Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/21pdf/20-843_7j80.pdf
Page Number: 55

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

49 

Opinion of the Court 

. . .  everyone  started  out  with  robust  carrying  rights”  and
only those reasonably accused were required to show a spe-
cial need in order to avoid posting a bond.  Ibid.  These an-
tebellum special-need requirements “did not expand carry-
ing  for  the  responsible;  it  shrank  burdens  on  carrying  by
the (allegedly) reckless.”  Ibid. 

One  Court  of  Appeals  has  nonetheless  remarked  that 
these  surety  laws  were  “a  severe  constraint  on  anyone
thinking of carrying a weapon in public.”  Young, 992 F. 3d, 
at 820.  That contention has little support in the historical 
record.  Respondents cite no evidence showing the average
size  of  surety  postings.    And  given  that  surety  laws  were 
“intended  merely  for  prevention”  and  were  “not  meant  as 
any  degree  of  punishment,”  4  Blackstone,  Commentaries, 
at 249, the burden these surety statutes may have had on
the right to public carry was likely too insignificant to shed 
light on New York’s proper-cause standard—a violation of 
which can carry a 4-year prison term or a $5,000 fine.  In 
Heller, we noted that founding-era laws punishing unlawful
discharge  “with  a  small  fine  and  forfeiture  of  the  weapon 
. . . , not with significant criminal penalties,” likely did not
“preven[t] a person in the founding era from using a gun to 
protect himself or his family from violence, or that if he did 
so  the  law  would  be  enforced  against  him.”    554  U. S.,  at 
633–634.  Similarly, we have little reason to think that the
hypothetical possibility of posting a bond would have pre-
vented  anyone  from  carrying  a  firearm  for  self-defense  in
the 19th century.

Besides, respondents offer little evidence that authorities
ever enforced surety laws.  The only recorded case that we 
know of involved a justice of the peace declining to require
a surety, even when the complainant alleged that the arms-
bearer  “ ‘did  threaten  to  beat,  wou[n]d,  mai[m],  and  kill’ ” 
him.  Brief for Professor Robert Leider et al. as Amici Cu-
riae 31 (quoting Grover v. Bullock, No. 185 (Worcester Cty.,