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Page Number: 46

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

Opinion of the Court 

open carry of larger, presumably more common pistols, ex-
cept  as  to  “planters.”13    In  colonial  times,  a  “planter”  was
simply a farmer or plantation owner who settled new terri-
tory.  R.  Lederer,  Colonial  American  English  175  (1985);
New Jersey State Archives, J. Klett, Using the Records of
the  East  and  West  Jersey  Proprietors  31  (rev.  ed.  2014),
https://www.nj.gov/state/archives/pdf/proprietors.pdf.  While 
the  reason  behind  this  singular  restriction  is  not  entirely
clear, planters may have been targeted because colonial-era
East New Jersey was riven with “strife and excitement” be-
tween planters and the Colony’s proprietors “respecting ti-
tles to the soil.”  See W. Whitehead, East Jersey Under the
Proprietary  Governments  150–151  (rev.  2d  ed.  1875);  see 
also T. Gordon, The History of New Jersey 49 (1834).

In  any  event,  we  cannot  put  meaningful  weight  on  this 
solitary  statute.  First,  although  the  “planter”  restriction
may have prohibited the public carry of pistols, it did not 
prohibit planters from carrying long guns for self-defense—
including  the  popular  musket  and  carbine.    See  Peterson 
41.  Second, it does not appear that the statute survived for 
very long.  By 1694, East New Jersey provided that no slave 
“be permitted to carry any gun or pistol . . . into the woods, 
or  plantations”  unless  their  owner  accompanied  them. 
Grants and Concessions 341.  If slave-owning planters were 
prohibited from carrying pistols, it is hard to comprehend 
why  slaves  would  have  been  able  to  carry  them  in  the 
planter’s presence.  Moreover, there is no evidence that the 
1686  statute  survived  the  1702  merger  of  East  and  West
New Jersey.  See 1 Nevill, Acts of the General Assembly of 
the Province of New-Jersey (1752).  At most eight years of 

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13 Even  assuming  that  pocket  pistols  were,  as  East  Jersey  in  1686 
deemed  them,  “unusual  or  unlawful,”  it  appears  that  they  were  com-
monly used at least by the founding.  See, e.g., G. Neumann, The History 
of Weapons of the American Revolution 150–151 (1967); see also H. Hen-
drick,  P.  Paradis,  &  R.  Hornick,  Human  Factors  Issues  in  Handgun 
Safety and Forensics 44 (2008).