Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/23pdf/22-915_8o6b.pdf
Page Number: 88.0

Cite as:  602 U. S. ____ (2024) 

17 

THOMAS, J., dissenting 

with  one  or  more  members  of  the  community—i.e.,  sure-
ties—and comply with certain conditions.  4 W. Blackstone, 
Commentaries  on  the  Laws  of  England  249–250  (1769) 
(Blackstone).    Specifically,  the  person  providing  sureties
was required to “keep the peace: either generally . . . or . . . 
with regard to the person who crave[d] the security” until a
set date.  Id., at 250.  If he kept the peace, the surety obli-
gation dissolved on that predetermined date.  See ibid.  If, 
however, he breached the peace before that date, he and his 
sureties would owe a set sum of money.  See id., at 249–250. 
Evidence  suggests  that  sureties  were  readily  available.
Even  children,  who  “[we]re  incapable  of  engaging  them-
selves to answer any debt,” could still find “security by their 
friends.”  Id., at 251. 

There  is  little  question  that  surety  laws  applied  to  the 
threat  of  future  interpersonal  violence.    “[W]herever  any
private man [had] just cause to fear, that another w[ould] 
burn his house, or do him a corporal injury, by killing, im-
prisoning, or beating him . . . he [could] demand surety of 
the  peace  against  such  person.”  Id.,  at  252;  see  also  J. 
Backus,  The  Justice  of  the  Peace  25  (1816)  (providing  for 
sureties when a person “stands in fear of his life, or of some
harm to be done to his person or his estate” (emphasis de-
leted)).

Surety demands were also expressly available to prevent 
domestic  violence.  Surety  could  be  sought  by  “a  wife 
against her husband who threatens to kill her or beat her 
outrageously, or, if she have notorious cause to fear he will
do either.”  Id., at 24; see 1 W. Hawkins, Pleas of the Crown 
253 (6th ed. 1777) (“[I]t is certain, that a wife may demand 
[a surety] against her husband threatening to beat her out-
rageously, and that a husband also may have it against his
wife”).  The right to demand sureties in cases of potential 
domestic violence was recognized not only by treatises, but 
also the founding-era courts.  Records from before and after 
the  Second  Amendment’s  ratification  reflect  that  spouses