Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/23pdf/22-915_8o6b.pdf
Page Number: 13.0

Cite as:  602 U. S. ____ (2024) 

9 

Opinion of the Court 

decide whether regulation under Section 922(g)(8)(C)(ii) is
also permissible. 

2 
This Court reviewed the history of American gun laws ex-
tensively in Heller and Bruen.  From the earliest days of the 
common law, firearm regulations have included provisions
barring people from misusing weapons to harm or menace
others.  The act of “go[ing] armed to terrify the King’s sub-
jects” was recognized at common law as a “great offence.” 
Sir John Knight’s Case, 3 Mod. 117, 118, 87 Eng. Rep. 75, 
76  (K.  B.  1686).  Parliament  began  codifying  prohibitions
against such conduct as early as the 1200s and 1300s, most 
notably in the Statute of Northampton of 1328.  Bruen, 597 
U. S., at 40.  In the aftermath of the Reformation and the 
English Civil War, Parliament passed further restrictions. 
The Militia Act of 1662, for example, authorized the King’s
agents  to  “seize  all  Armes  in  the  custody  or  possession  of 
any person . . . judge[d] dangerous to the Peace of the King-
dome.”  14 Car. 2 c. 3, §13 (1662); J. Greenlee, The Histori-
cal  Justification  for  Prohibiting  Dangerous  Persons  From 
Possessing Arms, 20 Wyo. L. Rev. 249, 259 (2020). 

The  Glorious  Revolution  cut  back  on  the  power  of  the
Crown to disarm its subjects unilaterally.  King James II
had “caus[ed] several good Subjects being Protestants to be
disarmed at the same Time when Papists were . . . armed.”  
1 Wm. & Mary c. 2, §6, in 3 Eng. Stat. at Large 440 (1689).
By way of rebuke, Parliament adopted the English Bill of 
Rights,  which  guaranteed  “that  the  Subjects  which  are 
Protestants,  may  have  Arms  for  their  Defence  suitable  to
their Conditions, and as allowed by Law.”  §7, id., at 441. 
But as the document itself memorialized, the principle that 
arms-bearing was constrained “by Law” remained.  Ibid. 

Through these centuries, English law had disarmed not 
only brigands and highwaymen but also political opponents