Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/23pdf/22-915_8o6b.pdf
Page Number: 87.0

16 

UNITED STATES v. RAHIMI 

THOMAS, J., dissenting 

York defined a “sensitive place” as “all places where people
typically congregate and where law-enforcement and other
public-safety  professionals  are  presumptively  available.” 
Id.,  at  30–31  (internal  quotation  marks  omitted).    The 
Court  rejected  that  definition  as  “far  too  broa[d]”  as  it
“would in effect exempt cities from the Second Amendment 
and  would  eviscerate  the  general  right  to  publicly  carry
arms for self-defense.”  Id., at 31.  Likewise, calling a mod-
ern  and  historical  law  comparably  justified  because  they 
both prevent unfit persons from accessing firearms would 
render our comparable-justification inquiry toothless.5 

In sum, the Government has not identified any historical

regulation that is relevantly similar to §922(g)(8). 

2 

This  dearth  of  evidence  is  unsurprising  because  the 
Founders  responded  to  the  societal  problem  of  interper-
sonal  violence  through  a  less  burdensome  regime:  surety
laws.  Tracing  back  to  early  English  history,  surety  laws
were  a  preventative  mechanism  for  ensuring  an  individ-
ual’s future peaceable conduct.  See D. Feldman, The King’s 
Peace,  the  Royal  Prerogative  and  Public  Order,  47  Cam-
bridge L. J. 101, 101–102 (1988); M. Dalton, The Countrey 
Justice  140–144  (1619).    If  someone  received  a  surety  de-
mand,  he  was  required  to  go  to  a  court  or  judicial  officer 
—————— 

5 The Government’s other analogies suffer from the same flaws as the
firearm storage laws.  It cites laws restricting firearm sales to and public 
carry  by  various  groups  such  as  minors  and  intoxicated  persons;  laws 
confiscating firearms from rioters; and laws disarming insurrectionists 
and rebels.  Brief for United States 22–27.  These laws target different
groups of citizens, for different reasons, and through different, less oner-
ous burdens than §922(g)(8).  See Bruen, 597 U. S., at 70 (explaining that
regulations  “limit[ing]  the  intent  for  which  one  could  carry  arms,  the 
manner by which one carried arms, or the exceptional circumstances un-
der which one could not carry arms” do not justify “broadly prohibit[ing]
the public carry of commonly used firearms for personal defense”).  None 
establishes that the particular regulation at issue here would have been 
within the bounds of the pre-existing Second Amendment right.