buy a gun. Nor does it decide
anything about the kinds of weapons that people may possess. Nor
have we disturbed anything that we said in Heller or McDonald v. Chicago , 561 U.S.
742 (2010), about restrictions that may be imposed on the
possession or carrying of guns.

															In light of what we have actually held, it is
hard to see what legitimate purpose can possibly be served by most
of the dissent’s lengthy introductory section. See post , at
1–8 (opinion of Breyer, J.). Why, for example, does the
dissent think it is relevant to recount the mass shootings that
have occurred in recent years? Post , at 4–5. Does the
dissent think that laws like New York’s prevent or deter such
atrocities? Will a person bent on carrying out a mass shooting be
stopped if he knows that it is illegal to carry a handgun outside
the home? And how does the dissent account for the fact that one of
the mass shootings near the top of its list took place in Buffalo?
The New York law at issue in this case obviously did not stop that
perpetrator.

															What is the relevance of statistics about the
use of guns to commit suicide? See post , at 5–6. Does the
dissent think that a lot of people who possess guns in their homes
will be stopped or deterred from shooting themselves if they cannot
lawfully take them outside?

															The dissent cites statistics about the use of
guns in domestic disputes, see post, at 5, but it does not
explain why these statistics are relevant to the question presented
in this case. How many of the cases involving the use of a gun in a
domestic dispute occur outside the home, and how many are prevented
by laws like New York’s?

															The dissent cites statistics on children and
adolescents killed by guns, see post, at 1, 4, but what does
this have to do with the question whether an adult who is licensed
to possess a handgun may be prohibited from carrying it outside the
home? Our decision, as noted, does not expand the categories of
people who may lawfully possess a gun, and federal law generally
forbids the possession of a handgun by a person who is under the
age of 18, 18 U. S. C. §§922(x)(2)–(5), and bars the sale
of a handgun to anyone under the age of 21, §§922(b)(1),
(c)(1).[ 1 ]

															The dissent cites the large number of guns in
private hands—nearly 400 million—but it does not explain what this
statistic has to do with the question whether a person who already
has the right to keep a gun in the home for self-defense is likely
to be deterred from acquiring a gun by the knowledge that the gun
cannot be carried outside the home. See post , at 3. And
while the dissent seemingly thinks that the ubiquity of guns and
our country’s high level of gun violence provide reasons for
sustaining the New York law, the dissent appears not to understand
that it is these very facts that cause law-abiding citizens to feel
the need to carry a gun for self-defense.

															No one apparently knows how many of the 400
million privately held guns are in the hands of criminals, but
there can be little doubt that many muggers and rapists are armed
and are undeterred by the Sullivan Law. Each year, the New York
City Police Department (NYPD) confiscates thousands of
guns,[ 2 ] and it is fair to
assume that the number of guns seized is a fraction of the total
number held unlawfully. The police cannot disarm every person who
acquires a gun for use in criminal activity; nor can they provide
bodyguard protection for the State’s nearly 20 million residents or
the 8.8 million people who live in New York City. Some of these
people live in high-crime neighborhoods. Some must traverse dark
and dangerous streets in order to reach their homes after work or
other evening activities. Some are members of groups whose members
feel especially vulnerable. And some of these people reasonably
believe that unless they can brandish or, if necessary, use a
handgun in the case of attack, they may be murdered, raped, or
suffer some other serious injury.

															Ordinary citizens frequently use firearms to
protect themselves from criminal attack. According to survey data,
defensive firearm use occurs up to 2.5 million times per year.
Brief for Law Enforcement Groups et al. as Amici Curiae 5. A
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report commissioned by
former President Barack Obama reviewed the literature surrounding
firearms use and noted that “[s]tudies that directly assessed the
effect of actual defensive uses of guns . . . have found
consistently lower injury rates among gun-using crime victims
compared with victims who used other self-protective strategies.”
Institute of Medicine and National Research Council, Priorities for
Research To Reduce the Threat of Firearm-Related Violence 15–16
(2013) (referenced in Brief for Independent Women’s Law Center as Amicus Curiae 19–20).

															Many of the amicus briefs filed in this
case tell the story of such people. Some recount incidents in which
a potential victim escaped death or serious injury only because
carrying a gun for self-defense was allowed in the jurisdiction
where the incident occurred. Here are two examples. One night in
1987, Austin Fulk, a gay man from Arkansas, “was chatting with
another man in a parking lot when four gay bashers charged them
with baseball bats and tire irons. Fulk’s companion drew his pistol
from under the seat of his car, brandished it at the attackers, and
fired a single shot over their heads, causing them to flee and
saving the would-be victims from serious harm.” Brief for DC
Project Foundation et al. as Amici Curiae 31 (footnote
omitted).

															On July 7, 2020, a woman was brutally assaulted
in the parking lot of a fast food restaurant in Jefferson City,
Tennessee. Her assailant slammed her to the ground and began to
drag her around while strangling her. She was saved when a
bystander who was lawfully carrying a pistol pointed his gun at the
assailant, who then stopped the assault and the assailant was
arrested. Ibid. (citing C. Wethington, Jefferson City
Police: Legally Armed Good Samaritan Stops Assault, ABC News 6,
WATE.com (July 9, 2020),
https://www.wate.com/news/local-news/jefferson-city-police-legally-armed-good-samaritan-stops-assault/).

															In other incidents, a law-abiding person was
driven to violate the Sullivan Law because of fear of victimization
and as a result was arrested, prosecuted, and incarcerated. See
Brief for Black Attorneys of Legal Aid et al. as Amici
Curiae 22–25.

															Some briefs were filed by members of groups
whose members feel that they have special reasons to fear attacks.
See Brief for Asian Pacific American Gun Owners Association as Amicus Curiae ; Brief for DC Project Foundation et al.
as Amici Curiae ; Brief for Black Guns Matter
et al . as Amici Curiae ; Brief for Independent
Women’s Law Center as Amicus Curiae ; Brief for National
African American Gun Association, Inc., as Amicus
Curiae .

															I reiterate: All that we decide in this case is
that the Second Amendment protects the right of law-abiding people
to carry a gun outside the home for self-defense and that the
Sullivan Law, which makes that virtually impossible for most New
Yorkers, is unconstitutional.

															II

															This brings me to Part II–B of the dissent, post , at 11–21, which chastises the Court for deciding this
case without a trial and factual findings about just how hard it is
for a law-abiding New Yorker to get a carry permit. The record
before us, however, tells us everything we need on this score. At
argument, New York’s solicitor general was asked about an ordinary
person who works at night and must walk through dark and
crime-infested streets to get home. Tr. of Oral Arg. 66–67. The
solicitor general was asked whether such a person would be issued a
carry permit if she pleaded: “[T]here have been a lot of muggings
in this area, and I am scared to death.” Id., at 67. The
solicitor general’s candid answer was “in general,” no. Ibid. To get a permit, the applicant would have to show
more—for example, that she had been singled out for attack. Id., at 65; see also id., at 58. A law that dictates
that answer violates the Second Amendment.

															III

															My final point concerns the dissent’s
complaint that the Court relies too heavily on history and should
instead approve the sort of “means-end” analysis employed in this
case by the Second Circuit. Under that approach, a court, in most
cases, assesses a law’s burden on the Second Amendment right and
the strength of the State’s interest in imposing the challenged
restriction. See post , at 20. This mode of analysis places
no firm limits on the ability of judges to sustain any law
restricting the possession or use of a gun. Two examples illustrate
the point.

															The first is the Second Circuit’s decision in a
case the Court decided two Terms ago, New York State Rifle &
Pistol Assn., Inc. v. City of New York , 590 U. S.
___ (2020). The law in that case affected New York City residents
who had been issued permits to keep a gun in the home for self-
defense. The city recommended that these permit holders practice at
a range to ensure that they are able to handle their guns safely,
but the law prohibited them from taking their guns to any range
other than the seven that were spread around the city’s five
boroughs. Even if such a person unloaded the gun, locked it in the
trunk of a car, and drove to the nearest range, that person would
violate the law if the nearest range happened to be outside city
limits. The Second Circuit held that the law was constitutional,
concluding, among other things, that the restriction was
substantially related to the city’s interests in public safety and
crime prevention. See New York State Rifle & Pistol Assn.,
Inc. v. New York , 883 F.3d 45, 62–64 (2018). But after
we agreed to review that decision, the city repealed the law and
admitted that it did not actually have any beneficial effect on
public safety. See N. Y. Penal Law Ann. §400.00(6) (West Cum.
Supp. 2022); Suggestion of Mootness in New York State Rifle
& Pistol Assn., Inc. v. City of New York , O. T.
2019, No. 18–280, pp. 5–7.

															Exhibit two is the dissent filed in Heller by Justice Breyer, the author of today’s dissent. At
issue in Heller was an ordinance that made it impossible for
any District of Columbia resident to keep a handgun in the home for
self-defense. See 554 U. S., at 574–575. Even the respondent,
who carried a gun on the job while protecting federal facilities,
did not qualify. Id., at 575–576. The District of Columbia
law was an extreme outlier; only a few other jurisdictions in the
entire country had similar laws. Nevertheless, Justice Breyer’s
dissent, while accepting for the sake of argument that the Second
Amendment protects the right to keep a handgun in the home,
concluded, based on essentially the same test that today’s dissent
defends, that the District’s complete ban was constitutional. See id., at 689, 722 (under “an interest-balancing
inquiry. . .” the dissent would “conclude that the
District’s measure is a proportionate, not a disproportionate,
response to the compelling concerns that led the District to adopt
it”).

															Like that dissent in Heller , the real
thrust of today’s dissent is that guns are bad and that States and
local jurisdictions should be free to restrict them essentially as
they see fit.[ 3 ] That argument
was rejected in Heller , and while the dissent protests that
it is not rearguing Heller , it proceeds to do just that. See post , at 25–28. Heller correctly recognized that the
Second Amendment codifies the right of ordinary law-abiding
Americans to protect themselves from lethal violence by possessing
and, if necessary, using a gun. In 1791, when the Second Amendment
was adopted, there were no police departments, and many families
lived alone on isolated farms or on the frontiers. If these people
were attacked, they were on their own. It is hard to imagine the
furor that would have erupted if the Federal Government and the
States had tried to take away the guns that these people needed for
protection.

															Today, unfortunately, many Americans have good
reason to fear that they will be victimized if they are unable to
protect themselves. And today, no less than in 1791, the Second
Amendment guarantees their right to do so. Notes 1 The dissent makes no
effort to explain the relevance of most of the incidents and
statistics cited in its introductory section ( post , at 1–8)
(opinion of Breyer, J.). Instead, it points to studies (summarized
later in its opinion) regarding the effects of “shall issue”
licensing regimes on rates of homicide and other violent crimes. I
note only that the dissent’s presentation of such studies is
one-sided. See RAND Corporation, Effects of Concealed-Carry Laws on
Violent Crime (Apr. 22,
2022), https://www.rand.org/research/gun-policy/analysis/concealed-carry/violent-crime-html;
see also Brief for William English et al. as Amici Curiae 3
(“The overwhelming weight of statistical analysis on the effects of
[right-to-carry] laws on violent crime concludes that RTC laws do
not result in any statistically significant increase in violent
crime rates”); Brief for Arizona et al. as Amici Curiae 12 (“[P]opulation-level data on licensed carry is extensive, and
the weight of the evidence confirms that objective,
non-discriminatory licensed-carry laws have two results: (1)
statistically significant reductions in some types of violent
crime, or (2) no statistically significant effect on overall
violent crime”); Brief for Law Enforcement Groups et al. as Amici Curiae 12 (“[O]ver the period 1991–2019 the inventory
of firearms more than doubled; the number of concealed carry
permits increased by at least sevenfold,” but “murder rates fell by
almost half, from 9.8 per 100,000 people in 1991 to 5.0 per 100,000
in 2019” and “[v]iolent crimes plummeted by over
half ”). 2 NYPD statistics show
approximately 6,000 illegal guns were seized in 2021. A. Southall,
This Police Captain’s Plan To Stop Gun Violence Uses More Than
Handcuffs, N. Y. Times, Feb. 4, 2022. According to recent
remarks by New York City Mayor Eric Adams, the NYPD has confiscated
3,000 firearms in 2022 so far. City of New York, Transcript: Mayor
Eric Adams Makes Announcement About NYPD Gun Violence Suppression
Division (June 6, 2022),
https://www1.nyc.gov/office-of-the-mayor/news/369-22/trascript-mayor-eric-adams-makes-announcement-nypd-gun-violence-suppression-division. 3 If we put together the
dissent in this case and Justice Breyer’s Heller dissent,
States and local governments would essentially be free to ban the
possession of all handguns, and it is unclear whether its approach
would impose any significant restrictions on laws regulating long
guns. The dissent would extend a very large measure of deference to
legislation implicating Second Amendment rights, but it does not
claim that such deference is appropriate when any other
constitutional right is at issue. SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES

															_________________

															No. 20–843

															_________________

															New York State Rifle & Pistol Association,
Inc., et al., PETITIONERS v. Kevin P. Bruen, in his
official capacity as Superintendent of New York State Police,
et al.

															on writ of certiorari to the united states
court of appeals for the second circuit

															[June 23, 2022]

															Justice Kavanaugh, with whom The Chief Justice
joins, concurring.

															The Court employs and elaborates on the text,
history, and tradition test that Heller and McDonald require for evaluating whether a government regulation infringes on
the Second Amendment right to possess and carry guns for
self-defense. See District of Columbia v. Heller , 554 U.S.
570 (2008); McDonald v. Chicago , 561 U.S.
742 (2010). Applying that test, the Court correctly holds that
New York’s outlier “may-issue” licensing regime for carrying
handguns for self-defense violates the Second Amendment.

															I join the Court’s opinion, and I write
separately to underscore two important points about the limits of
the Court’s decision. First , the Court’s decision does not
prohibit States from imposing licensing requirements for carrying a
handgun for self-defense. In particular, the Court’s decision does
not affect the existing licensing regimes—known as “shall-issue”
regimes—that are employed in 43 States.

															The Court’s decision addresses only the unusual
discretionary licensing regimes, known as “may-issue” regimes, that
are employed by 6 States including New York. As the Court explains,
New York’s outlier may-issue regime is constitutionally problematic
because it grants open-ended discretion to licensing officials and
authorizes licenses only for those applicants who can show some
special need apart from self-defense. Those features of New York’s
regime—the unchanneled discretion for licensing officials and the
special-need requirement—in effect deny the right to carry handguns
for self-defense to many “ordinary, law-abiding citizens.” Ante , at 1; see also Heller , 554 U. S., at 635.
The Court has held that “individual self-defense is ‘the central
component ’ of the Second Amendment right.” McDonald , 561
U. S., at 767 (quoting Heller , 554 U. S., at 599).
New York’s law is inconsistent with the Second Amendment right to
possess and carry handguns for self-defense.

															By contrast, 43 States employ objective
shall-issue licensing regimes. Those shall-issue regimes may
require a license applicant to undergo fingerprinting, a background
check, a mental health records check, and training in firearms
handling and in laws regarding the use of force, among other
possible requirements. Brief for Arizona et al. as Amici
Curiae 7. Unlike New York’s may-issue regime, those shall-issue
regimes do not grant open-ended discretion to licensing officials
and do not require a showing of some special need apart from
self-defense. As petitioners acknowledge, shall-issue licensing
regimes are constitutionally permissible, subject of course to an
as-applied challenge if a shall-issue licensing regime does not
operate in that manner in practice. Tr. of Oral Arg. 50−51.

															Going forward, therefore, the 43 States that
employ objective shall-issue licensing regimes for carrying
handguns for self-defense may continue to do so. Likewise, the 6
States including New York potentially affected by today’s decision
may continue to require licenses for carrying handguns for
self-defense so long as those States employ objective licensing
requirements like those used by the 43 shall-issue States. Second , as Heller and McDonald established and the Court today again explains, the
Second Amendment “is neither a regulatory straightjacket nor a
regulatory blank check.” Ante , at 21. Properly interpreted,
the Second Amendment allows a “variety” of gun regulations. Heller , 554 U. S., at 636. As Justice Scalia wrote in
his opinion for the Court in Heller , and Justice Alito
reiterated in relevant part in the principal opinion in McDonald :

															“Like most rights, the right secured by the
Second Amendment is not unlimited. From Blackstone through the
19th-century cases, commentators and courts routinely explained
that the right was not a right to keep and carry any weapon
whatsoever in any manner whatsoever and for whatever
purpose. . . . [N]othing in our opinion should be
taken to cast doubt on longstanding prohibitions on the possession
of firearms by felons and the mentally ill, or laws forbidding the
carrying of firearms in sensitive places such as schools and
government buildings, or laws imposing conditions and
qualifications on the commercial sale of arms. [Footnote 26: We
identify these presumptively lawful regulatory measures only as
examples; our list does not purport to be exhaustive.]

															“We also recognize another important limitation
on the right to keep and carry arms. Miller said, as we have
explained, that the sorts of weapons protected were those in common
use at the time. We think that limitation is fairly supported by
the historical tradition of prohibiting the carrying of dangerous
and unusual weapons.” Heller , 554 U. S., at 626−627,
and n. 26 (citations and quotation marks omitted); see also McDonald , 561 U. S., at 786 (plurality opinion).

															*  *  *

															With those additional comments, I join the
opinion of the Court. SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES

															_________________

															No. 20–843

															_________________

															New York State Rifle & Pistol Association,
Inc., et al., PETITIONERS v. Kevin P. Bruen, in his
official capacity as Superintendent of New York State Police,
et al.

															on writ of certiorari to the united states
court of appeals for the second circuit

															[June 23, 2022]

															Justice Barrett, concurring.

															I join the Court’s opinion in full. I write
separately to highlight two methodological points that the Court
does not resolve. First, the Court does not conclusively determine
the manner and circumstances in which postratification practice may
bear on the original meaning of the Constitution. See ante ,
at 24–29. Scholars have proposed competing and potentially
conflicting frameworks for this analysis, including liquidation,
tradition, and precedent. See, e.g. , Nelson, Originalism and
Interpretive Conventions, 70 U. Chi. L. Rev. 519 (2003);
McConnell, Time, Institutions, and Interpretation, 95 B. U. L.
Rev. 1745 (2015). The limits on the permissible use of history may
vary between these frameworks (and between different articulations
of each one). To name just a few unsettled questions: How long
after ratification may subsequent practice illuminate original
public meaning? Cf. McCulloch v. Maryland , 4 Wheat.
316, 401 (1819) (citing practice “introduced at a very early period
of our history”). What form must practice take to carry weight in
constitutional analysis? See Myers v. United States , 272 U.S.
52 , 175 (1926) (citing a “legislative exposition of the
Constitution . . . acquiesced in for a long term of
years”). And may practice settle the meaning of individual rights
as well as structural provisions? See Baude, Constitutional
Liquidation, 71 Stan. L. Rev. 1, 49–51 (2019) (canvassing
arguments). The historical inquiry presented in this case does not
require us to answer such questions, which might make a difference
in another case. See ante , at 17–19.

															Second and relatedly, the Court avoids another
“ongoing scholarly debate on whether courts should primarily rely
on the prevailing understanding of an individual right when the
Fourteenth Amendment was ratified in 1868” or when the Bill of
Rights was ratified in 1791. Ante , at 29. Here, the lack of
support for New York’s law in either period makes it unnecessary to
choose between them. But if 1791 is the benchmark, then New York’s
appeals to Reconstruction-era history would fail for the
independent reason that this evidence is simply too late (in
addition to too little). Cf. Espinoza v. Montana Dept. of
Revenue , 591 U. S. ___, ___–___ (2020) (slip op., at
15–16) (a practice that “arose in the second half of the 19th
century . . . cannot by itself establish an early
American tradition” informing our understanding of the First
Amendment). So today’s decision should not be understood to endorse
freewheeling reliance on historical practice from the mid-to-late
19th century to establish the original meaning of the Bill of
Rights. On the contrary, the Court is careful to caution “against
giving postenactment history more weight than it can rightly bear.” Ante , at 26. SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES

															_________________

															No. 20–843

															_________________

															New York State Rifle & Pistol Association,
Inc., et al., PETITIONERS v. Kevin P. Bruen, in his
official capacity as Superintendent of New York State Police,
et al.

															on writ of certiorari to the united states
court of appeals for the second circuit

															[June 23, 2022]

															Justice Breyer, with whom Justice Sotomayor
and Justice Kagan join, dissenting.

															In 2020, 45,222 Americans were killed by
firearms. See Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Fast
Facts: Firearm Violence Prevention (last updated May 4, 2022) (CDC,
Fast Facts), https://www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/
firearms/fastfact.html. Since the start of this year (2022), there
have been 277 reported mass shootings—an average of more than one
per day. See Gun Violence Archive (last visited June 20, 2022),
https://www.gunviolence archive.org. Gun violence has now surpassed
motor vehicle crashes as the leading cause of death among children
and adolescents. J. Goldstick, R. Cunningham, & P. Carter,
Current Causes of Death in Children and Adolescents in the United
States, 386 New England J. Med. 1955 (May 19, 2022)
(Goldstick).

															Many States have tried to address some of the
dangers of gun violence just described by passing laws that limit,
in various ways, who may purchase, carry, or use firearms of
different kinds. The Court today severely burdens States’ efforts
to do so. It invokes the Second Amendment to strike down a New York
law regulating the public carriage of concealed handguns. In my
view, that decision rests upon several serious mistakes.

															First, the Court decides this case on the basis
of the pleadings, without the benefit of discovery or an
evidentiary record. As a result, it may well rest its decision on a
mistaken understanding of how New York’s law operates in practice.
Second, the Court wrongly limits its analysis to focus nearly
exclusively on history. It refuses to consider the government
interests that justify a challenged gun regulation, regardless of
how compelling those interests may be. The Constitution contains no
such limitation, and neither do our precedents. Third, the Court
itself demonstrates the practical problems with its history-only
approach. In applying that approach to New York’s law, the Court
fails to correctly identify and analyze the relevant historical
facts. Only by ignoring an abundance of historical evidence
supporting regulations restricting the public carriage of firearms
can the Court conclude that New York’s law is not “consistent with
the Nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation.” See ante, at 15.

															In my view, when courts interpret the Second
Amendment, it is constitutionally proper, indeed often necessary,
for them to consider the serious dangers and consequences of gun
violence that lead States to regulate firearms. The Second Circuit
has done so and has held that New York’s law does not violate the
Second Amendment. See Kachalsky v. County of
Westchester , 701 F.3d 81, 97–99, 101 (2012). I would affirm
that holding. At a minimum, I would not strike down the law based
only on the pleadings, as the Court does today—without first
allowing for the development of an evidentiary record and without
considering the State’s compelling interest in preventing gun
violence. I respectfully dissent.

															I

															The question before us concerns the extent to
which the Second Amendment prevents democratically elected
officials from enacting laws to address the serious problem of gun
violence. And yet the Court today purports to answer that question
without discussing the nature or severity of that problem.

															In 2017, there were an estimated 393.3 million
civilian-held firearms in the United States, or about 120 fire-
arms per 100 people. A. Karp, Estimating Global Civilian-Held
Firearms Numbers, Small Arms Survey 4 (June 2018),
https://www.smallarmssurvey.org/sites/default/files/
resources/SAS-BP-Civilian-Firearms-Numbers.pdf. That is more guns
per capita than in any other country in the world. Ibid. (By
comparison, Yemen is second with about 52.8 firearms per 100
people—less than half the per capita rate in the United States—and
some countries, like Indonesia and Japan, have fewer than one
firearm per 100 people. Id., at 3–4.)

															Unsurprisingly, the United States also suffers a
disproportionately high rate of firearm-related deaths and
injuries. Cf. Brief for Educational Fund To Stop Gun Violence
et al. as Amici Curiae 17–18 (Brief for Educational
Fund) (citing studies showing that, within the United States,
“states that rank among the highest in gun ownership also rank
among the highest in gun deaths” while “states with lower rates of
gun ownership have lower rates of gun deaths”). In 2015,
approximately 36,000 people were killed by firearms nationwide. M.
Siegel et al., Easiness of Legal Access to Concealed Firearm
Permits and Homicide Rates in the United States, 107 Am. J. Pub.
Health 1923 (2017). Of those deaths, 22,018 (or about 61%) were
suicides, 13,463 (37%) were homicides, and 489 (1%) were
unintentional injuries. Ibid . On top of that, firearms
caused an average of 85,694 emergency room visits for nonfatal
injuries each year between 2009 and 2017. E. Kaufman et al.,
Epidemiological Trends in Fatal and Nonfatal Firearm Injuries in
the US, 2009–2017, 181 JAMA Internal Medicine 237 (2021)
(Kaufman).

															Worse yet, gun violence appears to be on the
rise. By 2020, the number of firearm-related deaths had risen to
45,222, CDC, Fast Facts, or by about 25% since 2015. That means
that, in 2020, an average of about 124 people died from gun
violence every day. Ibid . As I mentioned above, gun violence
has now become the leading cause of death in children and
adolescents, surpassing car crashes, which had previously been the
leading cause of death in that age group for over 60 years.
Goldstick 1955; J. Bates, Guns Became the Leading Cause of Death
for American Children and Teens in 2020, Time, Apr. 27, 2022,
https://www. time.com/6170864/cause-of-death-children-guns/. And
the consequences of gun violence are borne disproportionately by
communities of color, and Black communities in particular. See CDC,
Age-Adjusted Rates of Firearm-Related Homicide, by Race, Hispanic
Origin, and Sex—National Vital Statistics System, United States,
2019, at 1491 (Oct. 22, 2021),
https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/pdfs/ mm7042a6-H.pdf
(documenting 34.9 firearm-related homicides per 100,000 population
for non-Hispanic Black men in 2019, compared to 7.7 such homicides
per 100,000 population for men of all races); S. Kegler
et al., CDC, Vital Signs : Changes in Firearm Homicide
and Suicide Rates—United States, 2019–2020, at 656–658 (May 13,
2022), https://
www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/71/wr/pdfs/mm7119e1-H.pdf.

															The dangers posed by firearms can take many
forms. Newspapers report mass shootings occurring at an
entertainment district in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (3 dead and 11
injured); an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas (21 dead); a
supermarket in Buffalo, New York (10 dead and 3 injured); a series
of spas in Atlanta, Georgia (8 dead); a busy street in an
entertainment district of Dayton, Ohio (9 dead and 17 injured); a
nightclub in Orlando, Florida (50 dead and 53 injured); a church in
Charleston, South Carolina (9 dead); a movie theater in Aurora,
Colorado (12 dead and 50 injured); an elementary school in Newtown,
Connecticut (26 dead); and many, many more. See, e.g., R.
Todt, 3 Dead, 11 Wounded in Philadelphia Shooting on Busy Street,
Washington Post, June 5, 2022; A. Hernández, J. Slater, D. Barrett,
& S. Foster-Frau, At Least 19 Children, 2 Teachers Killed at
Texas Elementary School, Washington Post, May 25, 2022; A. Joly, J.
Slater, D. Barrett, & A. Hernandez, 10 Killed in Racially
Motivated Shooting at Buffalo Grocery Store, Washington
Post , May 14, 2022; C. McWhirter & V. Bauerlein,
Atlanta-Area Shootings at Spas Leave Eight Dead, Wall Street
Journal, Mar. 17, 2021; A. Hassan, Dayton Gunman Shot 26 People in
32 Seconds, Police Timeline Reveals, N. Y. Times, Aug. 13,
2019; L. Alvarez & R. Pérez-Peña, Orlando Gunman Attacks Gay
Nightclub, Leaving 50 Dead, N. Y. Times, June 12, 2016; J.
Horowitz, N. Corasaniti, & A. Southall, Nine Killed in Shooting
at Black Church in Charleston, N. Y. Times, June 17, 2015; R.
Lin, Gunman Kills 12 at ‘Dark Knight Rises’ Screening in Colorado,
L. A. Times, July 20, 2012; J. Barron, Nation Reels After
Gunman Massacres 20 Children at School in Connecticut, N. Y.
Times, Dec. 14, 2012. Since the start of this year alone (2022),
there have already been 277 reported mass shootings—an average of
more than one per day. Gun Violence Archive; see also Gun Violence
Archive, General Methodology,
https://www.gunviolencearchive.org/methodology (defining mass
shootings to include incidents in which at least four victims are
shot, not including the shooter).

															And mass shootings are just one part of the
problem. Easy access to firearms can also make many other aspects
of American life more dangerous. Consider, for example, the effect
of guns on road rage. In 2021, an average of 44 people each month
were shot and either killed or wounded in road rage incidents,
double the annual average between 2016 and 2019. S. Burd-Sharps
& K. Bistline, Everytown for Gun Safety, Reports of Road Rage
Shootings Are on the Rise (Apr. 4, 2022),
https://www.everytownresearch.org/reports-of-road-rage-shootings-are-on-the-rise/;
see also J. Dono- hue, A. Aneja, & K. Weber, Right-to-Carry
Laws and Violent Crime: A Comprehensive Assessment Using Panel Data
and a State-Level Synthetic Control Analysis, 16 J. Empirical Legal
Studies 198, 204 (2019). Some of those deaths might have been
avoided if there had not been a loaded gun in the car. See ibid. ; Brief for American Bar Association as Amicus
Curiae 17–18; Brief for Educational Fund 20–23 (citing studies
showing that the presence of a firearm is likely to increase
aggression in both the person carrying the gun and others who see
it).

															The same could be said of protests: A study of
30,000 protests between January 2020 and June 2021 found that armed
protests were nearly six times more likely to become violent or
destructive than unarmed protests. Everytown for Gun Safety, Armed
Assembly: Guns, Demonstrations, and Political Violence in America
(Aug. 23, 2021), https://
www.everytownresearch.org/report/armed- assembly-guns-demonstrations-and-political-violence-in-america/
(finding that 16% of armed protests turned violent, compared to
less than 3% of unarmed protests). Or domestic disputes: Another
study found that a woman is five times more likely to be killed by
an abusive partner if that partner has access to a gun. Brief for
Educational Fund 8 (citing A. Zeoli, R. Malinski, & B. Turchan,
Risks and Targeted Interventions: Firearms in Intimate Partner
Violence, 38 Epidemiologic Revs. 125 (2016); J. Campbell
et al., Risk Factors for Femicide in Abusive Relationships:
Results From a Multisite Case Control Study, 93 Am. J. Pub. Health
1089, 1092 (2003)). Or suicides: A study found that men who own
handguns are three times as likely to commit suicide than men who
do not and women who own handguns are seven times as likely to
commit suicide than women who do not. D. Studdert et al.,
Handgun Ownership and Suicide in California, 382 New England J.
Med. 2220, 2224 (June 4, 2020).

															Consider, too, interactions with police
officers. The presence of a gun in the hands of a civilian poses a
risk to both officers and civilians. Amici prosecutors and
police chiefs tell us that most officers who are killed in the line
of duty are killed by firearms; they explain that officers in
States with high rates of gun ownership are three times as likely
to be killed in the line of duty as officers in States with low
rates of gun ownership. Brief for Prosecutors Against Gun Violence
as Amicus Curiae 23–24; Brief for Former Major City Police
Chiefs as Amici Curiae 13–14, and n. 21, (citing D.
Swedler, M. Simmons, F. Dominici, & D. Hemenway, Firearm
Prevalence and Homicides of Law Enforcement Officers in the United
States, 105 Am. J. Pub. Health 2042, 2045 (2015)). They also say
that States with the highest rates of gun ownership report four
times as many fatal shootings of civilians by police officers
compared to States with the lowest rates of gun ownership. Brief
for Former Major City Police Chiefs as Amici Curiae 16
(citing D. Hemenway, D. Azrael, A. Connor, & M. Miller,
Variation in Rates of Fatal Police Shootings Across US States: The
Role of Firearm Availability, 96 J. Urb. Health 63, 67 (2018)).

															These are just some examples of the dangers that
firearms pose. There is, of course, another side to the story. I am
not simply saying that “guns are bad.” See ante, at 8
(Alito, J., concurring). Some Americans use guns for legitimate
purposes, such as sport ( e.g., hunting or target shooting),
certain types of employment ( e.g., as a private security
guard), or self-defense. Cf. ante, at 4–6 (Alito, J.,
concurring). Balancing these lawful uses against the dangers of
firearms is primarily the responsibility of elected bodies, such as
legislatures. It requires consideration of facts, statistics,
expert opinions, predictive judgments, relevant values, and a host
of other circumstances, which together make decisions about how,
when, and where to regulate guns more appropriately legislative
work. That consideration counsels modesty and restraint on the part
of judges when they interpret and apply the Second Amendment.

															Consider, for one thing, that different types of
firearms may pose different risks and serve different purposes. The
Court has previously observed that handguns, the type of firearm at
issue here, “are the most popular weapon chosen by Americans for
self-defense in the home.” District of Columbia v. Heller , 554 U.S.
570 , 629 (2008). But handguns are also the most popular weapon
chosen by perpetrators of violent crimes. In 2018, 64.4% of firearm
homicides and 91.8% of nonfatal firearm assaults were committed
with a handgun. Dept. of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics, G.
Kena & J. Truman, Trends and Patterns in Firearm Violence,
1993–2018, pp. 5–6 (Apr. 2022). Handguns are also the most commonly
stolen type of firearm—63% of burglaries resulting in gun theft
between 2005 and 2010 involved the theft of at least one handgun.
Dept. of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics, L. Langton,
Firearms Stolen During Household Burglaries and Other Property
Crimes, 2005–2010, p. 3 (Nov. 2012).

															Or consider, for another thing, that the dangers
and benefits posed by firearms may differ between urban and rural
areas. See generally Brief for City of Chicago et al. as Amici Curiae (detailing particular concerns about gun
violence in large cities). Firearm-related homicides and assaults
are significantly more common in urban areas than rural ones. For
example, from 1999 to 2016, 89.8% of the 213,175 firearm-related
homicides in the United States occurred in “metropolitan” areas. M.
Siegel et al., The Impact of State Firearm Laws on Homicide Rates
in Suburban and Rural Areas Compared to Large Cities in the United
States, 1991–2016, 36 J. Rural Health 255 (2020); see also Brief
for Partnership for New York City as Amicus Curiae 10;
Kaufman 237 (finding higher rates of fatal assault injuries from
firearms in urban areas compared to rural areas); C. Branas, M.
Nance, M. Elliott, T. Richmond, & C. Schwab, Urban-Rural Shifts
in Intentional Firearm Death: Different Causes, Same Results, 94
Am. J. Pub. Health 1750, 1752 (2004) (finding higher rates of
firearm homicide in urban counties compared to rural counties).

															Justice Alito asks why I have begun my opinion
by reviewing some of the dangers and challenges posed by gun
violence and what relevance that has to today’s case. Ante, at 2–4 (concurring opinion). All of the above considerations
illustrate that the question of firearm regulation presents a
complex problem—one that should be solved by legislatures rather
than courts. What kinds of firearm regulations should a State
adopt? Different States might choose to answer that question
differently. They may face different challenges because of their
different geographic and demographic compositions. A State like New
York, which must account for the roughly 8.5 million people living
in the 303 square miles of New York City, might choose to adopt
different (and stricter) firearms regulations than States like
Montana or Wyoming, which do not contain any city remotely
comparable in terms of population or density. See U. S. Census
Bureau, Quick Facts: New York City (last updated July 1, 2021)
(Quick Facts: New York City), https://
www.census.gov/quickfacts/newyorkcitynewyork/; Brief for City of
New York as Amicus Curiae 8, 22. For a variety of reasons,
States may also be willing to tolerate different degrees of risk
and therefore choose to balance the competing benefits and dangers
of firearms differently.

															The question presented in this case concerns the
extent to which the Second Amendment restricts different States
(and the Federal Government) from working out solutions to these
problems through democratic processes. The primary difference
between the Court’s view and mine is that I believe the Amendment
allows States to take account of the serious problems posed by gun
violence that I have just described. I fear that the Court’s
interpretation ignores these significant dangers and leaves States
without the ability to address them.

															II

															A

															New York State requires individuals to obtain
a license in order to carry a concealed handgun in public.
N. Y. Penal Law Ann. §400.00(2) (West Cum. Supp. 2022). I
address the specifics of that licensing regime in greater detail in
Part II–B below. Because, at this stage in the proceedings, the
parties have not had an opportunity to develop the evidentiary
record, I refer to facts and representations made in petitioners’
complaint and in amicus briefs filed before us.

															Under New York’s regime, petitioners Brandon
Koch and Robert Nash have obtained restricted licenses that permit
them to carry a concealed handgun for certain purposes and at
certain times and places. They wish to expand the scope of their
licenses so that they can carry a concealed handgun without
restriction.

															Koch and Nash are residents of Rensselaer
County, New York. Koch lives in Troy, a town of about 50,000,
located eight miles from New York’s capital city of Albany, which
has a population of about 98,000. See App. 100; U. S. Census
Bureau, Quick Facts: Troy City, New York (last updated July 1,
2021), https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/ troycitynewyork; id. , Albany City, New York, https://www.
census.gov/quickfacts/albanycitynewyork. Nash lives in Averill
Park, a small town 12.5 miles from Albany. App. 100.

															Koch and Nash each applied for a license to
carry a concealed handgun. Both were issued restricted licenses
that allowed them to carry handguns only for purposes of hunting
and target shooting. Id ., at 104, 106. But they wanted
“unrestricted” licenses that would allow them to carry concealed
handguns “for personal protection and all lawful purposes.” Id ., at 112; see also id ., at 40. They wrote to the
licensing officer in Rensselaer County—Justice Richard McNally, a
justice of the New York Supreme Court—requesting that the hunting
and target shooting restrictions on their licenses be removed. Id., at 40, 111–113. After holding individual hearings for
each petitioner, Justice McNally denied their requests. Id., at 31, 41, 105, 107, 114. He clarified that, in addition to hunting
and target shooting, Koch and Nash could “carry concealed for
purposes of off road back country, outdoor activities similar to
hunting, for example fishing, hiking & camping.” Id., at
41, 114. He also permitted Koch, who was employed by the New York
Court System’s Division of Technology, to “carry to and from work.” Id ., at 111, 114. But he reaffirmed that Nash was prohibited
from carrying a concealed handgun in locations “typically open to
and frequented by the general public.” Id. , at 41. Neither
Koch nor Nash alleges that he appealed Justice McNally’s decision.
Brief for Respondents 13; see App. 122–126.

															Instead, petitioners Koch and Nash, along with
the New York State Rifle & Pistol Association, Inc., brought
this lawsuit in federal court against Justice McNally and other
State representatives responsible for enforcing New York’s firearms
laws. Petitioners claimed that the State’s refusal to modify Koch’s
and Nash’s licenses violated the Second Amendment. The District
Court dismissed their complaint. It followed Second Circuit
precedent holding that New York’s licensing regime was
constitutional. See Kachalsky , 701 F. 3d, at 101. The
Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit affirmed. We granted
certiorari to review the constitutionality of “New York’s denial of
petitioners’ license applications.” Ante, at 8 (majority
opinion).

															B

															As the Court recognizes, New York’s licensing
regime traces its origins to 1911, when New York enacted the
“Sullivan Law,” which prohibited public carriage of handguns
without a license. See 1911 N. Y. Laws ch. 195, §1, p. 443.
Two years later in 1913, New York amended the law to establish
substantive standards for the issuance of a license. See 1913
N. Y. Laws ch. 608, §1, pp. 1627–1629. Those standards have
remained the foundation of New York’s licensing regime ever since—a
regime that the Court now, more than a century later, strikes down
as unconstitutional.

															As it did over 100 years ago, New York’s law
today continues to require individuals to obtain a license before
carrying a concealed handgun in public. N. Y. Penal Law Ann.
§400.00(2); Kachalsky , 701 F. 3d, at 85–86. Because the
State does not allow the open carriage of handguns at all, a
concealed-carry license is the only way to legally carry a handgun
in public . Id ., at 86. This licensing requirement
applies only to handguns ( i.e., “pistols and revolvers”) and
short-barreled rifles and shotguns, not to all types of firearms. Id. , at 85. For instance, the State does not require a
license to carry a long gun ( i.e., a rifle or a shotgun over
a certain length) in public. Ibid. ; §265.00(3) (West
2022).

															To obtain a concealed-carry license for a
handgun, an applicant must satisfy certain eligibility criteria.
Among other things, he must generally be at least 21 years old and
of “good moral character.” §400.00(1). And he cannot have been
convicted of a felony, dishonorably discharged from the military,
or involuntarily committed to a mental hygiene facility. Ibid . If these and other eligibility criteria are satisfied,
New York law provides that a concealed-carry license “shall be
issued” to individuals working in certain professions, such as
judges, corrections officers, or messengers of a “banking
institution or express company.” §400.00(2). Individuals who
satisfy the eligibility criteria but do not work in one of these
professions may still obtain a concealed-carry license, but they
must additionally show that “proper cause exists for the issuance
thereof.” §400.00(2)(f ).

															The words “proper cause” may appear on their
face to be broad, but there is “a substantial body of law
instructing licensing officials on the application of this
standard.” Id. , at 86. New York courts have interpreted
proper cause “to include carrying a handgun for target practice,
hunting, or self-defense.” Ibid . When an applicant seeks a
license for target practice or hunting, he must show “ ‘a
sincere desire to participate in target shooting and
hunting.’ ” Ibid . (quoting In re O’Connor ,
154 Misc. 2d 694, 697, 585 N.Y.S.2d 1000, 1003 (Westchester Cty.
1992)). When an applicant seeks a license for self-defense, he must
show “ ‘a special need for self-protection distinguishable
from that of the general community.’ ” 701 F. 3d, at 86
(quoting In re Klenosky , 75 App. Div. 2d 793,
793, 428 N.Y.S.2d 256, 257 (1980)). Whether an applicant meets
these proper cause standards is determined in the first instance by
a “licensing officer in the city or county . . . where
the applicant resides.” §400.00(3). In most counties, the licensing
officer is a local judge. Kachalsky , 701 F. 3d, at 87,
n. 6. For example, in Rensselaer County, the licensing officer
who denied petitioners’ requests to remove the restrictions on
their licenses was a justice of the New York Supreme Court. App.
31. If the officer denies an application, the applicant can obtain
judicial review under Article 78 of New York’s Civil Practice Law
and Rules. Kachalsky , 701 F. 3d, at 87. New York courts
will then review whether the denial was arbitrary and capricious. Ibid. In describing New York’s law, the Court recites
the above facts but adds its own gloss. It suggests that New York’s
licensing regime gives licensing officers too much discretion and
provides too “limited” judicial review of their decisions, ante, at 4; that the proper cause standard is too
“demanding,” ante, at 3; and that these features make New
York an outlier compared to the “vast majority of States,” ante, at 4. But on what evidence does the Court base these
characterizations? Recall that this case comes to us at the
pleading stage. The parties have not had an opportunity to conduct
discovery, and no evidentiary hearings have been held to develop
the record. See App. 15–26. Thus, at this point, there is no record
to support the Court’s negative characterizations, as we know very
little about how the law has actually been applied on the
ground.

															Consider each of the Court’s criticisms in turn.
First, the Court says that New York gives licensing officers too
much discretion and “leaves applicants little recourse if their
local licensing officer denies a permit.” Ante , at 4. But
there is nothing unusual about broad statutory language that can be
given more specific content by judicial interpretation. Nor is
there anything unusual or inadequate about subjecting licensing
officers’ decisions to arbitrary-and-capricious review. Judges
routinely apply that standard, for example, to determine whether an
agency action is lawful under both New York law and the
Administrative Procedure Act. See, e.g., N. Y. Civ.
Prac. Law Ann. §7803(3) (2021); 5 U. S. C. §706(2)(A).
The arbitrary-and-capricious standard has thus been used to review
important policies concerning health, safety, and immigration, to
name just a few examples. See, e.g., Biden v. Missouri , 595 U. S. ___, ___ (2022)
( per curiam ) (slip op., at 8); Department of
Homeland Security v. Regents of Univ. of Cal. , 591
U. S. ___, ___, ___ (2020) (slip op., at 9, 17); Department
of Commerce v. New York , 588 U. S. ___, ___ (2019)
(slip op., at 16); Motor Vehicle Mfrs. Assn. of United States,
Inc. v. State Farm Mut. Automobile Ins. Co. , 463 U.S.
29 , 41, 46 (1983).

															Without an evidentiary record, there is no
reason to assume that New York courts applying this standard fail
to provide license applicants with meaningful review. And there is
no evidentiary record to support the Court’s assumption here. Based
on the pleadings alone, we cannot know how often New York courts
find the denial of a concealed-carry license to be arbitrary and
capricious or on what basis. We do not even know how a court would
have reviewed the licensing officer’s decisions in Koch’s and
Nash’s cases because they do not appear to have sought judicial
review at all. See Brief for Respondents 13; App. 122–126.

															Second, the Court characterizes New York’s
proper cause standard as substantively “demanding.” Ante, at
3. But, again, the Court has before it no evidentiary record to
demonstrate how the standard has actually been applied. How
“demanding” is the proper cause standard in practice? Does that
answer differ from county to county? How many license applications
are granted and denied each year? At the pleading stage, we do not
know the answers to these and other important questions, so the
Court’s characterization of New York’s law may very well be
wrong.

															In support of its assertion that the law is
“demanding,” the Court cites only to cases originating in New York
City. Ibid . (citing In re Martinek , 294 App. Div. 2d
221, 743 N.Y.S.2d 80 (2002) (New York County, i.e., Manhattan); In re Kaplan , 249 App. Div. 2d 199, 673 N.Y.S.2d
66 (1998) (same); In re Klenosky , 75 App. Div. 2d 793, 428
N.Y.S.2d 256 (same); In re Bernstein , 85 App. Div. 2d 574,
445 N.Y.S.2d 716 (1981) (Bronx County)). But cases from New York
City may not accurately represent how the proper cause standard is
applied in other parts of the State, including in Rensselaer County
where petitioners reside.

															To the contrary, amici tell us that New
York’s licensing regime is purposefully flexible: It allows
counties and cities to respond to the particular needs and
challenges of each area. See Brief for American Bar Association as Amicus Curiae 12; Brief for City of New York as Amicus
Curiae 20–29. Amici suggest that some areas may
interpret words such as “proper cause” or “special need” more or
less strictly, depending upon each area’s unique circumstances. See ibid . New York City, for example, reports that it “has
applied the [proper cause] requirement relatively rigorously”
because its densely populated urban areas pose a heightened risk of
gun violence. Brief for City of New York as Amicus Curiae 20. In comparison, other (perhaps more rural) counties “have
tailored the requirement to their own circumstances, often issuing
concealed-carry licenses more freely than the City.” Ibid. ;
see also In re O’Connor , 154 Misc. 2d, at 698, 585
N. Y. S. 2d, at 1004 (“The circumstances which exist in
New York City are significantly different than those which exist in
Oswego or Putnam Counties. . . . The licensing
officers in each county are in the best position to determine
whether any interest of the population of their county is furthered
by the use of restrictions on pistol licenses”); Brief for Citizens
Crime Commission of New York City as Amicus Curiae 18–19.
Given the geographic variation across the State, it is too sweeping
for the Court to suggest, without an evidentiary record, that the
proper cause standard is “demanding” in Rensselaer County merely
because it may be so in New York City.

															Finally, the Court compares New York’s licensing
regime to that of other States. Ante, at 4–6. It says that
New York’s law is a “may issue” licensing regime, which the Court
describes as a law that provides licensing officers greater
discretion to grant or deny licenses than a “shall issue” licensing
regime. Ante, at 4–5. Because the Court counts 43 “shall
issue” jurisdictions and only 7 “may issue” jurisdictions, it
suggests that New York’s law is an outlier. Ibid .; see also ante, at 1–2 (Kavanaugh, J., concurring). Implicitly, the
Court appears to ask, if so many other States have adopted the more
generous “shall issue” approach, why can New York not be required
to do the same?

															But the Court’s tabulation, and its implicit
question, overlook important context. In drawing a line between
“may issue” and “shall issue” licensing regimes, the Court ignores
the degree of variation within and across these categories. Not all
“may issue” regimes are necessarily alike, nor are all “shall
issue” regimes. Conversely, not all “may issue” regimes are as
different from the “shall issue” regimes as the Court assumes. For
instance, the Court recognizes in a footnote that three States
(Connecticut, Delaware, and Rhode Island) have statutes with
discretionary criteria, like so-called “may issue” regimes do. Ante, at 5, n. 1. But the Court nonetheless counts them
among the 43 “shall issue” jurisdictions because, it says, these
three States’ laws operate in practice more like “shall issue”
regimes. Ibid. ; see also Brief for American Bar Association
as Amicus Curiae 10 (recognizing, conversely, that some
“shall issue” States, e.g., Alabama, Colorado, Georgia,
Oregon, and Virginia, still grant some degree of discretion to
licensing authorities).

															As these three States demonstrate, the line
between “may issue” and “shall issue” regimes is not as clear cut
as the Court suggests, and that line depends at least in part on
how statutory discretion is applied in practice. Here, because the
Court strikes down New York’s law without affording the State an
opportunity to develop an evidentiary record, we do not know how
much discretion licensing officers in New York have in practice or
how that discretion is exercised, let alone how the licensing
regimes in the other six “may issue” jurisdictions operate.

															Even accepting the Court’s line between “may
issue” and “shall issue” regimes and assuming that its tally (7
“may issue” and 43 “shall issue” jurisdictions) is correct, that
count does not support the Court’s implicit suggestion that the
seven “may issue” jurisdictions are somehow outliers or anomalies.
The Court’s count captures only a snapshot in time. It forgets that
“shall issue” licensing regimes are a relatively recent
development. Until the 1980s, “may issue” regimes predominated. See id ., at 9; R. Grossman & S. Lee, May Issue Versus Shall
Issue: Explaining the Pattern of Concealed-Carry Handgun Laws,
1960–2001, 26 Contemp. Econ. Pol’y 198, 200 (2008) (Grossman). As
of 1987, 16 States and the District of Columbia prohibited
concealed carriage outright, 26 States had “may issue” licensing
regimes, 7 States had “shall issue” regimes, and 1 State (Vermont)
allowed concealed carriage without a permit. Congressional Research
Service, Gun Control: Concealed Carry Legislation in the 115th
Congress 1 (Jan. 30, 2018). Thus, it has only been in the last few
decades that States have shifted toward “shall issue” licensing
laws. Prior to that, most States operated “may issue” licensing
regimes without legal or practical problem.

															Moreover, even considering, as the Court does,
only the present state of play, its tally provides an incomplete
picture because it accounts for only the number of States with “may
issue” regimes, not the number of people governed by those regimes.
By the Court’s count, the seven “may issue” jurisdictions are New
York, California, Hawaii, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, and
the District of Columbia. Ante, at 5–6. Together, these
seven jurisdictions comprise about 84.4 million people and account
for over a quarter of the country’s population. U. S. Census
Bureau, 2020 Pop- ulation and Housing State Data (Aug. 12, 2021)
(2020 Population), https://www.census.gov/library/visualizations/
interactive/2020-population-and-housing-state-data.html. Thus, “may
issue” laws can hardly be described as a marginal or outdated
regime.

															And there are good reasons why these seven
jurisdictions may have chosen not to follow other States in
shifting toward “shall issue” regimes. The seven remaining “may
issue” jurisdictions are among the most densely populated in the
United States: the District of Columbia (with an average of
11,280.0 people/square mile in 2020), New Jersey (1,263.0),
Massachusetts (901.2), Maryland (636.1), New York (428.7),
California (253.7), and Hawaii (226.6). U. S. Census Bureau,
Historical Population Density (1910–2020) (Apr. 26, 2001),
https://www.census.gov/data/tables/time-series/dec/density-data-text.html.
In comparison, the average population density of the United States
as a whole is 93.8 people/square mile, and some States have
population densities as low as 1.3 (Alaska), 5.9 (Wyoming), and 7.4
(Montana) people/square mile. Ibid . These numbers reflect in
part the fact that these “may issue” jurisdictions contain some of
the country’s densest and most populous urban areas, e.g., New York City, Los Angeles, San Francisco, the District of
Columbia, Honolulu, and Boston. U. S. Census Bureau, Urban
Area Facts (Oct. 8, 2021), https://www.census
. gov/programs-surveys/geography/guidance/geo-areas/
urban-rural/ua-facts.html. New York City, for example, has a
population of about 8.5 million people, making it more populous
than 38 States, and it squeezes that population into just over 300
square miles. Quick Facts: New York City; 2020 Population; Brief
for City of New York as Amicus Curiae 8, 22.

															As I explained above, supra, at 8–9,
densely populated urban areas face different kinds and degrees of
dangers from gun violence than rural areas. It is thus easy to see
why the seven “may issue” jurisdictions might choose to regulate
firearm carriage more strictly than other States. See Grossman 199
(“We find strong evidence that more urban states are less likely to
shift to ‘shall issue’ than rural states”).

															New York and its amici present
substantial data justifying the State’s decision to retain a “may
issue” licensing regime. The data show that stricter gun
regulations are associated with lower rates of firearm-related
death and injury. See, e.g., Brief for Citizens Crime
Commission of New York City as Amicus Curiae 9–11; Brief for
Former Major City Police Chiefs as Amici Curiae 9–12; Brief
for Educational Fund 25–28; Brief for Social Scientists et al.
as Amici Curiae 9–19. In particular, studies have shown that
“may issue” licensing regimes, like New York’s, are associated with
lower homicide rates and lower violent crime rates than “shall
issue” licensing regimes. For example, one study compared homicide
rates across all 50 States during the 25-year period from 1991 to
2015 and found that “shall issue” laws were associated with 6.5%
higher total homicide rates, 8.6% higher firearm homicide rates,
and 10.6% higher handgun homicide rates. Siegel, 107 Am. J. Pub.
Health, at 1924–1925, 1927. Another study longitudinally followed
33 States that had adopted “shall-issue” laws between 1981 and 2007
and found that the adoption of those laws was associated with a
13%–15% increase in rates of violent crime after 10 years. Donohue,
16 J. Empirical Legal Studies, at 200, 240. Numerous other studies
show similar results. See, e.g., Siegel, 36 J. Rural
Health , at 261 (finding that “may issue” laws are associated
with 17% lower firearm homicide rates in large cities); C. Crifasi
et al., Association Between Firearm Laws and Homicide in Urban
Counties, 95 J. Urb. Health 383, 387 (2018) (finding that “shall
issue” laws are associated with a 4% increase in firearm homicide
rates in urban counties); M. Doucette, C. Crifasi, & S.
Frattaroli, Right-to-Carry Laws and Firearm Workplace Homicides: A
Longitudinal Analysis (1992–2017), 109 Am. J. Pub. Health 1747,
1751 (Dec. 2019) (finding that States with “shall issue” laws
between 1992 and 2017 experienced 29% higher rates of
firearm-related workplace homicides); Brief for Social Scientists
et al. as Amici Curiae 15–16, and nn. 17–20 (citing
“thirteen . . . empirical papers from just the last few
years linking [“shall issue”] laws to higher violent crime”).

															Justice Alito points to competing empirical
evidence that arrives at a different conclusion. Ante, at 3,
n. 1 (concurring opinion). But these types of disagreements
are exactly the sort that are better addressed by legislatures than
courts. The Court today restricts the ability of legislatures to
fulfill that role. It does so without knowing how New York’s law is
administered in practice, how much discretion licensing officers in
New York possess, or whether the proper cause standard differs
across counties. And it does so without giving the State an
opportunity to develop the evidentiary record to answer those
questions. Yet it strikes down New York’s licensing regime as a
violation of the Second Amendment.

															III

															A

															How does the Court justify striking down New
York’s law without first considering how it actually works on the
ground and what purposes it serves? The Court does so by purporting
to rely nearly exclusively on history. It requires “the government
[to] affirmatively prove that its firearms regulation is part of
the historical tradition that delimits the outer bounds of ‘the
right to keep and bear arms.’ ” Ante, at 10. Beyond
this historical inquiry, the Court refuses to employ what it calls
“means-end scrutiny.” Ibid. That is, it refuses to consider
whether New York has a compelling interest in regulating the
concealed carriage of handguns or whether New York’s law is
narrowly tailored to achieve that interest. Although I agree that
history can often be a useful tool in determining the meaning and
scope of constitutional provisions, I believe the Court’s
near-exclusive reliance on that single tool today goes much too
far.

															The Court concedes that no Court of Appeals has
adopted its rigid history-only approach. See ante, at 8. To
the contrary, every Court of Appeals to have addressed the question
has agreed on a two-step framework for evaluating whether a firearm
regulation is consistent with the Second Amendment. Ibid. ; ante, at 10, n. 4 (majority opinion) (listing cases
from the First, Second, Third, Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, Seventh,
Ninth, Tenth, Eleventh, and D. C. Circuits). At the first
step, the Courts of Appeals use text and history to determine
“whether the regulated activity falls within the scope of the
Second Amendment.” Ezell v. Chicago , 846 F.3d 888,
892 (CA7 2017). If it does, they go on to the second step and
consider “ ‘the strength of the government’s justification for
restricting or regulating’ ” the Second Amendment right. Ibid . In doing so, they apply a level of “means-ends”
scrutiny “that is proportionate to the severity of the burden that
the law imposes on the right”: strict scrutiny if the burden is
severe, and intermediate scrutiny if it is not. National Rifle
Assn. of Am., Inc. v. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms,
and Explosives , 700 F.3d 185, 195, 198, 205 (CA5 2012).

															The Court today replaces the Courts of Appeals’
consensus framework with its own history-only approach. That is
unusual. We do not normally disrupt settled consensus among the
Courts of Appeals, especially not when that consensus approach has
been applied without issue for over a decade. See Brief for Second
Amendment Law Professors as Amici Curiae 4, 13–15; see also
this Court’s Rule 10. The Court attempts to justify its deviation
from our normal practice by claiming that the Courts of Appeals’
approach is inconsistent with Heller . See ante, at
10. In doing so, the Court implies that all 11 Courts of Appeals
that have considered this question misread Heller .

															To the contrary, it is this Court that misreads Heller . The opinion in Heller did focus primarily on
“constitutional text and history,” ante, at 13 (majority
opinion), but it did not “rejec[t] . . . means-end
scrutiny,” as the Court claims, ante, at 15. Consider what
the Heller Court actually said. True, the Court spent many
pages in Heller discussing the text and historical context
of the Second Amendment. 554 U. S., at 579–619. But that is
not surprising because the Heller Court was asked to answer
the preliminary question whether the Second Amendment right to
“bear Arms” encompasses an individual right to possess a firearm in
the home for self-defense. Id. , at 577. The Heller Court concluded that the Second Amendment’s text and history were
sufficiently clear to resolve that question: The Second Amendment,
it said, does include such an individual right. Id ., at
579–619. There was thus no need for the Court to go further—to look
beyond text and history, or to suggest what analysis would be
appropriate in other cases where the text and history are not
clear.

															But the Heller Court did not end its
opinion with that preliminary question. After concluding that the
Second Amendment protects an individual right to possess a firearm
for self-defense, the Heller Court added that that right is
“not unlimited.” Id., at 626. It thus had to determine
whether the District of Columbia’s law, which banned handgun
possession in the home, was a permissible regulation of the right. Id. , at 628–630. In answering that second question, it said:
“Under any of the standards of scrutiny that we have applied to
enumerated constitutional rights , banning from the home ‘the
most preferred firearm in the nation to “keep” and use for
protection of one’s home and family’ would fail constitutional
muster.” Id., at 628–629 (emphasis added; footnote and
citation omitted). That language makes clear that the Heller Court understood some form of means-end scrutiny to apply. It did
not need to specify whether that scrutiny should be intermediate or
strict because, in its view, the District’s handgun ban was so
“severe” that it would have failed either level of scrutiny. Id., at 628–629; see also id., at 628, n. 27
(clarifying that rational-basis review was not the proper level of
scrutiny).

															Despite Heller ’s express invocation of
means-end scrutiny, the Court today claims that the majority in Heller rejected means-end scrutiny because it rejected my
dissent in that case. But that argument misreads both my dissent
and the majority opinion. My dissent in Heller proposed
directly weighing “the interests protected by the Second Amendment
on one side and the governmental public-safety concerns on the
other.” Id., at 689. I would have asked “whether the statute
burdens a protected interest in a way or to an extent that is out
of proportion to the statute’s salutary effects upon other
important governmental interests.” Id., at 689–690. The
majority rejected my dissent, not because I proposed using
means-end scrutiny, but because, in its view, I had done the
opposite. In its own words, the majority faulted my dissent for
proposing “a freestanding ‘interest-balancing’ approach”
that accorded with “ none of the traditionally expressed
levels [of scrutiny] (strict scrutiny, intermediate scrutiny,
rational basis).” Id., at 634 (emphasis added).

															The majority further made clear that its
rejection of freestanding interest balancing did not extend
to traditional forms of means-end scrutiny. It said: “We know of no
other enumerated constitutional right whose core protection has
been subjected to a freestanding ‘interest-balancing’ approach.” Ibid. To illustrate this point, it cited as an example the
First Amendment right to free speech. Id. , at 635. Judges,
of course, regularly use means-end scrutiny, including both strict
and intermediate scrutiny, when they interpret or apply the First
Amendment. See, e.g., United States v. Playboy
Entertainment Group, Inc. , 529 U.S.
803 , 813 (2000) (applying strict scrutiny); Turner
Broadcasting System, Inc. v. FCC , 520 U.S.
180 , 186, 189–190 (1997) (applying intermediate scrutiny). The
majority therefore cannot have intended its opinion, consistent
with our First Amendment jurisprudence, to be read as rejecting all
traditional forms of means-end scrutiny.

															As Heller ’s First Amendment example
illustrates, the Court today is wrong when it says that its
rejection of means-end scrutiny and near-exclusive focus on history
“accords with how we protect other constitutional rights.” Ante, at 15. As the Court points out, we do look to history
in the First Amendment context to determine “whether the expressive
conduct falls outside of the category of protected speech.” Ibid. But, if conduct falls within a category of protected
speech, we then use means-end scrutiny to determine whether a
challenged regulation unconstitutionally burdens that speech. And
the degree of scrutiny we apply often depends on the type of speech
burdened and the severity of the burden. See, e.g., Arizona Free
Enterprise Club’s Freedom Club PAC v. Bennett , 564 U.S.
721 , 734 (2011) (applying strict scrutiny to laws that burden
political speech); Ward v. Rock Against Racism , 491 U.S.
781 , 791 (1989) (applying intermediate scrutiny to time, place,
and manner restrictions); Central Hudson Gas & Elec.
Corp. v. Public Serv. Comm’n of N. Y. , 447 U.S.
557 , 564–566 (1980) (applying intermediate scrutiny to laws
that burden commercial speech).

															Additionally, beyond the right to freedom of
speech, we regularly use means-end scrutiny in cases involving
other constitutional provisions. See, e.g., Church of
Lukumi Babalu Aye, Inc. v. Hialeah , 508 U.S.
520 , 546 (1993) (applying strict scrutiny under the First
Amendment to laws that restrict free exercise of religion in a way
that is not neutral and generally applicable); Adarand
Constructors, Inc. v. Peña , 515
U.S. 200 , 227 (1995) (applying strict scrutiny under the Equal
Protection Clause to race-based classifications); Clark v. Jeter , 486 U.S.
456 , 461 (1988) (applying intermediate scrutiny under the Equal
Protection Clause to sex-based classifications); see also Virginia v. Moore , 553 U.S.
164 , 171 (2008) (“When history has not provided a conclusive
answer, we have analyzed a search or seizure in light of
traditional standards of reasonableness”).

															The upshot is that applying means-end scrutiny
to laws that regulate the Second Amendment right to bear arms would
not create a constitutional anomaly. Rather, it is the Court’s
rejection of means-end scrutiny and adoption of a rigid
history-only approach that is anomalous.

															B

															The Court’s near-exclusive reliance on history
is not only unnecessary, it is deeply impractical. It imposes a
task on the lower courts that judges cannot easily accomplish.
Judges understand well how to weigh a law’s objectives (its “ends”)
against the methods used to achieve those objectives (its “means”).
Judges are far less accustomed to resolving difficult historical
questions. Courts are, after all, staffed by lawyers, not
historians. Legal experts typically have little experience
answering contested historical questions or applying those answers
to resolve contemporary problems.

															The Court’s insistence that judges and lawyers
rely nearly exclusively on history to interpret the Second
Amendment thus raises a host of troubling questions. Consider, for
example, the following. Do lower courts have the research resources
necessary to conduct exhaustive historical analyses in every Second
Amendment case? What historical regulations and decisions qualify
as representative analogues to modern laws? How will judges
determine which historians have the better view of close historical
questions? Will the meaning of the Second Amendment change if or
when new historical evidence becomes available? And, most
importantly, will the Court’s approach permit judges to reach the
outcomes they prefer and then cloak those outcomes in the language
of history? See S. Cornell, Heller , New Originalism, and Law
Office History: “Meet the New Boss, Same as the Old Boss,” 56 UCLA
L. Rev. 1095, 1098 (2009) (describing “law office history” as
“a results oriented methodology in which evidence is selectively
gathered and interpreted to produce a preordained conclusion”).

															Consider Heller itself. That case,
fraught with difficult historical questions, illustrates the
practical problems with expecting courts to decide important
constitutional questions based solely on history. The majority in Heller undertook 40 pages of textual and historical analysis
and concluded that the Second Amendment’s protection of the right
to “keep and bear Arms” historically encompassed an “individual
right to possess and carry weapons in case of confrontation”—that
is, for self-defense. 554 U. S. , at 592; see also id., at 579–619. Justice Stevens’ dissent conducted an
equally searching textual and historical inquiry and concluded, to
the contrary, that the term “bear Arms” was an idiom that protected
only the right “to use and possess arms in conjunction with service
in a well-regulated militia.” Id., at 651. I do not intend
to relitigate Heller here . I accept its holding as a
matter of stare decisis. I refer to its historical analysis
only to show the difficulties inherent in answering historical
questions and to suggest that judges do not have the expertise
needed to answer those questions accurately.

															For example, the Heller majority relied
heavily on its interpretation of the English Bill of Rights. Citing
Blackstone, the majority claimed that the English Bill of Rights
protected a “ ‘right of having and using arms for
self-preservation and defence.’ ” Id. , at 594 (quoting
1 Commentaries on the Laws of England 140 (1765)). The majority
interpreted that language to mean a private right to bear arms for
self-defense, “having nothing whatever to do with service in a
militia.” 554 U. S., at 593. Two years later, however, 21
English and early American historians (including experts at top
universities) told us in McDonald v. Chicago , 561 U.S.
742 (2010), that the Heller Court had gotten the history
wrong: The English Bill of Rights “did not . . . protect
an individual’s right to possess, own, or use arms for private
purposes such as to defend a home against burglars.” Brief for
English/Early American Historians as Amici Curiae in McDonald v. Chicago , O. T. 2009, No. 08–1521, p. 2.
Rather, these amici historians explained, the English right
to “have arms” ensured that the Crown could not deny Parliament
(which represented the people) the power to arm the landed gentry
and raise a militia—or the right of the people to possess arms to
take part in that militia—“should the sovereign usurp the laws,
liberties, estates, and Protestant religion of the nation.” Id., at 2–3. Thus, the English right did protect a right of
“self-preservation and defence,” as Blackstone said, but that right
“was to be exercised not by individuals acting privately or
independently, but as a militia organized by their elected
representatives,” i.e., Parliament. Id., at 7–8. The
Court, not an expert in history, had misread Blackstone and other
sources explaining the English Bill of Rights.

															And that was not the Heller Court’s only
questionable judgment. The majority rejected Justice Stevens’
argument that the Second Amendment’s use of the words “bear Arms”
drew on an idiomatic meaning that, at the time of the founding,
commonly referred to military service. 554 U. S., at 586.
Linguistics experts now tell us that the majority was wrong to do
so. See, e.g., Brief for Corpus Linguistics Professors and
Experts as Amici Curiae (Brief for Linguistics
Professors); Brief for Neal Goldfarb as Amicus Curiae ; Brief
for Americans Against Gun Violence as Amicus Curiae 13–15.
Since Heller was decided, experts have searched over 120,000
founding-era texts from between 1760 and 1799, as well as 40,000
texts from sources dating as far back as 1475, for historical uses
of the phrase “bear arms,” and they concluded that the phrase was
overwhelmingly used to refer to “ ‘war, soldiering, or other
forms of armed action by a group rather than an individual.’ ”
Brief for Linguistics Professors 11, 14; see also D. Baron, Corpus
Evidence Illuminates the Meaning of Bear Arms, 46 Hastings Const.
L. Q. 509, 510 (2019) (“Non-military uses of bear arms in reference to hunting or personal self-defense are not just rare,
they are almost nonexistent”); id. , at 510–511 (reporting
900 instances in which “bear arms” was used to refer to military or
collective use of firearms and only 7 instances that were either
ambiguous or without a military connotation).

															These are just two examples. Other scholars have
continued to write books and articles arguing that the Court’s
decision in Heller misread the text and history of the
Second Amendment. See generally, e.g., M. Waldman, The
Second Amendment (2014); S. Cornell, The Changing Meaning of the
Right To Keep and Bear Arms: 1688–1788, in Guns in Law 20–27 (A.
Sarat, L. Douglas, & M. Umphrey eds. 2019); P. Finkelman, The
Living Constitution and the Second Amendment: Poor History, False
Originalism, and a Very Confused Court, 37 Cardozo L. Rev. 623
(2015); D. Walker, Necessary to the Security of Free States: The
Second Amendment as the Auxiliary Right of Federalism, 56 Am. J.
Legal Hist. 365 (2016); W. Merkel, Heller as Hubris, and How McDonald v. City of Chicago May Well Change the
Constitutional World as We Know It, 50 Santa Clara L. Rev. 1221
(2010).

															I repeat that I do not cite these arguments in
order to relitigate Heller . I wish only to illustrate the
difficulties that may befall lawyers and judges when they attempt
to rely solely on history to interpret the Constitution. In Heller , we attempted to determine the scope of the Second
Amendment right to bear arms by conducting a historical analysis,
and some of us arrived at very different conclusions based on the
same historical sources. Many experts now tell us that the Court
got it wrong in a number of ways. That is understandable given the
difficulty of the inquiry that the Court attempted to undertake.
The Court’s past experience with historical analysis should serve
as a warning against relying exclusively, or nearly exclusively, on
this mode of analysis in the future.

															Failing to heed that warning, the Court today
does just that. Its near-exclusive reliance on history will pose a
number of practical problems. First, the difficulties attendant to
extensive historical analysis will be especially acute in the lower
courts. The Court’s historical analysis in this case is over 30
pages long and reviews numerous original sources from over 600
years of English and American history. Ante, at 30–62. Lower
courts—especially district courts—typically have fewer research
resources, less assistance from amici historians, and higher
caseloads than we do. They are therefore ill equipped to conduct
the type of searching historical surveys that the Court’s approach
requires. Tellingly, even the Courts of Appeals that have addressed
the question presented here (namely, the constitutionality of
public carriage restrictions like New York’s) “have, in large part,
avoided extensive historical analysis.” Young v. Hawaii , 992 F.3d 765, 784–785 (CA9 2021) (collecting cases).
In contrast, lawyers and courts are well equipped to administer
means-end scrutiny, which is regularly applied in a variety of
constitutional contexts, see supra, at 24–25.

															Second, the Court’s opinion today compounds
these problems, for it gives the lower courts precious little
guidance regarding how to resolve modern constitutional questions
based almost solely on history. See, e.g., ante, at 1
(Barrett, J., concurring) (“highlight[ing] two methodological
points that the Court does not resolve”). The Court declines to
“provide an exhaustive survey of the features that render
regulations relevantly similar under the Second Amendment.” Ante, at 20. Other than noting that its history-only
analysis is “neither a . . . straightjacket nor a
. . . blank check,” the Court offers little explanation
of how stringently its test should be applied. Ante, at 21.
Ironically, the only two “relevan[t]” metrics that the Court does
identify are “how and why” a gun control regulation “burden[s the]
right to armed self-defense.” Ante, at 20. In other words,
the Court believes that the most relevant metrics of comparison are
a regulation’s means (how) and ends (why)—even as it rejects the
utility of means-end scrutiny.

															What the Court offers instead is a laundry list
of reasons to discount seemingly relevant historical evidence. The
Court believes that some historical laws and decisions cannot
justify upholding modern regulations because, it says, they were
outliers. It explains that just two court decisions or three
colonial laws are not enough to satisfy its test. Ante, at
37, 57. But the Court does not say how many cases or laws would
suffice “to show a tradition of public-carry regulation.” Ante, at 37. Other laws are irrelevant, the Court claims,
because they are too dissimilar from New York’s concealed-carry
licensing regime. See, e.g., ante, at 48–49. But the Court
does not say what “representative historical analogue,” short of a
“twin” or a “dead ringer,” would suffice. See ante, at 21
(emphasis deleted). Indeed, the Court offers many and varied
reasons to reject potential representative analogues, but very few
reasons to accept them. At best, the numerous justifications that
the Court finds for rejecting historical evidence give judges ample
tools to pick their friends out of history’s crowd. At worst, they
create a one-way ratchet that will disqualify virtually any
“representative historical analogue” and make it nearly impossible
to sustain common-sense regulations necessary to our Nation’s
safety and security.

															Third, even under ideal conditions, historical
evidence will often fail to provide clear answers to difficult
questions. As an initial matter, many aspects of the history of
firearms and their regulation are ambiguous, contradictory, or
disputed. Unsurprisingly, the extent to which colonial statutes
enacted over 200 years ago were actually enforced, the basis for an
acquittal in a 17th-century decision, and the interpretation of
English laws from the Middle Ages (to name just a few examples) are
often less than clear. And even historical experts may reach
conflicting conclusions based on the same sources. Compare, e.g., P. Charles, The Faces of the Second Amendment Outside
the Home: History Versus Ahistorical Standards of Review, 60 Clev.
St. L. Rev. 1, 14 (2012), with J. Malcolm, To Keep and Bear Arms:
The Origins of an Anglo-American Right 104 (1994). As a result,
history, as much as any other interpretive method, leaves ample
discretion to “loo[k] over the heads of the [crowd] for one’s
friends.” A. Scalia & B. Garner, Reading Law: The
Interpretation of Legal Texts 377 (2012).

															Fourth, I fear that history will be an
especially inadequate tool when it comes to modern cases presenting
modern problems. Consider the Court’s apparent preference for
founding-era regulation. See ante, at 25–28. Our country
confronted profoundly different problems during that time period
than it does today. Society at the founding was “predominantly
rural.” C. McKirdy, Misreading the Past: The Faulty Historical
Basis Behind the Supreme Court’s Decision in District of Columbia
v. Heller, 45 Capital U. L. Rev. 107, 151 (2017). In 1790,
most of America’s relatively small population of just four million
people lived on farms or in small towns. Ibid. Even New York
City, the largest American city then, as it is now, had a
population of just 33,000 people. Ibid. Small founding-era
towns are unlikely to have faced the same degrees and types of
risks from gun violence as major metropolitan areas do today, so
the types of regulations they adopted are unlikely to address
modern needs. Id., at 152 (“For the most part, a population
living on farms and in very small towns did not create conditions
in which firearms created a significant danger to the public
welfare”); see also supra, at 8–9.

															This problem is all the more acute when it comes
to “modern-day circumstances that [the Framers] could not have
anticipated.” Heller , 554 U. S., at 721–722 (Breyer,
J., dissenting). How can we expect laws and cases that are over a
century old to dictate the legality of regulations targeting “ghost
guns” constructed with the aid of a three-dimensional printer? See, e.g., White House Briefing Room, FACT SHEET: The Biden
Administration Cracks Down on Ghost Guns, Ensures That ATF Has the
Leadership It Needs To Enforce Our Gun Laws (Apr. 11, 2022),
https:// whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2022/
04/11 /fact-sheet-the-biden-administration-cracks-down-on-ghost-guns-ensures-that-atf-has-the-leadership-it-needs-to-enforce-our-gun-laws/.
Or modern laws requiring all gun shops to offer smart guns, which
can only be fired by authorized users? See, e.g., N. J.
Stat. Ann. §2C:58–2.10(a) (West Cum. Supp. 2022). Or laws imposing
additional criminal penalties for the use of bullets capable of
piercing body armor? See, e.g., 18 U. S. C.
§§921(a)(17)(B), 929(a).

															The Court’s answer is that judges will simply
have to employ “analogical reasoning.” Ante, at 19–20. But,
as I explained above, the Court does not provide clear guidance on
how to apply such reasoning. Even seemingly straightforward
historical restrictions on firearm use may prove surprisingly
difficult to apply to modern circumstances. The Court affirms Heller ’s recognition that States may forbid public carriage
in “sensitive places.” Ante, at 21–22. But what, in
21st-century New York City, may properly be considered a sensitive
place? Presumably “legislative assemblies, polling places, and
courthouses,” which the Court tells us were among the “relatively
few” places “where weapons were altogether prohibited” in the 18th
and 19th centuries. Ante, at 21. On the other hand, the
Court also tells us that “expanding the category of ‘sensitive
places’ simply to all places of public congregation that are not
isolated from law enforcement defines th[at] category
. . . far too broadly.” Ante, at 22. So where does
that leave the many locations in a modern city with no obvious
18th- or 19th-century analogue? What about subways, nightclubs,
movie theaters, and sports stadiums? The Court does not say.

															Although I hope—fervently—that future courts
will be able to identify historical analogues supporting the
validity of regulations that address new technologies, I fear that
it will often prove difficult to identify analogous technological
and social problems from Medieval England, the founding era, or the
time period in which the Fourteenth Amendment was ratified. Laws
addressing repeating crossbows, launcegays, dirks, dagges, skeines,
stilladers, and other ancient weapons will be of little help to
courts confronting modern problems. And as technological progress
pushes our society ever further beyond the bounds of the Framers’
imaginations, attempts at “analogical reasoning” will become
increasingly tortured. In short, a standard that relies solely on
history is unjustifiable and unworkable.

															IV

															Indeed, the Court’s application of its
history-only test in this case demonstrates the very pitfalls
described above. The historical evidence reveals a 700-year
Anglo-American tradition of regulating the public carriage of
firearms in general, and concealed or concealable firearms in
particular. The Court spends more than half of its opinion trying
to discredit this tradition. But, in my view, the robust evidence
of such a tradition cannot be so easily explained away. Laws
regulating the public carriage of weapons existed in England as
early as the 13th century and on this Continent since before the
founding. Similar laws remained on the books through the
ratifications of the Second and Fourteenth Amendments through to
the present day. Many of those historical regulations imposed
significantly stricter restrictions on public carriage than New
York’s licensing requirements do today. Thus, even applying the
Court’s history-only analysis, New York’s law must be upheld
because “historical precedent from before, during, and
. . . after the founding evinces a comparable tradition
of regulation.” Ante, at 18 (majority opinion) (internal
quotation marks omitted).

															A. England.

															The right codified by the Second Amendment was
“ ‘inherited from our English ancestors.’ ” Heller , 554 U. S., at 599 (quoting Robertson v. Baldwin , 165 U.S.
275 , 281 (1897)); see also ante, at 30 (majority
opinion). And some of England’s earliest laws regulating the public
carriage of weapons were precursors of similar American laws
enacted roughly contemporaneously with the ratification of the
Second Amendment. See infra, at 40–42. I therefore begin, as
the Court does, ante, at 30–31, with the English ancestors
of New York’s laws regulating public carriage of firearms.

															The relevant English history begins in the
late-13th and early-14th centuries, when Edward I and Edward II
issued a series of orders to local sheriffs that prohibited any
person from “going armed.” See 4 Calendar of the Close Rolls,
Edward I, 1296–1302, p. 318 (Sept. 15, 1299) (1906); id., at
588 (July 16, 1302); 5 id ., Edward I, 1302–1307, at 210
(June 10, 1304) (1908); id ., Edward II, 1307–1313, at 52
(Feb. 9, 1308) (1892); id., at 257 (Apr. 9, 1310); id., at 553 (Oct. 12, 1312); id ., Edward II,
1323–1327, at 560 (Apr. 28, 1326) (1898); 1 Calendar of Plea and
Memoranda Rolls of the City of London, 1323–1364, p. 15 (Nov. 1326)
(A. Thomas ed. 1926). Violators were subject to punishment,
including “forfeiture of life and limb.” See, e.g., 4
Calendar of the Close Rolls, Edward I, 1296–1302, at 318 (Sept. 15,
1299) (1906). Many of these royal edicts contained exemptions for
persons who had obtained “the king’s special licence.” See ibid. ; 5 id ., Edward I, 1302–1307, at 210 (June 10,
1304); id ., Edward II, 1307–1313, at 553 (Oct. 12, 1312); id. , Edward II, 1323–1327, at 560 (Apr. 28, 1326). Like New
York’s law, these early edicts prohibited public carriage absent
special governmental permission and enforced that prohibition on
pain of punishment.

															The Court seems to suggest that these early
regulations are irrelevant because they were enacted during a time
of “turmoil” when “malefactors . . . harried the country,
committing assaults and murders.” Ante, at 31 (internal
quotation marks omitted). But it would seem to me that what the
Court characterizes as a “right of armed self-defense” would be
more, rather than less, necessary during a time of “turmoil.” Ante, at 20. The Court also suggests that laws that were
enacted before firearms arrived in England, like these early edicts
and the subsequent Statute of Northampton, are irrelevant. Ante, at 32. But why should that be? Pregun regulations
prohibiting “going armed” in public illustrate an entrenched
tradition of restricting public carriage of weapons. That tradition
seems as likely to apply to firearms as to any other lethal
weapons—particularly if we follow the Court’s instruction to use
analogical reasoning. See ante, at 19–20. And indeed, as we
shall shortly see, the most significant prefirearm regulation of
public carriage—the Statute of Northampton—was in fact applied to
guns once they appeared in England. See Sir John Knight’s
Case , 3 Mod. 117, 87 Eng. Rep. 75, 76 (K. B. 1686)

															The Statute of Northampton was enacted in 1328.
2 Edw. 3, 258, c. 3. By its terms, the statute made it a criminal
offense to carry arms without the King’s authorization. It provided
that, without such authorization, “no Man great nor small, of what
Condition soever he be,” could “go nor ride armed by night nor by
day, in Fairs, Markets, nor in the presence of the Justices or
other Ministers, nor in no part elsewhere, upon pain to forfeit
their Armour to the King, and their Bodies to Prison at the King’s
pleasure.” Ibid. For more than a century following its
enactment, England’s sheriffs were routinely reminded to strictly
enforce the Statute of Northampton against those going armed
without the King’s permission. See Calendar of the Close Rolls,
Edward III, 1330–1333, at 131 (Apr. 3, 1330) (1898); 1 Calendar of
the Close Rolls, Richard II, 1377–1381, at 34 (Dec. 1, 1377)
(1914); 2 id ., Richard II, 1381–1385, at 3 (Aug. 7, 1381)
(1920); 3 id ., Richard II, 1385–1389, at 128 (Feb. 6, 1386)
(1921); id., at 399–400 (May 16, 1388); 4 id ., Henry
VI, 1441–1447, at 224 (May 12, 1444) (1937); see also 11 Tudor
Royal Proclamations, The Later Tudors: 1553–1587, pp. 442–445
(Proclamation 641, 21 Elizabeth I, July 26, 1579) (P. Hughes &
J. Larkin eds. 1969).

															The Court thinks that the Statute of Northampton
“has little bearing on the Second Amendment,” in part because it
was “enacted . . . more than 450 years before the
ratification of the Constitution.” Ante, at 32. The statute,
however, remained in force for hundreds of years, well into the
18th century. See 4 W. Blackstone, Commentaries 148–149 (1769)
(“The offence of riding or going armed , with
dangerous or unusual weapons, is a crime against the public peace,
by terrifying the good people of the land; and is particularly
prohibited by the Statute of Northampton ” (first emphasis in
original, second emphasis added)). It was discussed in the writings
of Blackstone, Coke, and others. See ibid. ; W. Hawkins, 1
Pleas of the Crown 135 (1716) (Hawkins); E. Coke, The Third Part of
the Institutes of the Laws of England 160 (1797). And several
American Colonies and States enacted restrictions modeled on the
statute. See infra, at 40–42. There is thus every reason to
believe that the Framers of the Second Amendment would have
considered the Statute of Northampton a significant chapter in the
Anglo-American tradition of firearms regulation.

															The Court also believes that, by the end of the
17th century, the Statute of Northampton was understood to contain
an extratextual intent element: the intent to cause terror in
others. Ante, at 34–38, 41. The Court relies on two sources
that arguably suggest that view: a 1686 decision, Sir John
Knight’s Case , and a 1716 treatise written by Serjeant William
Hawkins. Ante, at 34–37. But other sources suggest that
carrying arms in public was prohibited because it naturally
tended to terrify the people. See, e.g., M. Dalton, The
Country Justice 282–283 (1690) (“[T]o wear Armor, or Weapons not
usually worn, . . . seems also be a breach, or means of
breach of the Peace . . . ; for they strike a fear
and terror in the People” (emphasis added)). According to these
sources, terror was the natural consequence—not an additional
element—of the crime.

															I find this view more persuasive in large part
because it is not entirely clear that the two sources the Court
relies on actually support the existence of an intent-to-terrify
requirement. Start with Sir John Knight’s Case , which,
according to the Court, considered Knight’s arrest for walking
“ ‘about the streets’ ” and into a church “ ‘armed
with guns.’ ” Ante, at 34 (quoting Sir John Knight’s
Case , 3 Mod. 117, 87 Eng. Rep., at 76). The Court thinks that
Knight’s acquittal by a jury demonstrates that the Statute of
Northampton only prohibited public carriage of firearms with an
intent to terrify. Ante, at 34–35. But by now the legal
significance of Knight’s acquittal is impossible to reconstruct.
Brief for Patrick J. Charles as Amicus Curiae 23, n. 9. The
primary source describing the case (the English Reports) was
notoriously incomplete at the time Sir John Knight’s Case was decided. Id., at 24–25. And the facts that historians
can reconstruct do not uniformly support the Court’s
interpretation. The King’s Bench required Knight to pay a surety to
guarantee his future good behavior, so it may be more accurate to
think of the case as having ended in “a conditional pardon” than
acquittal. Young , 992 F. 3d, at 791; see also Rex v. Sir John Knight , 1 Comb. 40, 90 Eng.
Rep. 331 (K. B. 1686). And, notably, it appears that Knight based
his defense on his loyalty to the Crown, not a lack of intent to
terrify. 3 The Entring Book of Roger Morrice 1677–1691: The Reign
of James II, 1685–1687, pp. 307–308 (T. Harris ed. 2007).

															Similarly, the passage from the Hawkins treatise
on which the Court relies states that the Statute of Northampton’s
prohibition on the public carriage of weapons did not apply to the
“wearing of Arms . . . unless it be accompanied with such
Circumstances as are apt to terrify the People.” Hawkins 136. But
Hawkins goes on to enumerate relatively narrow circumstances where
this exception applied: when “Persons of Quality . . .
wea[r] common Weapons, or hav[e] their usual Number of Attendants
with them, for their Ornament or Defence, in such Places, and upon
such Occasions, in which it is the common Fashion to make use of
them,” or to persons merely wearing “privy Coats of Mail.” Ibid . It would make little sense if a narrow exception for
nobility, see Oxford English Dictionary (3d ed., Dec. 2012),
https://www.oed.com/view/Entry/155878 (defining “quality,”
A.I.5.a), and “privy coats of mail” were allowed to swallow the
broad rule that Hawkins (and other commentators of his time)
described elsewhere. That rule provided that “there may be an
Affray where there is no actual Violence; as where a Man arms
himself with dangerous and unusual Weapons, in such a Manner as
will naturally cause a Terror to the People, which is
. . . strictly prohibited by [the Statute of
Northampton].” Hawkins 135. And it provided no exception for those
who attempted to “excuse the wearing such Armour in Publick, by
alleging that . . . he wears it for the Safety of his
Person from . . . Assault.” Id., at 136. In my
view, that rule announces the better reading of the Statute of
Northampton—as a broad prohibition on the public carriage of
firearms and other weapons, without an intent-to-terrify
requirement or exception for self-defense.

															Although the Statute of Northampton is
particularly significant because of its breadth, longevity, and
impact on American law, it was far from the only English
restriction on firearms or their carriage. See, e.g., 6 Hen.
8 c. 13, §1 (1514) (restricting the use and ownership of handguns);
25 Hen. 8 c. 17, §1 (1533) (same); 33 Hen. 8 c. 6, §§1–2 (1541)
(same); 25 Edw. 3, st. 5, c. 2 (1350) (making it a “Felony or
Trespass” to “ride armed covertly or secretly with Men of Arms
against any other, to slay him, or rob him, or take him, or retain
him till he hath made Fine or Ransom for to have his Deliverance”)
(brackets and footnote omitted). Whatever right to bear arms we
inherited from our English forebears, it was qualified by a robust
tradition of public carriage regulations.

															As I have made clear, I am not a historian. But
if the foregoing facts, which historians and other scholars have
presented to us, are even roughly correct, it is difficult to see
how the Court can believe that English history fails to support
legal restrictions on the public carriage of firearms.

															B. The Colonies.

															The American Colonies continued the English
tradition of regulating public carriage on this side of the
Atlantic. In 1686, the colony of East New Jersey passed a law
providing that “no person or persons . . . shall presume
privately to wear any pocket pistol, skeines, stilladers, daggers
or dirks, or other unusual or unlawful weapons within this
Province.” An Act Against Wearing Swords, &c., ch. 9, in
Grants, Concessions, and Original Constitutions of the Province of
New Jersey 290 (2d ed. 1881). East New Jersey also specifically
prohibited “planter[s]” from “rid[ing] or go[ing] armed with sword,
pistol, or dagger.” Ibid . Massachusetts Bay and New
Hampshire followed suit in 1692 and 1771, respectively, enacting
laws that, like the Statute of Northampton, provided that those who
went “armed Offensively” could be punished. An Act for the
Punishing of Criminal Offenders, 1692 Mass. Acts and Laws no. 6,
pp. 11–12; An Act for the Punishing of Criminal Offenders, 1771
N. H. Acts and Laws ch. 6, §5, p. 17.

															It is true, as the Court points out, that these
laws were only enacted in three colonies. Ante, at 37. But
that does not mean that they may be dismissed as outliers. They
were successors to several centuries of comparable laws in England,
see supra, at 34–40, and predecessors to numerous similar
(in some cases, materially identical) laws enacted by the States
after the founding, see infra, at 41–42. And while it may be
true that these laws applied only to “dangerous and unusual
weapons,” see ante, at 38 (majority opinion), that category
almost certainly included guns, see Charles, 60 Clev. St.
L. Rev., at 34, n. 181 (listing 18th century sources
defining “ ‘offensive weapons’ ” to include “ ‘Fire
Arms’ ” and “ ‘Guns’ ”); State v. Huntly , 25 N. C. 418, 422 (1843)
( per curiam ) (“A gun is an ‘unusual weapon,’ wherewith
to be armed and clad”). Finally, the Court points out that New
Jersey’s ban on public carriage applied only to certain people or
to the concealed carriage of certain smaller firearms. Ante, at 39–40. But the Court’s refusal to credit the relevance of East
New Jersey’s law on this basis raises a serious question about
what, short of a “twin” or a “dead ringer,” qualifies as a relevant
historical analogue. See ante, at 21 (majority opinion)
(emphasis deleted).

															C. The Founding Era.

															The tradition of regulations restricting
public carriage of firearms, inherited from England and adopted by
the Colonies, continued into the founding era. Virginia, for
example, enacted a law in 1786 that, like the Statute of
Northampton, prohibited any person from “go[ing] nor rid[ing] armed
by night nor by day, in fairs or markets, or in other places, in
terror of the Country.” 1786 Va. Acts, ch. 21. And, as the Court
acknowledges, “public-carry restrictions proliferate[d]” after the
Second Amendment’s ratification five years later in 1791. Ante, at 42. Just a year after that, North Carolina enacted
a law whose language was lifted from the Statute of Northampton
virtually verbatim (vestigial references to the King included).
Collection of Statutes, pp. 60–61, ch. 3 (F. Martin ed. 1792).
Other States passed similar laws in the late-18th and 19th
centuries. See, e.g., 1795 Mass. Acts and Laws ch. 2, p.
436; 1801 Tenn. Acts pp. 260–261; 1821 Me. Laws p. 285; see also
Charles, 60 Clev. St. L. Rev., at 40, n. 213 (collecting
sources).

															The Court discounts these laws primarily because
they were modeled on the Statute of Northampton, which it believes
prohibited only public carriage with the intent to terrify. Ante, at 41. I have previously explained why I believe that
preventing public terror was one reason that the Statute of
Northampton prohibited public carriage, but not an element of the crime. See supra, at 37–39. And, consistent with that
understanding, American regulations modeled on the Statute of
Northampton appear to have been understood to set forth a broad
prohibition on public carriage of firearms without any
intent-to-terrify requirement. See Charles, 60 Clev. St.
L. Rev., at 35, 37–41; J. Haywood, A Manual of the Laws of
North-Carolina, pt. 2, p. 40 (3d ed.1814); J. Ewing, The Office and
Duty of a Justice of the Peace 546 (1805).

															The Court cites three cases considering
common-law offenses, ante, at 42–44, but those cases do not
support the view that only public carriage in a manner likely to
terrify violated American successors to the Statute of Northampton.
If anything, they suggest that public carriage of firearms was not
common practice. At least one of the cases the Court cites, State v. Huntly , wrote that the Statute of
Northampton codified a pre-existing common-law offense, which
provided that “riding or going armed with dangerous or unusual
weapons, is a crime against the public peace, by terrifying
the good people of the land.” 25 N. C., at 420–421 (quoting 4
Blackstone, Commentaries, at 149; emphasis added). Huntly added that “[a] gun is an ‘unusual weapon’ ” and that “[n]o
man amongst us carries it about with him, as one of his every-day
accoutrements—as a part of his dress—and never, we trust, will the
day come when any deadly weapon will be worn or wielded in our
peace-loving and law-abiding State, as an appendage of manly
equipment.” 25 N. C., at 422. True, Huntly recognized
that citizens were nonetheless “at perfect liberty” to carry for
“lawful purpose[s]”—but it specified that those purposes were
“business or amusement.” Id., at 422–423. New York’s law
similarly recognizes that hunting, target shooting, and certain
professional activities are proper causes justifying lawful
carriage of a firearm. See supra, at 12–13. The other two
cases the Court cites for this point similarly offer it only
limited support—either because the atextual intent element the
Court advocates was irrelevant to the decision’s result, see O’Neill v. State , 16 Ala. 65 (1849), or because the
decision adopted an outlier position not reflected in the other
cases cited by the Court, see Simpson v. State , 13
Tenn. 356, 360 (1833); see also ante, at 42–43, 57 (majority
opinion) (refusing to give “a pair of state-court decisions”
“disproportionate weight”). The founding-era regulations—like the
colonial and English laws on which they were modeled—thus
demonstrate a longstanding tradition of broad restrictions on
public carriage of firearms.

															D. The 19th Century.

															Beginning in the 19th century, States began to
innovate on the Statute of Northampton in at least two ways. First,
many States and Territories passed bans on concealed carriage or on
any carriage, concealed or otherwise, of certain concealable
weapons. For example, Georgia made it unlawful to carry, “unless in
an open manner and fully exposed to view, any pistol, (except
horseman’s pistols,) dirk, sword in a cane, spear, bowie-knife, or
any other kind of knives, manufactured and sold for the purpose of
offence and defence.” Ga. Code §4413 (1861). Other States and
Territories enacted similar prohibitions. See, e.g., Ala.
Code §3274 (1852) (banning, with limited exceptions, concealed
carriage of “a pistol, or any other description of fire arms”); see
also ante, at 44, n. 16 (majority opinion) (collecting
sources). And the Territory of New Mexico appears to have banned
all carriage whatsoever of “any class of pistols whatever,” as well
as “bowie kni[ves,] . . . Arkansas toothpick[s], Spanish
dagger[s], slung-shot[s], or any other deadly weapon.” 1860 Terr.
of N. M. Laws §§1–2, p. 94. These 19th-century bans on
concealed carriage were stricter than New York’s law, for they
prohibited concealed carriage with at most limited exceptions,
while New York permits concealed carriage with a lawfully obtained
license. See supra, at 12. Moreover, as Heller recognized, and the Court acknowledges, “the majority of the
19th-century courts to consider the question held that [these types
of] prohibitions on carrying concealed weapons were lawful under the Second Amendment or state analogues.” 554 U. S., at
626 (emphasis added); see also ante, at 44.

															The Court discounts this history because, it
says, courts in four Southern States suggested or held that a ban
on concealed carriage was only lawful if open carriage or carriage
of military pistols was allowed. Ante, at 44–46. (The Court
also cites Bliss v. Commonwealth , 12 Ky. 90 (1822),
which invalidated Kentucky’s concealed-carry prohibition as
contrary to that State’s Second Amendment analogue. Id., at
90–93. Bliss was later overturned by constitutional
amendment and was, as the Court appears to concede, an outlier. See Peruta v. County of San Diego , 824 F.3d 919, 935–936
(CA9 2016); ante, at 45.) Several of these decisions,
however, emphasized States’ leeway to regulate firearms carriage as
necessary “to protect the orderly and well disposed citizens from
the treacherous use of weapons not even designed for any purpose of
public defence.” State v. Smith , 11 La. 633 (1856);
see also Andrews v. State , 50 Tenn. 165, 179–180
(1871) (stating that “the right to keep ” rifles, shotguns,
muskets, and repeaters could not be “ infringed or forbidden ,” but “[t]heir use [may] be subordinated to
such regulations and limitations as are or may be authorized by the
law of the land, passed to subserve the general good, so as not to
infringe the right secured and the necessary incidents to the
exercise of such right”); State v. Reid , 1 Ala. 612,
616 (1840) (recognizing that the constitutional right to bear arms
“necessarily . . . leave[s] with the Legislature the
authority to adopt such regulations of police, as may be dictated
by the safety of the people and the advancement of public morals”).
And other courts upheld concealed-carry restrictions without any
reference to an exception allowing open carriage, so it is far from
clear that the cases the Court cites represent a consensus view.
See State v. Mitchell , 3 Blackf. 229 (Ind. 1833); State v. Buzzard , 4 Ark. 18 (1842). And, of course,
the Court does not say whether the result in this case would be
different if New York allowed open carriage by law-abiding citizens
as a matter of course.

															The second 19th-century innovation, adopted in a
number of States, was surety laws. Massachusetts’ surety law, which
served as a model for laws adopted by many other States, provided
that any person who went “armed with a dirk, dagger, sword, pistol,
or other offensive and dangerous weapon,” and who lacked
“reasonable cause to fear an assualt [ sic ],” could be made
to pay a surety upon the “complaint of any person having reasonable
cause to fear an injury, or breach of the peace.” Mass. Rev. Stat.,
ch. 134, §16 (1836). Other States and Territories enacted identical
or substantially similar laws. See, e.g., Me. Rev. Stat.,
ch. 169, §16 (1840); Mich. Rev. Stat., ch. 162, §16 (1846); Terr.
of Minn. Rev. Stat., ch. 112, §18 (1851); 1854 Ore. Stat., ch. 16,
§17; W. Va. Code, ch. 153, §8 (1868); 1862 Pa. Laws p. 250, §6.
These laws resemble New York’s licensing regime in many, though
admittedly not all, relevant respects. Most notably, like New
York’s proper cause requirement, the surety laws conditioned public
carriage in at least some circumstances on a special showing of
need. Compare supra, at 13, with Mass. Rev. Stat., ch. 134,
§16.

															The Court believes that the absence of recorded
cases involving surety laws means that they were rarely enforced. Ante, at 49–50. Of course, this may just as well show that
these laws were normally followed. In any case, scholars cited by
the Court tell us that “traditional case law research is not
especially probative of the application of these restrictions”
because “in many cases those records did not survive the passage of
time” or “are not well indexed or digitally searchable.” E. Ruben
& S. Cornell, Firearms Regionalism and Public Carry: Placing
Southern Antebellum Case Law in Context, 125 Yale L. J. Forum 121,
130–131, n. 53 (2015). On the contrary, “the fact that restrictions
on public carry were well accepted in places like Massachusetts and
were included in the relevant manuals for justices of the peace”
suggests “that violations were enforced at the justice of peace
level, but did not result in expensive appeals that would have
produced searchable case law.” Id ., at 131, n. 53 (citation
omitted). The surety laws and broader bans on concealed carriage
enacted in the 19th century demonstrate that even relatively
stringent restrictions on public carriage have long been understood
to be consistent with the Second Amendment and its state
equivalents.

															E. Postbellum Regulation.

															After the Civil War, public carriage of
firearms remained subject to extensive regulation. See, e.g., Cong. Globe, 39th Cong., 1st Sess., 908 (1866) (“The
constitutional rights of all loyal and well-disposed inhabitants to
bear arms will not be infringed; nevertheless this shall not be
construed to sanction the unlawful practice of carrying concealed
weapons”). Of course, during this period, Congress provided (and
commentators recognized) that firearm regulations could not be
designed or enforced in a discriminatory manner. See ibid. ;
Act of July 16, 1866, §14, 14Stat. 176–177 (ensuring that all
citizens were entitled to the “full and equal benefit of all laws
. . . including the constitutional right to keep and bear
arms . . . without respect to race or color, or previous
condition of slavery”); see also The Loyal Georgian, Feb. 3, 1866,
p. 3, col. 4. But that by-now uncontroversial proposition says
little about the validity of nondiscriminatory restrictions on
public carriage, like New York’s.

															What is more relevant for our purposes is the
fact that, in the postbellum period, States continued to enact
generally applicable restrictions on public carriage, many of which
were even more restrictive than their predecessors. See S. Cornell
& J. Florence, The Right to Bear Arms in the Era of the
Fourteenth Amendment: Gun Rights or Gun Regulation? 50 Santa Clara
L. Rev. 1043, 1066 (2010). Most notably, many States and Western
Territories enacted stringent regulations that prohibited any public carriage of firearms, with only limited
exceptions. For example, Texas made it a misdemeanor to carry in
public “any pistol, dirk, dagger, slung-shot, sword-cane, spear,
brass-knuckles, bowie-knife, or any other kind of knife
manufactured or sold for the purpose of offense or defense” absent
“reasonable grounds for fearing an [immediate and pressing]
unlawful attack.” 1871 Tex. Gen. Laws ch. 34, §1. Similarly, New
Mexico made it “unlawful for any person to carry deadly weapons,
either concealed or otherwise, on or about their persons within any
of the settlements of this Territory.” 1869 Terr. of N. M.
Laws ch. 32, §1. New Mexico’s prohibition contained only narrow
exceptions for carriage on a person’s own property, for
self-defense in the face of immediate danger, or with official
authorization. Ibid. Other States and Territories adopted
similar laws. See, e.g., 1875 Wyo. Terr. Sess. Laws ch. 52,
§1; 1889 Idaho Terr. Gen. Laws §1, p. 23; 1881 Kan. Sess. Laws
§23, p. 92; 1889 Ariz. Terr. Sess. Laws no. 13, §1, p. 16.

															When they were challenged, these laws were
generally upheld. P. Charles, The Faces of the Second Amendment
Outside the Home, Take Two: How We Got Here and Why It Matters, 64
Clev. St. L. Rev. 373, 414 (2016); see also ante, at 56–57
(majority opinion) (recognizing that postbellum Texas law and court
decisions support the validity of New York’s licensing regime); Andrews , 50 Tenn., at 182 (recognizing that “a man may well
be prohibited from carrying his arms to church, or other public
assemblage,” and that the carriage of arms other than rifles, shot
guns, muskets, and repeaters “may be prohibited if the Legislature
deems proper, absolutely, at all times, and under all
circumstances”).

															The Court’s principal answer to these broad
prohibitions on public carriage is to discount gun control laws
passed in the American West. Ante, at 58–61. It notes that
laws enacted in the Western Territories were “rarely subject to
judicial scrutiny.” Ante, at 60. But, of course, that may
well mean that “[w]e . . . can assume it settled that
these” regulations were “consistent with the Second Amendment.” See ante, at 21 (majority opinion). The Court also reasons that
laws enacted in the Western Territories applied to a relatively
small portion of the population and were comparatively short lived.
See ante, 59–61. But even assuming that is true, it does not
mean that these laws were historical aberrations. To the contrary,
bans on public carriage in the American West and elsewhere
constitute just one chapter of the centuries-old tradition of
comparable firearms regulations described above.

															F. The 20th Century.

															The Court disregards “20th-century historical
evidence.” Ante, at 58, n. 28. But it is worth noting
that the law the Court strikes down today is well over 100 years
old, having been enacted in 1911 and amended to substantially its
present form in 1913. See supra, at 12. That alone gives it
a longer historical pedigree than at least three of the four types
of firearms regulations that Heller identified as
“presumptively lawful.” 554 U. S., at 626–627, and n. 26;
see C. Larson, Four Exceptions in Search of a Theory: District
of Columbia v. Heller and Judicial Ipse Dixit , 60
Hastings L. J. 1371, 1374–1379 (2009) (concluding that
“ ‘prohibitions on the possession of firearms by felons and
the mentally ill [and] laws imposing conditions and qualifications
on the commercial sale of arms’ ” have their origins in the
20th century); Kanter v. Barr , 919 F.3d 437, 451 (CA7
2019) (Barrett, J., dissenting) (“Founding-era legislatures did not
strip felons of the right to bear arms simply because of their
status as felons”). Like Justice Kavanaugh, I understand the
Court’s opinion today to cast no doubt on that aspect of Heller ’s holding. Ante, at 3 (concurring opinion).
But unlike Justice Kavanaugh, I find the disconnect between Heller ’s treatment of laws prohibiting, for example,
firearms possession by felons or the mentally ill, and the Court’s
treatment of New York’s licensing regime, hard to square. The
inconsistency suggests that the Court today takes either an
unnecessarily cramped view of the relevant historical record or a
needlessly rigid approach to analogical reasoning.

															*  *  *

															The historical examples of regulations similar
to New York’s licensing regime are legion. Closely analogous
English laws were enacted beginning in the 13th century, and
similar American regulations were passed during the colonial
period, the founding era, the 19th century, and the 20th century.
Not all of these laws were identical to New York’s, but that is
inevitable in an analysis that demands examination of seven
centuries of history. At a minimum, the laws I have recounted resembled New York’s law, similarly restricting the right to
publicly carry weapons and serving roughly similar purposes. That
is all that the Court’s test, which allows and even encourages
“analogical reasoning,” purports to require. See ante, at 21
(disclaiming the necessity of a “historical twin ”).

															In each instance, the Court finds a reason to
discount the historical evidence’s persuasive force. Some of the
laws New York has identified are too old. But others are too
recent. Still others did not last long enough. Some applied to too
few people. Some were enacted for the wrong reasons. Some may have
been based on a constitutional rationale that is now impossible to
identify. Some arose in historically unique circumstances. And some
are not sufficiently analogous to the licensing regime at issue
here. But if the examples discussed above, taken together, do not
show a tradition and history of regulation that supports the
validity of New York’s law, what could? Sadly, I do not know the
answer to that question. What is worse, the Court appears to have
no answer either.

															V

															We are bound by Heller insofar as Heller interpreted the Second Amendment to protect an
individual right to possess a firearm for self-defense. But Heller recognized that that right was not without limits and
could appropriately be subject to government regulation . 554
U. S., at 626–627. Heller therefore does not require
holding that New York’s law violates the Second Amendment. In so
holding, the Court goes beyond Heller .

															It bases its decision to strike down New York’s
law almost exclusively on its application of what it calls
historical “analogical reasoning.” Ante, at 19–20. As I have
admitted above, I am not a historian, and neither is the Court. But
the history, as it appears to me, seems to establish a robust
tradition of regulations restricting the public carriage of
concealed firearms. To the extent that any uncertainty remains
between the Court’s view of the history and mine, that uncertainty
counsels against relying on history alone. In my view, it is
appropriate in such circumstances to look beyond the history and
engage in what the Court calls means-end scrutiny. Courts must be
permitted to consider the State’s interest in preventing gun
violence, the effectiveness of the contested law in achieving that
interest, the degree to which the law burdens the Second Amendment
right, and, if appropriate, any less restrictive alternatives.

															The Second Circuit has previously done just
that, and it held that New York’s law does not violate the Second
Amendment. See Kachalsky , 701 F. 3d, at 101. It first
evaluated the degree to which the law burdens the Second Amendment
right to bear arms. Id., at 93–94. It concluded that the law
“places substantial limits on the ability of law-abiding citizens
to possess firearms for self-defense in public,” but does not
burden the right to possess a firearm in the home, where Heller said “ ‘the need for defense of self, family,
and property is most acute.’ ” Kachalsky , 701
F. 3d, at 93–94 (quoting Heller, 554 U. S., at
628). The Second Circuit therefore determined that the law should
be subject to heightened scrutiny, but not to strict scrutiny and
its attendant presumption of unconstitutionality. 701 F. 3d, at
93–94. In applying such heightened scrutiny, the Second Circuit
recognized that “New York has substantial, indeed compelling,
governmental interests in public safety and crime prevention.” Id., at 97. I agree. As I have demonstrated above, see supra, at 3–9, firearms in public present a number of
dangers, ranging from mass shootings to road rage killings, and are
responsible for many deaths and injuries in the United States. The
Second Circuit then evaluated New York’s law and concluded that it
is “substantially related” to New York’s compelling interests. Kachalsky , 701 F. 3d, at 98–99. To support that
conclusion, the Second Circuit pointed to “studies and data
demonstrating that widespread access to handguns in public
increases the likelihood that felonies will result in death and
fundamentally alters the safety and character of public spaces.” Id., at 99. We have before us additional studies confirming
that conclusion. See, e.g., supra, at 19–20
(summarizing studies finding that “may issue” licensing regimes are
associated with lower rates of violent crime than “shall issue”
regimes). And we have been made aware of no less restrictive, but
equally effective, alternative. After considering all of these
factors, the Second Circuit held that New York’s law does not
unconstitutionally burden the right to bear arms under the Second
Amendment. I would affirm that holding.

															New York’s Legislature considered the empirical
evidence about gun violence and adopted a reasonable licensing law
to regulate the concealed carriage of handguns in order to keep the
people of New York safe. The Court today strikes down that law
based only on the pleadings. It gives the State no opportunity to
present evidence justifying its reasons for adopting the law or
showing how the law actually operates in practice, and it does not
so much as acknowledge these important considerations. Because I
cannot agree with the Court’s decision to strike New York’s law
down without allowing for discovery or the development of any
evidentiary record, without considering the State’s compelling
interest in preventing gun violence and protecting the safety of
its citizens, and without considering the potentially deadly
consequences of its decision, I respectfully dissent.

Summary: The Supreme Court ruled that the Second and Fourteenth Amendments protect an individual's right to carry a handgun for self-defense outside the home, striking down New York's law requiring a special need for a public-carry license as a violation of the Constitution.