Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/21pdf/20-843_7j80.pdf
Page Number: 43.0

Cite as:  597 U. S. ____ (2022) 

37 

Opinion of the Court 

had no “Intention to commit any Act of Violence or Disturb-
ance 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, “do-
mestic 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 cen-
tury—and near the founding—they had gained a fairly se-
cure 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  re-
strictions on public carry.  For starters, we doubt that three 
colonial regulations could suffice to show a tradition of pub-
lic-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.    Colo-
nial  Massachusetts  and  New  Hampshire  both  authorized 
justices  of  the  peace  to  arrest  “all  Affrayers,  Rioters,  Dis-
turbers, or Breakers of the Peace, and such as shall ride or