Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/21pdf/20-843_7j80.pdf
Page Number: 124.0

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

41 

BREYER, J., dissenting 

(1843) (per curiam) (“A gun is an ‘unusual weapon,’ where-
with to be armed and clad”).  Finally, the Court points out
that  New  Jersey’s  ban  on  public  carriage  applied  only  to
certain  people  or  to  the  concealed  carriage  of  certain 
smaller firearms.  Ante, at 39–40.  But the Court’s refusal 
to credit the relevance of East New Jersey’s law on this ba-
sis raises a serious question about what, short of a “twin” 
or  a  “dead  ringer,”  qualifies  as  a  relevant  historical  ana-
logue.  See  ante,  at  21  (majority  opinion)  (emphasis  de-
leted). 

C. The Founding Era. 
The tradition of regulations restricting public carriage of
firearms, inherited from England and adopted by the Colo-
nies, continued into the founding era.  Virginia, for exam-
ple, enacted a law in 1786 that, like the Statute of North-
ampton,  prohibited  any  person  from  “go[ing]  nor  rid[ing] 
armed by night nor by day, in fairs or markets, or in other 
places,  in  terror  of  the  Country.”    1786  Va.  Acts,  ch.  21. 
And, as the Court acknowledges, “public-carry restrictions 
proliferate[d]”  after  the  Second  Amendment’s  ratification 
five years later in 1791.  Ante, at 42.  Just a year after that,
North  Carolina  enacted  a  law  whose  language  was  lifted 
from the Statute of Northampton virtually verbatim (ves-
tigial references to the King included).  Collection of Stat-
utes,  pp.  60–61,  ch.  3  (F.  Martin  ed.  1792).    Other  States 
passed  similar  laws  in  the  late-18th  and  19th  centuries. 
See,  e.g.,  1795  Mass.  Acts  and  Laws  ch.  2,  p.  436;  1801 
Tenn.  Acts  pp.  260–261;  1821  Me.  Laws  p.  285;  see  also 
Charles,  60  Clev.  St.  L. Rev.,  at  40,  n.  213  (collecting 
sources).

The  Court  discounts  these  laws  primarily  because  they
were modeled on the Statute of Northampton, which it be-
lieves prohibited only public carriage with the intent to ter-
rify.  Ante, at 41.  I have previously explained why I believe