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

Opinion of the Court 

We granted certiorari to decide whether New York’s de-
nial of petitioners’ license applications violated the Consti-
tution.  593 U. S. ___ (2021). 

II
  In  Heller  and  McDonald,  we  held  that  the  Second  and 
Fourteenth  Amendments  protect  an  individual  right  to 
keep and bear arms for self-defense.  In doing so, we held
unconstitutional  two  laws  that  prohibited  the  possession 
and use of handguns in the home.  In the years since, the
Courts  of  Appeals  have  coalesced  around  a  “two-step” 
framework  for  analyzing  Second  Amendment  challenges
that combines history with means-end scrutiny.

Today,  we  decline  to  adopt  that  two-part  approach.    In 
keeping with Heller, we hold that when the Second Amend-
ment’s plain text covers an individual’s conduct, the Consti-
tution presumptively protects that conduct.  To justify its
regulation, the government may not simply posit that the 
regulation  promotes  an  important  interest.  Rather,  the 
government  must  demonstrate  that  the  regulation  is  con-
sistent with this Nation’s historical tradition of firearm reg-
ulation.  Only if a firearm regulation is consistent with this
Nation’s historical tradition may a court conclude that the
individual’s conduct falls outside the Second Amendment’s 
“unqualified  command.”  Konigsberg  v.  State  Bar  of  Cal., 
366 U. S. 36, 50, n. 10 (1961).3 

—————— 

3 Rather than begin with its view of the governing legal framework, the
dissent chronicles, in painstaking detail, evidence of crimes committed
by individuals with firearms.  See post, at 1–9 (opinion of BREYER, J.).
The dissent invokes all of these statistics presumably to justify granting
States greater leeway in restricting firearm ownership and use.  But, as 
Members of the Court have already explained, “[t]he right to keep and 
bear arms . . . is not the only constitutional right that has controversial 
public  safety  implications.”    McDonald  v.  Chicago,  561  U. S.  742,  783 
(2010) (plurality opinion).