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Page Number: 63

4 

UNITED STATES v. RAHIMI 

BARRETT, J., concurring 

an updated model of a historical counterpart.  Besides, im-
posing  a  test  that  demands  overly  specific  analogues  has
serious problems.  To name two: It forces 21st-century reg-
ulations to follow late-18th-century policy choices, giving us 
“a law trapped in amber.”  Ante, at 7.  And it assumes that 
founding-era legislatures maximally exercised their power
to regulate, thereby adopting a “use it or lose it” view of leg-
islative  authority.    Such  assumptions  are  flawed,  and
originalism does not require them. 

“Analogical  reasoning”  under  Bruen  demands  a  wider 
lens: Historical regulations reveal a principle, not a mold.
See, e.g., 597 U. S., at 28–29 (explaining that the Amend-
ment does not apply only to the catalogue of arms that ex-
isted  in the 18th century, but rather to all weapons satis-
fying the “general definition” of “bearable arms” (emphasis 
added));  id.,  at  30–31  (discussing  the  “ ‘sensitive  places’ ” 
principle that limits the right to public carry); cf. Vidal, 602 
U. S., at ___–___ (BARRETT, J., concurring in part) (slip op.,
at 7–9); Whittington 386 (“The insight to be gleaned is not 
the authoritative status of the expected application, but the 
apparent rule at play given that such an application is ex-
pected to follow from it”).  To be sure, a court must be care-
ful not to read a principle at such a high level of generality 
that it waters down the right.  Pulling principle from prec-
edent, whether case law or history, is a standard feature of 
legal reasoning, and reasonable minds sometimes disagree 
about how broad or narrow the controlling principle should 
be. 

Here, though, the Court settles on just the right level of
generality: “Since the founding, our Nation’s firearm laws 
have  included  provisions  preventing  individuals  who 
threaten physical harm to others from misusing firearms.” 
Ante, at 5; see also Kanter v. Barr, 919 F. 3d 437, 451, 464– 
465  (CA7  2019)  (Barrett,  J.,  dissenting)  (“History  is  con-
sistent  with  common  sense:  it  demonstrates  that  legisla-