New York State Rifle & Pistol Assn., Inc. v. Bruen
597 U. S. ____ (2022) (2022)
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Rule of Law:
The Second and Fourteenth Amendments protect an individual's right to carry a handgun for self-defense outside the home. To justify a firearm regulation, the government must demonstrate that the regulation is consistent with the nation's historical tradition of firearm regulation, not by using a means-end scrutiny test.
Facts:
- New York state law requires a person to obtain a license to carry a concealed handgun in public.
- To obtain an unrestricted license for self-defense, the law requires an applicant to demonstrate that 'proper cause exists.'
- New York courts have interpreted 'proper cause' to mean that an applicant must 'demonstrate a special need for self-protection distinguishable from that of the general community.'
- Robert Nash, a law-abiding citizen, applied for an unrestricted license to carry a handgun for general self-defense.
- The state denied Nash's application for an unrestricted license because he failed to demonstrate a special need, granting him only a restricted license for hunting and target shooting.
- Nash later sought to have the restrictions removed, citing recent robberies in his neighborhood, but his request was denied.
- Brandon Koch, another law-abiding citizen, held a similar restricted license and applied to have the restrictions removed for general self-defense.
- The state also denied Koch's application, except to permit him to carry a firearm to and from work.
Procedural Posture:
- Petitioners Brandon Koch and Robert Nash, along with the New York State Rifle & Pistol Association, sued state officials in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of New York.
- The complaint sought declaratory and injunctive relief, alleging that the state's denial of their applications for unrestricted concealed-carry licenses violated their Second and Fourteenth Amendment rights.
- The District Court dismissed the complaint, following existing precedent from the Second Circuit.
- Petitioners (as appellants) appealed the dismissal to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.
- The Second Circuit affirmed the District Court’s judgment, upholding the constitutionality of New York's proper-cause requirement.
- Petitioners then filed a petition for a writ of certiorari, which the U.S. Supreme Court granted.
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Issue:
Does New York's 'proper cause' requirement, which requires a license applicant to demonstrate a special need for self-protection distinguishable from that of the general community to carry a firearm in public, violate the Second and Fourteenth Amendments?
Opinions:
Majority - Thomas, J.
Yes, New York's 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. The Court rejects the two-step, means-end scrutiny framework previously used by lower courts. Instead, the standard is that 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 it is consistent with the Nation's historical tradition of firearm regulation. After an extensive historical analysis, the Court concludes that New York failed to identify an American tradition justifying its proper-cause requirement, as historical regulations did not prevent law-abiding citizens with ordinary self-defense needs from carrying arms in public.
Concurring - Alito, J.
Yes. This opinion joins the Court's opinion in full but writes to respond to the dissent's focus on gun violence statistics, arguing that those statistics are irrelevant to the legal question and that the very dangers of modern society are what cause law-abiding citizens to seek to carry arms for self-defense. The decision is limited and correctly decides the case on the pleadings, as New York's own admissions about how the law is applied are sufficient to find it unconstitutional.
Concurring - Kavanaugh, J.
Yes. This opinion joins the Court's opinion but writes to emphasize two limits of the decision. First, the ruling does not prohibit 'shall-issue' licensing regimes, which are objective and used by 43 states. Second, the decision does not disturb the list of 'presumptively lawful' regulations mentioned in Heller, such as prohibitions on felons possessing firearms or carrying in sensitive places. New York's law is unconstitutional because of the open-ended discretion it grants to licensing officials and its special-need requirement.
Concurring - Barrett, J.
Yes. This opinion joins the Court's opinion but writes to note two unresolved methodological questions: the precise role of post-ratification history in constitutional interpretation and whether the original meaning of the right should be fixed in 1791 or 1868. Because the historical record from both periods fails to support New York's law, the Court did not need to resolve these issues, but they may be important in future cases.
Dissenting - Breyer, J.
No, New York's law is constitutional and should be upheld. The majority makes three serious mistakes: deciding the case without an evidentiary record, rejecting the well-established means-end framework in favor of a rigid and unworkable 'history-only' approach, and misinterpreting the historical record, which actually shows a long tradition of regulating public carry. Courts are not historians and are ill-equipped for this analysis, which will prevent states from enacting common-sense regulations to address the modern crisis of gun violence.
Analysis:
This decision fundamentally alters Second Amendment jurisprudence by replacing the prevailing two-step, means-end scrutiny framework with a stricter 'text, history, and tradition' test. By extending the Second Amendment right to carry a firearm for self-defense outside the home and requiring the government to justify any regulation with a historical analogue, the Court makes it significantly harder for states to enact restrictive gun control laws. This ruling invalidates 'may-issue' licensing schemes and is expected to trigger widespread legal challenges to a variety of other federal, state, and local firearms regulations that may lack a clear historical twin from the 18th or 19th centuries.
