Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/21pdf/20-843_7j80.pdf
Page Number: 129

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

BREYER, J., dissenting 

Regionalism and Public Carry: Placing Southern Antebel-
lum Case Law in Context, 125 Yale L. J. Forum 121, 130– 
131,  n.  53  (2015).  On  the  contrary,  “the  fact  that  re-
strictions on public carry were well accepted in places like 
Massachusetts and were included in the relevant manuals 
for justices of the peace” suggests “that violations were en-
forced at the justice of peace level, but did not result in ex-
pensive appeals that would have produced searchable case
law.”  Id., at 131, n. 53 (citation omitted).  The surety laws
and broader bans on concealed carriage enacted in the 19th 
century  demonstrate  that  even  relatively  stringent  re-
strictions on public carriage have long been understood to
be  consistent  with  the  Second  Amendment  and  its  state 
equivalents. 

E. Postbellum Regulation. 

After the Civil War, public carriage of firearms remained 
subject to extensive regulation.  See, e.g., Cong. Globe, 39th
Cong., 1st Sess., 908 (1866) (“The constitutional rights of all 
loyal and well-disposed inhabitants to bear arms will not be 
infringed; nevertheless this shall not be construed to sanc-
tion the unlawful practice of carrying concealed weapons”).
Of course, during this period, Congress provided (and com-
mentators recognized) that firearm regulations could not be
designed or enforced in a discriminatory manner.  See ibid.; 
Act of July 16, 1866, §14, 14 Stat. 176–177 (ensuring that
all citizens were entitled to the “full and equal benefit of all
laws . . . including the constitutional right to keep and bear 
arms . . . without respect to race or color, or previous condi-
tion of slavery”); see also The Loyal Georgian, Feb. 3, 1866,
p.  3,  col.  4.   But  that  by-now  uncontroversial  proposition
says  little  about  the  validity  of  nondiscriminatory  re-
strictions on public carriage, like New York’s.

What is more relevant for our purposes is the fact that,
in the postbellum period, States continued to enact gener-
ally  applicable  restrictions  on  public  carriage,  many  of