Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/23pdf/22-915_8o6b.pdf
Page Number: 80.0

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

9 

THOMAS, J., dissenting 

same “dangerous” person laws to chip away at that Amend-
ment’s guarantee.

Even on their own terms, laws targeting “dangerous” per-
sons cannot support §922(g)(8).  Those laws were driven by
a  justification  distinct  from  that  of  §922(g)(8)—quashing
treason and rebellion.  The Stuart Kings’ reign was marked
by religious and political conflict, which at that time were
often one and the same.  The Parliament of the late 1600s 
“re-established an intolerant episcopalian church” through 
legislation targeting other sects, including “[a] fierce penal 
code” to keep those other sects out of local government and
“to criminalize nonconformist worship.”  Oxford Handbook 
of the English Revolution 212 (M. Braddick ed. 2015) (Ox-
ford  Handbook);  see  G.  Clark,  The  Later  Stuarts  1660– 
1714, p. 22 (2d ed. 1955).  These laws were driven in large
part by a desire to suppress rebellion.  “Nonconformist min-
isters  were  thought  to  preach  resistance  to  divinely  or-
dained monarchs.”  Oxford Handbook 212; see Calendar of 
State  Papers  Domestic:  Charles  II,  1661–1662,  p. 161  (M.
Green  ed.  1861)  (Calendar  Charles  II)  (“[P]reachers  go
about from county to county, and blow the flames of rebel-
lion”).  Various nonconformist insurrections gave credibility 
to  these  fears.    See,  e.g.,  Clark,  The  Later  Stuarts,  at  22; 
Privy Council to Lord Newport (Mar. 4, 1661), in Transac-
tions of the Shropshire Archaeological and Natural History
Society, Pt. 2, 3d Ser., Vol. 4, p. 161 (1904). 

It is in this turbulent context that the English kings per-
mitted the disarming of “dangerous persons.”  English lords
feared that nonconformists—i.e., people with “ ‘wicked and 
Rebellious  Principles’ ”—had  “ ‘furnished  themselves  with 
quantities of Arms, and Ammunition’ ” “ ‘to put in Execution 
their Trayterus designs.’ ”  Privy Council to Lord Newport 
(Jan. 8, 1660), in id., at 156; see Calendar Charles II 541 
(“The  fanatics  . . .  are  high  and  insolent,  and  threaten  all 
loyal people; they will soon be in arms”).  In response, the 
Crown  took  measures  to  root  out  suspected  rebels,  which