Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/21pdf/20-843_7j80.pdf
Page Number: 114.0

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

31 

BREYER, J., dissenting 

regulation.”  Ante,  at  37.  Other  laws  are  irrelevant,  the 
Court  claims,  because  they  are  too  dissimilar  from  New
York’s concealed-carry licensing regime.  See, e.g., ante, at 
48–49.  But  the  Court  does  not  say  what  “representative
historical  analogue,”  short  of  a  “twin”  or  a  “dead  ringer,” 
would suffice.  See ante, at 21 (emphasis deleted).  Indeed, 
the Court offers many and varied reasons to reject potential
representative  analogues,  but  very  few  reasons  to  accept 
them.  At best, the numerous justifications that the Court 
finds  for  rejecting  historical  evidence  give  judges  ample 
tools to pick their friends out of history’s crowd.  At worst, 
they create a one-way ratchet that will disqualify virtually
any “representative historical analogue” and make it nearly 
impossible to sustain common-sense regulations necessary 
to our Nation’s safety and security.

Third,  even  under  ideal  conditions,  historical  evidence 
will often fail to provide clear answers to difficult questions. 
As an initial matter, many aspects of the history of firearms
and their regulation are ambiguous, contradictory, or dis-
puted.  Unsurprisingly,  the  extent  to  which  colonial  stat-
utes enacted over 200 years ago were actually enforced, the 
basis  for  an  acquittal  in  a  17th-century  decision,  and  the 
interpretation  of  English  laws  from  the  Middle  Ages  (to
name just a few examples) are often less than clear.  And 
even  historical  experts  may  reach  conflicting  conclusions 
based on the same sources.  Compare, e.g., P. Charles, The 
Faces of the Second Amendment Outside the Home: History 
Versus Ahistorical Standards of Review, 60 Clev. St. L. Rev. 
1, 14 (2012), with J. Malcolm, To Keep and Bear Arms: The
Origins of an Anglo-American Right 104 (1994).  As a result, 
history, as much as any other interpretive method, leaves
ample discretion to “loo[k] over the heads of the [crowd] for 
one’s  friends.”  A.  Scalia  &  B.  Garner,  Reading  Law:  The 
Interpretation of Legal Texts 377 (2012). 

Fourth,  I  fear  that  history  will  be  an  especially  inade-