Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/23pdf/22-915_8o6b.pdf
Page Number: 3

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

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Syllabus 

Surety laws could be invoked to prevent all forms of violence, including 
spousal abuse, and also targeted the misuse of firearms.  These laws 
often offered the accused significant procedural protections.  

The “going armed” laws—a particular subset of the ancient common 
law  prohibition  on  affrays,  or  fighting  in  public—provided  a  mecha-
nism for punishing those who had menaced others with firearms.  Un-
der  these  laws,  individuals  were  prohibited  from  “riding  or  going 
armed, with dangerous or unusual weapons, [to] terrify[ ] the good peo-
ple of the land.”  4 Blackstone 149.  Those who did so faced forfeiture 
of  their  arms  and  imprisonment.    Prohibitions  on  going  armed  were 
incorporated  into  American  jurisprudence  through  the  common  law, 
and some States expressly codified them.  Pp. 9–13.

(3) Together, the surety and going armed laws confirm what com-
mon sense suggests: When an individual poses a clear threat of physi-
cal violence to another, the threatening individual may be disarmed. 
Section 922(g)(8) is not identical to these founding-era regimes, but it 
does not need to be.  Like the surety and going armed laws, Section 
922(g)(8)(C)(i) applies to individuals found by a court to threaten the 
physical safety of another.  This prohibition is “relevantly similar” to
those founding era regimes in both why and how it burdens the Second
Amendment  right.  Id.,  at  29.  Section  922(g)(8)  restricts  gun  use  to 
check demonstrated threats of physical violence, just as the surety and 
going  armed  laws  do.  Unlike  the  regulation  struck  down  in  Bruen, 
Section 922(g)(8) does not broadly restrict arms use by the public gen-
erally.

The burden that Section 922(g)(8) imposes on the right to bear arms
also fits within the Nation’s regulatory tradition.  While the Court does 
not  suggest  that  the  Second  Amendment  prohibits  the  enactment  of 
laws banning the possession of guns by categories of persons thought 
by a legislature to present a special danger of misuse, see Heller, 554 
U. S., at 626, Section 922(g)(8) applies only once a court has found that
the defendant “represents a credible threat to the physical safety” of 
another,  §922(g)(8)(C)(i),  which  notably  matches  the  similar  judicial 
determinations required in the surety and going armed laws.  Moreo-
ver, like surety bonds of limited duration, Section 922(g)(8) only pro-
hibits firearm possession so long as the defendant “is” subject to a re-
straining order.  Finally, the penalty—another relevant aspect of the 
burden—also  fits  within  the  regulatory  tradition.    The  going  armed
laws provided for imprisonment, and if imprisonment was permissible
to respond to the use of guns to threaten the physical safety of others, 
then  the  lesser  restriction  of  temporary  disarmament  that  Section 
922(g)(8) imposes is also permissible.

The Court’s decisions in Heller and Bruen do not help Rahimi.  While 
Section  922(g)(8)  bars  individuals  subject  to  restraining  orders  from