Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/21pdf/20-843_7j80.pdf
Page Number: 119

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

BREYER, J., dissenting 

these early edicts and the subsequent Statute of Northamp-
ton, are irrelevant.  Ante, at 32.  But why should that be? 
Pregun regulations prohibiting “going armed” in public il-
lustrate  an  entrenched  tradition  of  restricting  public  car-
riage of weapons.  That tradition seems as likely to apply to 
firearms as to any other lethal weapons—particularly if we 
follow the Court’s instruction to use analogical reasoning. 
See ante, at 19–20.  And indeed, as we shall shortly see, the
most significant prefirearm regulation of public carriage—
the  Statute  of  Northampton—was  in  fact  applied  to  guns 
once  they  appeared  in  England.    See  Sir  John  Knight’s 
Case, 3 Mod. 117, 87 Eng. Rep. 75, 76 (K. B. 1686) 

The Statute of Northampton was enacted in 1328.  2 Edw. 
3,  258,  c.  3.  By  its  terms,  the  statute  made  it  a  criminal 
offense to carry arms without the King’s authorization.  It 
provided  that,  without  such  authorization,  “no  Man  great
nor  small,  of  what  Condition  soever  he  be,”  could  “go  nor 
ride armed by night nor by day, in Fairs, Markets, nor in
the  presence  of  the  Justices  or  other  Ministers,  nor  in  no
part  elsewhere,  upon  pain  to  forfeit  their  Armour  to  the
King,  and  their  Bodies  to  Prison  at  the  King’s  pleasure.” 
Ibid.  For more than a century following its enactment, Eng-
land’s  sheriffs  were  routinely  reminded  to  strictly  enforce 
the  Statute  of  Northampton  against  those  going  armed 
without the King’s permission.  See Calendar of the Close 
Rolls, Edward III, 1330–1333, at 131 (Apr. 3, 1330) (1898); 
1 Calendar of the Close Rolls, Richard II, 1377–1381, at 34 
(Dec.  1,  1377)  (1914);  2  id.,  Richard  II,  1381–1385,  at  3 
(Aug. 7, 1381) (1920); 3 id., Richard II, 1385–1389, at 128 
(Feb. 6, 1386) (1921); id., at 399–400 (May 16, 1388); 4 id., 
Henry VI, 1441–1447, at 224 (May 12, 1444) (1937); see also
11  Tudor  Royal  Proclamations,  The  Later  Tudors:  1553–
1587, pp. 442–445 (Proclamation 641, 21 Elizabeth I, July 
26, 1579) (P. Hughes & J. Larkin eds. 1969). 

The Court thinks that the Statute of Northampton “has
little bearing on the Second Amendment,” in part because