Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/21pdf/20-843_7j80.pdf
Page Number: 131

48  NEW YORK STATE RIFLE & PISTOL ASSN., INC. v. BRUEN 

BREYER, J., dissenting 

deems  proper,  absolutely,  at  all  times,  and  under  all  cir-
cumstances”).

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 en-
acted in the Western Territories were “rarely subject to ju-
dicial scrutiny.”  Ante, at 60.  But, of course, that may well 
mean that “[w]e . . . can assume it settled that these” regu-
lations 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 rela-
tively  small  portion  of  the  population  and  were  compara-
tively short lived.  See ante, 59–61.  But even assuming that
is true, it does not mean that these laws were historical ab-
errations.  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 regu-
lations 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 pre-
sent 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 “pre-
sumptively 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  “ ‘prohibi-
tions on the possession of firearms by felons and the men-
tally  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