Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/21pdf/20-843_7j80.pdf
Page Number: 81.0

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

3 

KAVANAUGH, J., concurring 

Second,  as  Heller  and  McDonald  established  and  the 
Court today again explains, the Second Amendment “is nei-
ther  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 rele-
vant 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 fire-
arms 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 (ci-
tations and quotation marks omitted); see also McDon-
ald, 561 U. S., at 786 (plurality opinion). 

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With those additional comments, I join the opinion of the 

Court.