Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/21pdf/20-843_7j80.pdf
Page Number: 63

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

57 

Opinion of the Court 

military-style  weapons  but  rather  all  arms  “as  are  com-
monly kept, according to the customs of the people, and are
appropriate for open and manly use in self-defense.”  Id., at 
458.  On that understanding, the court recognized that, in 
addition to “holster pistol[s],” the right to bear arms covered 
the carry of “such pistols at least as are not adapted to being 
carried  concealed.”  Id.,  at  458–459.    Nonetheless,  after 
expanding the scope of firearms that warranted state con-
stitutional protection, Duke held that requiring any pistol-
bearer to have “ ‘reasonable grounds fearing an unlawful at-
tack  on  [one’s]  person’ ”  was  a  “legitimate  and  highly 
proper” regulation of handgun carriage.  Id., at 456, 459– 
460.  Duke thus concluded that the 1871 statute “appear[ed] 
to  have  respected  the  right  to  carry  a  pistol  openly  when 
needed for self-defense.”  Id., at 459. 

We acknowledge that the Texas cases support New York’s
proper-cause  requirement,  which  one  can  analogize  to 
Texas’ “reasonable grounds” standard.  But the Texas stat-
ute, and the rationales set forth in English and Duke, are 
outliers. 
In  fact,  only  one  other  State,  West  Virginia,
adopted a similar public-carry statute before 1900.  See W. 
Va. Code, ch. 148, §7 (1887).  The West Virginia Supreme
Court upheld that prohibition, reasoning that no handguns
of  any  kind  were  protected  by  the  Second  Amendment,  a
rationale endorsed by no other court during this period.  See 
State v. Workman, 35 W. Va. 367, 371–374, 14 S. E. 9, 11 
(1891).  The Texas decisions therefore provide little insight 
into how postbellum courts viewed the right  to carry pro-
tected arms in public. 

In the end, while we recognize the support that postbel-
lum Texas provides for respondents’ view, we will not give 
disproportionate weight to a single state statute and a pair 
of state-court decisions.  As in Heller, we will not “stake our 
interpretation of the Second Amendment upon a single law, 
in effect in a single [State], that contradicts the overwhelm-
ing weight of other evidence regarding the right to keep and