Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/21pdf/20-843_7j80.pdf
Page Number: 116.0

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

33 

BREYER, J., dissenting 

2.10(a)  (West  Cum.  Supp.  2022).    Or  laws  imposing  addi-
tional  criminal  penalties  for  the  use  of  bullets  capable  of 
piercing body armor?  See, e.g., 18 U. S. C. §§921(a)(17)(B), 
929(a).

The Court’s answer is that judges will simply have to em-
ploy “analogical reasoning.”  Ante, at 19–20.  But, as I ex-
plained above, the Court does not provide clear guidance on 
how to apply such reasoning.  Even seemingly straightfor-
ward historical restrictions on firearm use may prove sur-
prisingly difficult to apply to modern circumstances.  The 
Court  affirms  Heller’s  recognition  that  States  may  forbid 
public carriage in “sensitive places.”  Ante, at 21–22.  But 
what, in 21st-century New York City, may properly be con-
sidered a sensitive place?  Presumably “legislative assem-
blies,  polling  places,  and  courthouses,”  which  the  Court 
tells  us  were  among  the  “relatively  few”  places  “where
weapons were altogether prohibited” in the 18th and 19th
centuries.  Ante, at 21.  On the other hand, the Court also 
tells  us  that  “expanding  the  category  of  ‘sensitive  places’ 
simply to all places of public congregation that are not iso-
lated from law enforcement defines th[at] category . . . far 
too  broadly.”  Ante,  at  22.  So  where  does  that  leave  the 
many locations in a modern city with no obvious 18th- or 
19th-century analogue?  What about subways, nightclubs,
movie theaters, and sports stadiums?  The Court does not 
say.

Although  I  hope—fervently—that  future  courts  will  be
able to identify historical analogues supporting the validity 
of regulations that address new technologies, I fear that it 
will often prove difficult to identify analogous technological
and social problems from Medieval England, the founding 
era, or the time period in which the Fourteenth Amendment 
was  ratified. 
Laws  addressing  repeating  crossbows, 
launcegays, dirks, dagges, skeines, stilladers, and other an-
cient  weapons  will  be  of  little  help  to  courts  confronting
modern  problems.  And  as  technological  progress  pushes