Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/21pdf/20-843_7j80.pdf
Page Number: 53.0

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

47 

Opinion of the Court 

Surety Statutes.  In the mid-19th century, many jurisdic-
tions began adopting surety statutes that required certain
individuals to post bond before carrying weapons in public.
Although  respondents  seize  on  these  laws  to  justify  the
proper-cause  restriction,  their  reliance  on  them  is  mis-
placed.  These laws were not bans on public carry, and they
typically targeted only those threatening to do harm. 

As discussed earlier, Massachusetts had prohibited rid-
ing or going “armed offensively, to the fear or terror of the
good  citizens  of  this  Commonwealth”  since  1795.  1795 
Mass. Acts and Laws ch. 2, at 436, in Laws of the Common-
wealth of Massachusetts.  In 1836, Massachusetts enacted 
a new law providing: 

“If  any  person  shall  go  armed  with  a  dirk,  dagger,
sword, pistol, or other offensive and dangerous weapon, 
without reasonable cause to fear an assault or other in-
jury, or violence to his person, or to his family or prop-
erty, he may, on complaint of any person having rea-
sonable cause to fear an injury, or breach of the peace,
be required to find sureties for keeping the peace, for a 
term  not  exceeding  six  months,  with  the  right  of  ap-
pealing as before provided.”  Mass. Rev. Stat., ch. 134, 
§16. 

In short, the Commonwealth required any person who was 
reasonably likely to “breach the peace,” and who, standing 
accused, could not prove a special need for self-defense, to
post  a  bond  before  publicly  carrying  a  firearm.    Between 
1838 and 1871, nine other jurisdictions adopted variants of 

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that were localized in the Western Territories, New Mexico’s prohibition 
ended when the Territory entered the Union as a State in 1911 and guar-
anteed in its State Constitution that “[t]he people have the right to bear 
arms for their security and defense, but nothing herein shall be held to 
permit  the  carrying  of  concealed  weapons.”    N. M.  Const.,  Art.  II,  §6 
(1911); see infra, at 61.