Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/21pdf/20-843_7j80.pdf
Page Number: 128

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

45 

BREYER, J., dissenting 

open carriage, so it is far from clear that the cases the Court
cites represent a consensus view.  See State v. Mitchell, 3 
Blackf. 229 (Ind. 1833); State v. Buzzard, 4 Ark. 18 (1842).
And, of course, the Court does not say whether the result in 
this case would be different if New York allowed open car-
riage by law-abiding citizens as a matter of course. 

The second 19th-century innovation, adopted in a num-
ber of States, was surety laws.  Massachusetts’ surety law,
which  served  as  a  model  for  laws  adopted  by  many  other 
States, provided that any person who went “armed with a 
dirk, dagger, sword, pistol, or other offensive and dangerous
weapon,” and who lacked “reasonable cause to fear an as-
sualt [sic],” could be made to pay a surety upon the “com-
plaint of any person having reasonable cause to fear an in-
jury, or breach of the peace.”  Mass. Rev. Stat., ch. 134, §16 
(1836).  Other  States  and  Territories  enacted  identical  or 
substantially similar laws.  See, e.g., Me. Rev. Stat., ch. 169, 
§16  (1840);  Mich.  Rev.  Stat.,  ch.  162,  §16  (1846);  Terr.  of 
Minn. Rev.  Stat.,  ch. 112, §18 (1851); 1854 Ore. Stat.,  ch.
16, §17; W. Va. Code, ch. 153, §8 (1868); 1862 Pa. Laws p.
250, §6.  These laws resemble New York’s licensing regime
in many, though admittedly not all, relevant respects.  Most 
notably,  like  New  York’s  proper  cause  requirement,  the
surety laws conditioned public carriage in at least some cir-
cumstances on a special showing of need.  Compare supra,
at 13, with Mass. Rev. Stat., ch. 134, §16.

The Court believes that the absence of recorded cases in-
volving surety laws means that they were rarely enforced. 
Ante, at 49–50.  Of course, this may just as well show that
these  laws were  normally  followed.    In  any  case,  scholars
cited by the Court tell us that “traditional case law research
is  not  especially  probative  of  the  application  of  these  re-
strictions” because “in many cases those records did not sur-
vive the passage of time” or “are not well indexed or digi-
tally  searchable.”  E.  Ruben  &  S.  Cornell,  Firearms