Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/23pdf/22-915_8o6b.pdf
Page Number: 25

Cite as:  602 U. S. ____ (2024) 

3 

SOTOMAYOR, J., concurring 

abusers, see, e.g., Tr. of Oral Arg. 40 (conceding as much),
but it did not need to do so.  Although §922(g)(8) “is by no
means identical” to the surety or going armed laws, ante, at 
13, it “restricts gun use to mitigate demonstrated threats of
physical violence, just as the surety and going armed laws 
d[id],” ante, at 14.  That shared principle is sufficient. 

II 
The  dissent  reaches  a  different  conclusion  by  applying
the  strictest  possible  interpretation  of  Bruen.  It  picks  off
the  Government’s  historical  sources  one  by  one,  viewing 
any basis for distinction as fatal.  See, e.g., post, at 18 (opin-
ion of THOMAS, J.) (“Although surety laws shared a common 
justification with §922(g)(8), surety laws imposed a materi-
ally  different  burden”);  post,  at  25–26  (explaining  that
“[a]ffray laws are wide of the mark” because they “expressly 
carve out the very conduct §922(g)(8) was designed to pre-
vent  (interpersonal  violence  in  the  home)”).    The  dissent 
urges a close look “at the historical law’s justification as ar-
ticulated during the relevant time period,” post, at 28, and 
a  “careful  parsing  of  regulatory  burdens”  to  ensure  that 
courts do not “stray too far from [history] by eliding mate-
rial differences between historical and modern laws,” post, 
at 15.  The dissent criticizes this Court for adopting a more
“piecemeal approach” that distills principles from a variety 
of historical evidence rather than insisting on a precise his-
torical analogue.  Post, at 21. 

If the dissent’s interpretation of Bruen were the law, then 
Bruen really would be the “one-way ratchet” that I and the 
other dissenters in that case feared, “disqualify[ing] virtu-
ally any ‘representative historical analogue’ and mak[ing] 
it  nearly  impossible  to  sustain  common-sense  regulations
necessary to our Nation’s safety and security.”  597 U. S., at 
112 (Breyer, J., dissenting).  Thankfully, the Court rejects 
that rigid approach to the historical inquiry.  As the Court 
puts  it  today,  Bruen  was  “not  meant  to  suggest  a  law