{"id":467,"date":"2022-06-24T13:29:15","date_gmt":"2022-06-24T13:29:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/suny-monroe-law101\/?post_type=chapter&p=467"},"modified":"2022-06-24T13:35:42","modified_gmt":"2022-06-24T13:35:42","slug":"new-york-state-rifle-pistol-association-v-bruen","status":"publish","type":"chapter","link":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/suny-monroe-law101\/chapter\/new-york-state-rifle-pistol-association-v-bruen\/","title":{"raw":"NEW YORK STATE RIFLE & PISTOL ASSOCIATION v. BRUEN","rendered":"NEW YORK STATE RIFLE & PISTOL ASSOCIATION v. BRUEN"},"content":{"raw":"

NEW YORK STATE RIFLE & PISTOL ASSOCIATION,<\/strong><\/h3>\r\n

INC., ET AL. v. BRUEN, SUPERINTENDENT OF NEW<\/strong><\/h3>\r\n

YORK STATE POLICE, ET AL.<\/strong><\/h3>\r\n

597 U. S. ____ (2022)<\/strong><\/h3>\r\n

(Case Syllabus edited by Author)<\/p>\r\nThe State of New York makes it a crime to possess a firearm without a license, whether inside or outside the home. An individual who wants to carry a firearm outside his home may obtain an unrestricted license to \u201chave and carry\u201d a concealed \u201cpistol or revolver\u201d if he can prove that \u201cproper cause exists\u201d for doing so. N. Y. Penal Law Ann. \u00a7400.00(2) (f). An applicant satisfies the \u201cproper cause\u201d requirement only if he can \u201cdemonstrate a special need for self-protection distinguishable from that of the general community.\u201d E.g., In re Klenosky, 75 App. Div. 2d 793, 428 N. Y. S. 2d 256, 257.\r\n\r\nPetitioners Brandon Koch and Robert Nash are adult, law-abiding New York residents who both applied for unrestricted licenses to carry a handgun in public based on their generalized interest in self-defense. The State denied both of their applications for unrestricted licenses, allegedly because Koch and Nash failed to satisfy the \u201cproper cause\u201d requirement. Petitioners then sued respondents\u2014state officials who oversee the processing of licensing applications\u2014for declaratory and injunctive relief, alleging that respondents violated their Second and Fourteenth Amendment rights by denying their unrestricted-license applications for failure to demonstrate a unique need for self-defense. The District Court dismissed petitioners\u2019 complaint and the Court of Appeals affirmed. Both courts relied on the Second Circuit\u2019s prior decision in Kachalsky v. County of Westchester, 701 F. 3d 81, which had sustained New York\u2019s proper-cause standard, holding that the requirement was \u201csubstantially related to the achievement of an important governmental interest.\u201d Id., at 96.\r\n\r\nHeld: <\/strong>New York\u2019s proper-cause requirement violates the Fourteenth Amendment by preventing law-abiding citizens with ordinary self-defense needs from exercising their Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms in public for self-defense.\r\n\r\n(a) In District of Columbia v. Heller, 554 U. S. 570, and McDonald v. Chicago, 561 U. S. 742, the Court held that the Second and Fourteenth Amendments protect an individual right to keep and bear arms for self-defense. Under Heller, when the Second Amendment\u2019s plain text covers an individual\u2019s conduct, the Constitution presumptively protects that conduct, and to justify a firearm regulation the government must demonstrate that the regulation is consistent with the Nation\u2019s historical tradition of firearm regulation.\r\n\r\n(1) Since Heller and McDonald, the Courts of Appeals have developed a \u201ctwo-step\u201d framework for analyzing Second Amendment challenges that combines history with means-end scrutiny. The Court rejects that two-part approach as having one step too many. Step one is broadly consistent with Heller, which demands a test rooted in the Second Amendment\u2019s text, as informed by history. But Heller and McDonald do not support a second step that applies means-end scrutiny in the Second Amendment context. Heller\u2019s methodology centered on constitutional text and history. It did not invoke any means-end test such as strict or intermediate scrutiny, and it expressly rejected any interest-balancing inquiry akin to intermediate scrutiny.\r\n\r\n(2) Historical analysis can sometimes be difficult and nuanced, but reliance on history to inform the meaning of constitutional text is more legitimate, and more administrable, than asking judges to \u201cmake difficult empirical judgments\u201d about \u201cthe costs and benefits of firearms restrictions,\u201d especially given their \u201clack [of] expertise\u201d in the field. McDonald, 561 U. S., at 790\u2013791 (plurality opinion). Federal courts tasked with making difficult empirical judgments regarding firearm regulations under the banner of \u201cintermediate scrutiny\u201d often defer to the determinations of legislatures. While judicial deference to legislative interest balancing is understandable\u2014and, elsewhere, appropriate\u2014it is not deference that the Constitution demands here. The Second Amendment \u201cis the very product of an interest balancing by the people,\u201d and it \u201csurely elevates above all other interests the right of law-abiding, responsible citizens to use arms\u201d for self-defense. Heller, 554 U. S., at 635.\r\n\r\n(3) The test that the Court set forth in Heller and applies today requires courts to assess whether modern firearms regulations are consistent with the Second Amendment\u2019s text and historical understanding. Of course, 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. But the Constitution can, and must, apply to circumstances beyond those the Founders specifically anticipated, even though its meaning is fixed according to the understandings of those who ratified it. See, e.g., United States v. Jones, 565 U. S. 400, 404\u2013405. Indeed, the Court recognized in Heller at least one way in which the Second Amendment\u2019s historically fixed meaning applies to new circumstances: Its reference to \u201carms\u201d does not apply \u201conly [to] those arms in existence in the 18th century.\u201d 554 U. S., at 582.\r\n\r\nTo determine whether a firearm regulation is consistent with the Second Amendment, Heller and McDonald point toward at least two relevant metrics: first, whether modern and historical regulations impose a comparable burden on the right of armed self-defense, and second, whether that regulatory burden is comparably justified. Because \u201cindividual self-defense is \u2018the central component\u2019 of the Second Amendment right,\u201d these two metrics are \u201ccentral\u201d considerations when engaging in an analogical inquiry. McDonald, 561 U. S., at 767 (quoting Heller, 554 U. S., at 599).\r\n\r\nTo be clear, even if a modern-day regulation is not a dead ringer for historical precursors, it still may be analogous enough to pass constitutional muster. For example, courts can use analogies to \u201clongstanding\u201d \u201claws forbidding the carrying of firearms in sensitive places such as schools and government buildings\u201d to determine whether modern regulations are constitutionally permissible. Id., at 626. That said, respondents\u2019 attempt to characterize New York\u2019s proper-cause requirement as a \u201csensitive-place\u201d law lacks merit because there is no historical basis for New York to effectively declare the island of Manhattan a \u201csensitive place\u201d simply because it is crowded and protected generally by the New York City Police Department.\r\n\r\n(b) Having made the constitutional standard endorsed in Heller more explicit, the Court applies that standard to New York\u2019s proper cause requirement. Pp. 23\u201362.\r\n\r\n(1) It is undisputed that petitioners Koch and Nash\u2014two ordinary, law-abiding, adult citizens\u2014are part of \u201cthe people\u201d whom the Second Amendment protects. See Heller, 554 U. S., at 580. And no party disputes that handguns are weapons \u201cin common use\u201d today for self-defense. See id., at 627. The Court has little difficulty concluding also that the plain text of the Second Amendment protects Koch\u2019s and\r\n\r\nNash\u2019s proposed course of conduct\u2014carrying handguns publicly for self-defense. Nothing in the Second Amendment\u2019s text draws a home\/public distinction with respect to the right to keep and bear arms, and the definition of \u201cbear\u201d naturally encompasses public carry. Moreover, the Second Amendment guarantees an \u201cindividual right to possess and carry weapons in case of confrontation,\u201d id., at 592, and confrontation can surely take place outside the home. Pp. 23\u201324.\r\n\r\n(2) The burden then falls on respondents to show that New York\u2019s proper-cause requirement is consistent with this Nation\u2019s historical tradition of firearm regulation. To do so, respondents appeal to a variety of historical sources from the late 1200s to the early 1900s. But when it comes to interpreting the Constitution, not all history is created equal. \u201cConstitutional rights are enshrined with the scope they were understood to have when the people adopted them.\u201d Heller, 554 U. S., at 634\u2013635. The Second Amendment was adopted in 1791; the Fourteenth in 1868. Historical evidence that long predates or postdates either time may not illuminate the scope of the right. With these principles in mind, the Court concludes that respondents have failed to meet their burden to identify an American tradition justifying New York\u2019s proper-cause requirement.\r\n\r\n(i) Respondents\u2019 substantial reliance on English history and custom before the founding makes some sense given Heller\u2019s statement that the Second Amendment \u201ccodified a right \u2018inherited from our English ancestors.\u2019 \u201d 554 U. S., at 599. But the Court finds that history ambiguous at best and sees little reason to think that the Framers would have thought it applicable in the New World. The Court 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.\r\n\r\n(ii) Respondents next direct the Court to the history of the Colonies and early Republic, but they identify only three restrictions on public carry from that time. While the Court doubts that just three colonial regulations could suffice to show a tradition of public-carry regulation, even looking at these laws on their own terms, the Court is not convinced that they regulated public carry akin to the New York law at issue. The statutes essentially prohibited bearing arms in a way that spread \u201cfear\u201d or \u201cterror\u201d among the people, including by carrying of \u201cdangerous and unusual weapons.\u201d See 554 U. S., at 627.\r\n\r\nWhatever the likelihood that handguns were considered \u201cdangerous and unusual\u201d during the colonial period, they are today \u201cthe quintessential self-defense weapon.\u201d Id., at 629. Thus, these colonial laws provide no justification for laws restricting the public carry of weapons that are unquestionably in common use today.\r\n\r\n(iii) 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 \u201csurety\u201d statutes. None of these restrictions imposed a substantial burden on public carry analogous to that imposed by New York\u2019s restrictive licensing regime.\r\n\r\nCommon-Law Offenses.<\/em> As during the colonial and founding periods, the common-law offenses of \u201caffray\u201d or going armed \u201cto the terror of the people\u201d continued to impose some limits on firearm carry in the antebellum period. But there is no evidence indicating that these common-law limitations impaired the right of the general population to peaceable public carry.\r\n\r\nStatutory Prohibitions.<\/em> In the early to mid-19th century, some States began enacting laws that proscribed the concealed carry of pistols and other small weapons. But the antebellum state-court decisions upholding them evince a consensus view that States could not altogether prohibit the public carry of arms protected by the Second Amendment or state analogues.\r\n\r\nSurety Statutes.<\/em> In the mid-19th century, many jurisdictions began adopting laws that required certain individuals to post bond before carrying weapons in public. Contrary to respondents\u2019 position, these surety statutes in no way represented direct precursors to New York\u2019s proper-cause requirement. 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 \u201creasonable cause to fear an injury, or breach of the peace.\u201d Mass. Rev. Stat., ch. 134, \u00a716 (1836). Thus, unlike New York\u2019s 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.\r\n\r\nIn sum, the historical evidence from antebellum America does demonstrate that the manner of public carry was subject to reasonable regulation, but none of these limitations on the right to bear arms operated to prevent law-abiding citizens with ordinary self-defense needs from carrying arms in public for that purpose. Pp. 42\u201351.\r\n\r\n(iv) Evidence from around the adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment also does not support respondents\u2019 position. The \u201cdiscussion 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,\u201d Heller, 554 U. S., at 614, generally demonstrates that during Reconstruction the right to keep and bear arms had limits that were consistent with a right of the public to peaceably carry handguns for self-defense. The Court acknowledges two Texas cases\u2014English v. State, 35 Tex. 473 and State v. Duke, 42 Tex. 455\u2014that approved a statutory \u201creasonable grounds\u201d standard for public carry analogous to New York\u2019s proper-cause requirement. But these decisions were outliers and therefore provide little insight into how postbellum courts viewed the right to carry protected arms in public. See Heller, 554 U. S., at 632.\r\n\r\n(v) Finally, respondents point to the slight uptick in gun regulation during the late-19th century. As the Court suggested in Heller, however, late-19th-century evidence cannot provide much insight into the meaning of the Second Amendment when it contradicts earlier evidence. In addition, the vast majority of the statutes that respondents invoke come from the Western Territories. The bare existence of these localized restrictions cannot overcome the overwhelming evidence of an otherwise enduring American tradition permitting public carry. See Heller, 554 U. S., at 614. Moreover, these territorial laws were rarely subject to judicial scrutiny, and absent any evidence explaining why these unprecedented prohibitions on all public carry were understood to comport with the Second Amendment, they do little to inform \u201cthe origins and continuing significance of the Amendment.\u201d Ibid.; see also The Federalist No. 37, p. 229. 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, and others did not survive a Territory\u2019s admission to the Union as a State. Pp. 58\u201362.\r\n\r\n(vi) After reviewing the Anglo-American history of public carry, the Court concludes that respondents have not met their burden to identify an American tradition justifying New York\u2019s proper-cause requirement. 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 have they generally required law-abiding, responsible citizens to \u201cdemonstrate a special need for self-protection distinguishable from that of the general community\u201d to carry arms in public. Klenosky, 75 App. Div. 2d, at 793, 428 N. Y. S. 2d, at 257. P. 62.\r\n\r\n(c) The constitutional right to bear arms in public for self-defense is not \u201ca second-class right, subject to an entirely different body of rules than the other Bill of Rights guarantees.\u201d McDonald, 561 U. S., at 780 (plurality opinion). The exercise of other constitutional rights does not require individuals to demonstrate to government officers some special need. The Second Amendment right to carry arms in public for self-defense is no different. New York\u2019s proper-cause requirement violates the Fourteenth Amendment by preventing law-abiding citizens with ordinary self-defense needs from exercising their right to keep and bear arms in public.\r\n\r\n818 Fed. Appx. 99, reversed and remanded.\r\n\r\nTHOMAS, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which ROBERTS, C. J., and ALITO, GORSUCH, KAVANAUGH, and BARRETT, JJ., joined. ALITO, J., filed a concurring opinion. KAVANAUGH, J., filed a concurring opinion, in which ROBERTS, C. J., joined. BARRETT, J., filed a concurring opinion. BREYER, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which SOTOMAYOR and KAGAN, JJ., joined.\r\n\r\nhttps:\/\/www.supremecourt.gov\/opinions\/slipopinion\/21<\/a>\u00a0 Retrieved June 24, 2022","rendered":"

NEW YORK STATE RIFLE & PISTOL ASSOCIATION,<\/strong><\/h3>\n

INC., ET AL. v. BRUEN, SUPERINTENDENT OF NEW<\/strong><\/h3>\n

YORK STATE POLICE, ET AL.<\/strong><\/h3>\n

597 U. S. ____ (2022)<\/strong><\/h3>\n

(Case Syllabus edited by Author)<\/p>\n

The State of New York makes it a crime to possess a firearm without a license, whether inside or outside the home. An individual who wants to carry a firearm outside his home may obtain an unrestricted license to \u201chave and carry\u201d a concealed \u201cpistol or revolver\u201d if he can prove that \u201cproper cause exists\u201d for doing so. N. Y. Penal Law Ann. \u00a7400.00(2) (f). An applicant satisfies the \u201cproper cause\u201d requirement only if he can \u201cdemonstrate a special need for self-protection distinguishable from that of the general community.\u201d E.g., In re Klenosky, 75 App. Div. 2d 793, 428 N. Y. S. 2d 256, 257.<\/p>\n

Petitioners Brandon Koch and Robert Nash are adult, law-abiding New York residents who both applied for unrestricted licenses to carry a handgun in public based on their generalized interest in self-defense. The State denied both of their applications for unrestricted licenses, allegedly because Koch and Nash failed to satisfy the \u201cproper cause\u201d requirement. Petitioners then sued respondents\u2014state officials who oversee the processing of licensing applications\u2014for declaratory and injunctive relief, alleging that respondents violated their Second and Fourteenth Amendment rights by denying their unrestricted-license applications for failure to demonstrate a unique need for self-defense. The District Court dismissed petitioners\u2019 complaint and the Court of Appeals affirmed. Both courts relied on the Second Circuit\u2019s prior decision in Kachalsky v. County of Westchester, 701 F. 3d 81, which had sustained New York\u2019s proper-cause standard, holding that the requirement was \u201csubstantially related to the achievement of an important governmental interest.\u201d Id., at 96.<\/p>\n

Held: <\/strong>New York\u2019s proper-cause requirement violates the Fourteenth Amendment by preventing law-abiding citizens with ordinary self-defense needs from exercising their Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms in public for self-defense.<\/p>\n

(a) In District of Columbia v. Heller, 554 U. S. 570, and McDonald v. Chicago, 561 U. S. 742, the Court held that the Second and Fourteenth Amendments protect an individual right to keep and bear arms for self-defense. Under Heller, when the Second Amendment\u2019s plain text covers an individual\u2019s conduct, the Constitution presumptively protects that conduct, and to justify a firearm regulation the government must demonstrate that the regulation is consistent with the Nation\u2019s historical tradition of firearm regulation.<\/p>\n

(1) Since Heller and McDonald, the Courts of Appeals have developed a \u201ctwo-step\u201d framework for analyzing Second Amendment challenges that combines history with means-end scrutiny. The Court rejects that two-part approach as having one step too many. Step one is broadly consistent with Heller, which demands a test rooted in the Second Amendment\u2019s text, as informed by history. But Heller and McDonald do not support a second step that applies means-end scrutiny in the Second Amendment context. Heller\u2019s methodology centered on constitutional text and history. It did not invoke any means-end test such as strict or intermediate scrutiny, and it expressly rejected any interest-balancing inquiry akin to intermediate scrutiny.<\/p>\n

(2) Historical analysis can sometimes be difficult and nuanced, but reliance on history to inform the meaning of constitutional text is more legitimate, and more administrable, than asking judges to \u201cmake difficult empirical judgments\u201d about \u201cthe costs and benefits of firearms restrictions,\u201d especially given their \u201clack [of] expertise\u201d in the field. McDonald, 561 U. S., at 790\u2013791 (plurality opinion). Federal courts tasked with making difficult empirical judgments regarding firearm regulations under the banner of \u201cintermediate scrutiny\u201d often defer to the determinations of legislatures. While judicial deference to legislative interest balancing is understandable\u2014and, elsewhere, appropriate\u2014it is not deference that the Constitution demands here. The Second Amendment \u201cis the very product of an interest balancing by the people,\u201d and it \u201csurely elevates above all other interests the right of law-abiding, responsible citizens to use arms\u201d for self-defense. Heller, 554 U. S., at 635.<\/p>\n

(3) The test that the Court set forth in Heller and applies today requires courts to assess whether modern firearms regulations are consistent with the Second Amendment\u2019s text and historical understanding. Of course, 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. But the Constitution can, and must, apply to circumstances beyond those the Founders specifically anticipated, even though its meaning is fixed according to the understandings of those who ratified it. See, e.g., United States v. Jones, 565 U. S. 400, 404\u2013405. Indeed, the Court recognized in Heller at least one way in which the Second Amendment\u2019s historically fixed meaning applies to new circumstances: Its reference to \u201carms\u201d does not apply \u201conly [to] those arms in existence in the 18th century.\u201d 554 U. S., at 582.<\/p>\n

To determine whether a firearm regulation is consistent with the Second Amendment, Heller and McDonald point toward at least two relevant metrics: first, whether modern and historical regulations impose a comparable burden on the right of armed self-defense, and second, whether that regulatory burden is comparably justified. Because \u201cindividual self-defense is \u2018the central component\u2019 of the Second Amendment right,\u201d these two metrics are \u201ccentral\u201d considerations when engaging in an analogical inquiry. McDonald, 561 U. S., at 767 (quoting Heller, 554 U. S., at 599).<\/p>\n

To be clear, even if a modern-day regulation is not a dead ringer for historical precursors, it still may be analogous enough to pass constitutional muster. For example, courts can use analogies to \u201clongstanding\u201d \u201claws forbidding the carrying of firearms in sensitive places such as schools and government buildings\u201d to determine whether modern regulations are constitutionally permissible. Id., at 626. That said, respondents\u2019 attempt to characterize New York\u2019s proper-cause requirement as a \u201csensitive-place\u201d law lacks merit because there is no historical basis for New York to effectively declare the island of Manhattan a \u201csensitive place\u201d simply because it is crowded and protected generally by the New York City Police Department.<\/p>\n

(b) Having made the constitutional standard endorsed in Heller more explicit, the Court applies that standard to New York\u2019s proper cause requirement. Pp. 23\u201362.<\/p>\n

(1) It is undisputed that petitioners Koch and Nash\u2014two ordinary, law-abiding, adult citizens\u2014are part of \u201cthe people\u201d whom the Second Amendment protects. See Heller, 554 U. S., at 580. And no party disputes that handguns are weapons \u201cin common use\u201d today for self-defense. See id., at 627. The Court has little difficulty concluding also that the plain text of the Second Amendment protects Koch\u2019s and<\/p>\n

Nash\u2019s proposed course of conduct\u2014carrying handguns publicly for self-defense. Nothing in the Second Amendment\u2019s text draws a home\/public distinction with respect to the right to keep and bear arms, and the definition of \u201cbear\u201d naturally encompasses public carry. Moreover, the Second Amendment guarantees an \u201cindividual right to possess and carry weapons in case of confrontation,\u201d id., at 592, and confrontation can surely take place outside the home. Pp. 23\u201324.<\/p>\n

(2) The burden then falls on respondents to show that New York\u2019s proper-cause requirement is consistent with this Nation\u2019s historical tradition of firearm regulation. To do so, respondents appeal to a variety of historical sources from the late 1200s to the early 1900s. But when it comes to interpreting the Constitution, not all history is created equal. \u201cConstitutional rights are enshrined with the scope they were understood to have when the people adopted them.\u201d Heller, 554 U. S., at 634\u2013635. The Second Amendment was adopted in 1791; the Fourteenth in 1868. Historical evidence that long predates or postdates either time may not illuminate the scope of the right. With these principles in mind, the Court concludes that respondents have failed to meet their burden to identify an American tradition justifying New York\u2019s proper-cause requirement.<\/p>\n

(i) Respondents\u2019 substantial reliance on English history and custom before the founding makes some sense given Heller\u2019s statement that the Second Amendment \u201ccodified a right \u2018inherited from our English ancestors.\u2019 \u201d 554 U. S., at 599. But the Court finds that history ambiguous at best and sees little reason to think that the Framers would have thought it applicable in the New World. The Court 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.<\/p>\n

(ii) Respondents next direct the Court to the history of the Colonies and early Republic, but they identify only three restrictions on public carry from that time. While the Court doubts that just three colonial regulations could suffice to show a tradition of public-carry regulation, even looking at these laws on their own terms, the Court is not convinced that they regulated public carry akin to the New York law at issue. The statutes essentially prohibited bearing arms in a way that spread \u201cfear\u201d or \u201cterror\u201d among the people, including by carrying of \u201cdangerous and unusual weapons.\u201d See 554 U. S., at 627.<\/p>\n

Whatever the likelihood that handguns were considered \u201cdangerous and unusual\u201d during the colonial period, they are today \u201cthe quintessential self-defense weapon.\u201d Id., at 629. Thus, these colonial laws provide no justification for laws restricting the public carry of weapons that are unquestionably in common use today.<\/p>\n

(iii) 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 \u201csurety\u201d statutes. None of these restrictions imposed a substantial burden on public carry analogous to that imposed by New York\u2019s restrictive licensing regime.<\/p>\n

Common-Law Offenses.<\/em> As during the colonial and founding periods, the common-law offenses of \u201caffray\u201d or going armed \u201cto the terror of the people\u201d continued to impose some limits on firearm carry in the antebellum period. But there is no evidence indicating that these common-law limitations impaired the right of the general population to peaceable public carry.<\/p>\n

Statutory Prohibitions.<\/em> In the early to mid-19th century, some States began enacting laws that proscribed the concealed carry of pistols and other small weapons. But the antebellum state-court decisions upholding them evince a consensus view that States could not altogether prohibit the public carry of arms protected by the Second Amendment or state analogues.<\/p>\n

Surety Statutes.<\/em> In the mid-19th century, many jurisdictions began adopting laws that required certain individuals to post bond before carrying weapons in public. Contrary to respondents\u2019 position, these surety statutes in no way represented direct precursors to New York\u2019s proper-cause requirement. 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 \u201creasonable cause to fear an injury, or breach of the peace.\u201d Mass. Rev. Stat., ch. 134, \u00a716 (1836). Thus, unlike New York\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

In sum, the historical evidence from antebellum America does demonstrate that the manner of public carry was subject to reasonable regulation, but none of these limitations on the right to bear arms operated to prevent law-abiding citizens with ordinary self-defense needs from carrying arms in public for that purpose. Pp. 42\u201351.<\/p>\n

(iv) Evidence from around the adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment also does not support respondents\u2019 position. The \u201cdiscussion 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,\u201d Heller, 554 U. S., at 614, generally demonstrates that during Reconstruction the right to keep and bear arms had limits that were consistent with a right of the public to peaceably carry handguns for self-defense. The Court acknowledges two Texas cases\u2014English v. State, 35 Tex. 473 and State v. Duke, 42 Tex. 455\u2014that approved a statutory \u201creasonable grounds\u201d standard for public carry analogous to New York\u2019s proper-cause requirement. But these decisions were outliers and therefore provide little insight into how postbellum courts viewed the right to carry protected arms in public. See Heller, 554 U. S., at 632.<\/p>\n

(v) Finally, respondents point to the slight uptick in gun regulation during the late-19th century. As the Court suggested in Heller, however, late-19th-century evidence cannot provide much insight into the meaning of the Second Amendment when it contradicts earlier evidence. In addition, the vast majority of the statutes that respondents invoke come from the Western Territories. The bare existence of these localized restrictions cannot overcome the overwhelming evidence of an otherwise enduring American tradition permitting public carry. See Heller, 554 U. S., at 614. Moreover, these territorial laws were rarely subject to judicial scrutiny, and absent any evidence explaining why these unprecedented prohibitions on all public carry were understood to comport with the Second Amendment, they do little to inform \u201cthe origins and continuing significance of the Amendment.\u201d Ibid.; see also The Federalist No. 37, p. 229. 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, and others did not survive a Territory\u2019s admission to the Union as a State. Pp. 58\u201362.<\/p>\n

(vi) After reviewing the Anglo-American history of public carry, the Court concludes that respondents have not met their burden to identify an American tradition justifying New York\u2019s proper-cause requirement. 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 have they generally required law-abiding, responsible citizens to \u201cdemonstrate a special need for self-protection distinguishable from that of the general community\u201d to carry arms in public. Klenosky, 75 App. Div. 2d, at 793, 428 N. Y. S. 2d, at 257. P. 62.<\/p>\n

(c) The constitutional right to bear arms in public for self-defense is not \u201ca second-class right, subject to an entirely different body of rules than the other Bill of Rights guarantees.\u201d McDonald, 561 U. S., at 780 (plurality opinion). The exercise of other constitutional rights does not require individuals to demonstrate to government officers some special need. The Second Amendment right to carry arms in public for self-defense is no different. New York\u2019s proper-cause requirement violates the Fourteenth Amendment by preventing law-abiding citizens with ordinary self-defense needs from exercising their right to keep and bear arms in public.<\/p>\n

818 Fed. Appx. 99, reversed and remanded.<\/p>\n

THOMAS, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which ROBERTS, C. J., and ALITO, GORSUCH, KAVANAUGH, and BARRETT, JJ., joined. ALITO, J., filed a concurring opinion. KAVANAUGH, J., filed a concurring opinion, in which ROBERTS, C. J., joined. BARRETT, J., filed a concurring opinion. BREYER, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which SOTOMAYOR and KAGAN, JJ., joined.<\/p>\n

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