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Page Number: 133.0

50  NEW YORK STATE RIFLE & PISTOL ASSN., INC. v. BRUEN 

BREYER, J., dissenting 

analogous to the licensing regime at issue here.  But if the 
examples  discussed  above,  taken  together,  do  not  show  a 
tradition and history of regulation that supports the valid-
ity of New York’s law, what could?  Sadly, I do not know the 
answer to that question.  What is worse, the Court appears 
to have no answer either. 

V 
We are bound by Heller insofar as Heller interpreted the
Second  Amendment  to  protect  an  individual  right  to  pos-
sess a firearm for self-defense.  But Heller recognized that
that right was not without limits and could appropriately
be subject to government regulation.  554 U. S., at 626–627. 
Heller therefore does not require holding that New York’s
law  violates  the  Second  Amendment.    In  so  holding,  the
Court goes beyond Heller. 

It bases its decision to strike down New York’s law almost 
exclusively on its application of what it calls historical “an-
alogical  reasoning.”  Ante,  at  19–20.    As  I  have  admitted 
above, I am not a historian, and neither is the Court.  But 
the history, as it appears to me, seems to establish a robust
tradition  of  regulations  restricting  the  public  carriage  of
concealed firearms.  To the extent that any uncertainty re-
mains  between  the  Court’s  view  of  the  history  and  mine,
that uncertainty counsels against relying on history alone. 
In my view, it is appropriate in such circumstances to look 
beyond  the  history  and  engage  in  what  the  Court  calls 
means-end scrutiny.  Courts must be permitted to consider
the  State’s  interest  in  preventing  gun  violence,  the  effec-
tiveness of the contested law in achieving that interest, the 
degree  to  which  the  law  burdens  the  Second  Amendment 
right, and, if appropriate, any less restrictive alternatives. 
The Second Circuit has previously done just that, and it
held  that  New  York’s  law  does  not  violate  the  Second 
Amendment.  See Kachalsky, 701 F. 3d, at 101.  It first eval-
uated  the  degree  to  which  the  law  burdens  the  Second