Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/23pdf/22-915_8o6b.pdf
Page Number: 67

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

3 

JACKSON, J., concurring 

history-and-tradition test is burdensome (though that is no 
small thing to courts with heavier caseloads and fewer re-
sources than we have).  The more worrisome concern is that 
lower courts appear to be diverging in both approach and
outcome as they struggle to conduct the inquiry Bruen re-
quires of them.  Scholars report that lower courts applying 
Bruen’s approach have been unable to produce “consistent,
principled  results,”  Brief  for  Second  Amendment  Law
Scholars as Amici Curiae 4, and, in fact, they “have come to 
conflicting  conclusions  on  virtually  every  consequential 
Second Amendment issue to come before them,” id., at 4–5; 
see also id., at 5–6 (collecting examples).  Given this, it ap-
pears  indisputable  that,  after  Bruen,  “confusion  plagu[es]
the lower courts.”  Id., at 6. 

—————— 
Bruen by lower courts have been widely divergent and thus, very difficult
to apply as precedent”); United States v. Sing-Ledezma, ___ F. Supp. 3d
___,  ___,  2023  WL  8587869,  *3  (WD  Tex.  Dec.  11,  2023)  (“[T]he  Court 
pauses to join the choir of lower courts urging the Supreme Court to re-
solve  the  many  unanswered  questions  left  in  Bruen’s  wake”);  United 
States v. Bartucci, 658 F. Supp. 3d 794, 800 (ED Cal. 2023) (“[T]he unique 
test  the  Supreme  Court  announced  in  Bruen  does  not  provide  lower 
courts with clear guidance as to how analogous modern laws must be to
founding-era  gun  laws.    In  the  short  time  post-Bruen,  this  has  caused 
disarray  among  the  lower  courts”);  United  States  v.  Bullock,  679 
F. Supp. 3d 501, 534 (SD Miss. 2023) (raising methodological questions
“in hopes that future judges and justices can answer them with enough 
detail to enable trial courts to perform their duties”); Fraser v. Bureau of 
Alcohol,  Tobacco,  Firearms  and  Explosives,  672  F. Supp.  3d  118,  137, 
n. 20  (ED  Va. 2023)  (“The  Court  is  staffed  by  lawyers  who  are  neither
trained nor experienced in making the nuanced historical analyses called 
for by Bruen. . . . The analytical construct specified by Bruen is thus a 
difficult one for non-historians”); United States v. Jackson, 661 F. Supp. 
3d 392, 406 (Md. 2023) (noting “the challenges created by Bruen’s assign-
ment”); United States v. Love, 647 F. Supp. 3d 664, 670 (ND Ind. 2022) 
(“By . . . announcing an inconsistent and amorphous standard, the Su-
preme Court has created mountains of work for district courts that must
now deal with Bruen-related arguments in nearly every criminal case in
which a firearm is found”).