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Page Number: 62.0

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

Opinion of the Court 

As for Reconstruction-era state regulations, there was lit-
tle  innovation  over  the  kinds  of  public-carry  restrictions 
that had been commonplace in the early 19th century.  For 
instance,  South  Carolina  in  1870 authorized  the  arrest  of 
“all who go armed offensively, to the terror of the people,” 
1870  S. C.  Acts  p. 403,  no.  288,  §4,  parroting  earlier  stat-
utes that codified the common-law offense.  That same year, 
after  it  cleaved  from  Virginia,  West  Virginia  enacted  a
surety statute nearly identical to the one it inherited from 
Virginia.  See W. Va. Code, ch. 153, §8.  Also in 1870, Ten-
nessee  essentially  reenacted  its  1821  prohibition  on  the 
public carry of handguns but, as explained above, Tennes-
see courts interpreted that statute to exempt large pistols 
suitable for military use.  See supra, at 46. 

Respondents and the United States, however, direct our 
attention primarily to two late-19th-century cases in Texas.
In  1871,  Texas  law  forbade  anyone  from  “carrying  on  or 
about his person . . . any pistol . . . unless he has reasonable 
grounds for fearing an unlawful attack on his person.”  1871 
Tex. Gen. Laws §1.  The Texas Supreme Court upheld that 
restriction  in  English  v.  State,  35  Tex.  473  (1871).    The 
Court  reasoned  that  the  Second  Amendment,  and  the 
State’s constitutional analogue, protected only those arms 
“as  are  useful  and  proper  to  an  armed  militia,”  including 
holster  pistols,  but  not  other  kinds  of  handguns.    Id.,  at 
474–475.  Beyond that constitutional holding, the English
court further opined that the law was not “contrary to pub-
lic  policy,”  id.,  at  479,  given  that  it  “ma[de]  all  necessary 
exceptions”  allowing  deadly  weapons  to  “be  carried  as 
means  of  self-defense,”  and  therefore  “fully  cover[ed]  all
wants of society,” id., at 477. 

Four years later, in State v. Duke, 42 Tex. 455 (1875), the 
Texas Supreme Court modified its analysis.  The court re-
interpreted  Texas’  State  Constitution  to  protect  not  only 

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also H. R. Rep. No. 16, 39th Cong., 2d Sess., 427 (1867).