Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/23pdf/22-915_8o6b.pdf
Page Number: 26

4 

UNITED STATES v. RAHIMI 

SOTOMAYOR, J., concurring 

trapped in amber.”  Ante, at 7. 

This case lays bare the perils of the dissent’s approach. 
Because the dissent concludes that “§922(g)(8) addresses a 
societal problem—the risk of interpersonal violence—‘that 
has  persisted  since  the  18th  century,’ ”  it  insists  that  the 
means  of  addressing  that  problem  cannot  be  “ ‘materially 
different’ ” from the means that existed in the 18th century. 
Post, at 7.  That is so, it seems, even when the weapons in 
question  have  evolved  dramatically.    See  R.  Roth,  Why
Guns  Are  and  Are  Not  the  Problem,  in  A  Right  To  Bear
Arms?: The Contested Role of History in Contemporary De-
bates on the Second Amendment 117 (J. Tucker, B. Hacker,
&  M.  Vining  eds.  2019)  (explaining  that  guns  in  the  18th
century  took  a  long  time  to  load,  typically  fired  only  one 
shot, and often misfired).  According to the dissent, the so-
lution cannot be “materially different” even when societal
perception of the problem has changed, and even if it is now 
clear  to  everyone  that  the  historical  means  of  addressing 
the  problem  had  been  wholly  inadequate.  Given  the  fact 
that the law at the founding was more likely to protect hus-
bands who abused their spouses than offer some measure 
of  accountability,  see,  e.g.,  R.  Siegel,  “The  Rule  of  Love”: 
Wife  Beating  as  Prerogative  and  Privacy,  105  Yale  L. J.
2117, 2154–2170 (1996), it is no surprise that that genera-
tion  did  not  have  an  equivalent  to  §922(g)(8).  Under  the 
dissent’s approach, the legislatures of today would be lim-
ited not by a distant generation’s determination that such
a  law  was  unconstitutional,  but  by  a  distant  generation’s 
failure to consider that such a law might be necessary.  His-
tory has a role to play in Second Amendment analysis, but 
a rigid adherence to history, (particularly history predating 
the inclusion of women and people of color as full members 
of  the  polity),  impoverishes  constitutional  interpretation
and hamstrings our democracy.