Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/23pdf/22-915_8o6b.pdf
Page Number: 68

4 

UNITED STATES v. RAHIMI 

JACKSON, J., concurring 

II 
This  discord  is  striking  when  compared  to  the  relative
harmony that had developed prior to Bruen.  To be sure, our 
decision  in  District  of  Columbia  v.  Heller,  554  U. S.  570 
(2008),  which  first  recognized  an  individual  right  to  keep 
and bear arms for self-defense, see id., at 628, was disrup-
tive in its own way.  After all, before Heller, “[t]he meaning 
of the Second Amendment ha[d] been considered settled by
courts and legislatures for over two centuries,” and “judges
and  legislators  . . .  properly  believed  . . .  that  the  Second 
Amendment did not reach possession of firearms for purely
private activities.”  Id., at 676, n. 38 (Stevens, J., dissent-
ing).  Nonetheless,  after  Heller,  lower  courts  took  up  the 
necessary  work  of  reviewing  burdens  on  this  newly  un-
earthed right.  By the time this Court decided Bruen, every 
court  of  appeals  evaluating  whether  a  firearm  regulation 
was consistent with the Second Amendment did so using a 
two-step framework that incorporated means-end scrutiny.
See Bruen, 597 U. S., at 103 (Breyer, J., dissenting). 

Rejecting  that  “two-step  approach”  as  having  “one  step
too many,” id., at 19, the Bruen majority subbed in another 
two-step evaluation.  Courts must, first, determine whether 
“the Second Amendment’s plain text covers an individual’s 
conduct.”  Id., at 24.  If it does, “[t]he government must then
justify its regulation by demonstrating that it is consistent 
with the Nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation.” 
Ibid. 

No one seems to question that “[h]istory has a role to play
in Second Amendment analysis.”  Ante, at 4 (SOTOMAYOR, 
J., concurring).  But, per Bruen, courts evaluating a Second 
Amendment  challenge  must  consider  history  to  the  exclu-
sion of all else.  This means legislators must locate and pro-
duce—and courts must sift through—troves of centuries-old 
documentation looking for supportive historical evidence.2 

—————— 

2 It is not clear what qualifies policymakers or their lawyers (who do