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

Opinion of the Court 

identify does not prove that Kansas meaningfully restricted
public  carry,  let  alone  demonstrate  a  broad  tradition  of 
States doing so. 

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* 

* 
At the end of this long journey through the Anglo-American
history of public carry, we conclude that respondents have 
not met their burden to identify an American tradition jus-
tifying the State’s proper-cause requirement.  The Second 
Amendment guaranteed to “all Americans” the right to bear
commonly used arms in public subject to certain reasona-
ble,  well-defined  restrictions.  Heller,  554  U. S.,  at  581. 
Those restrictions, for example, limited the intent for which
one  could  carry  arms,  the  manner  by  which  one  carried 
arms,  or  the  exceptional  circumstances  under  which  one
could  not  carry  arms,  such  as  before  justices  of  the  peace 
and other government officials.  Apart from a few late-19th-
century outlier jurisdictions, American governments simply
have not broadly prohibited the public carry  of commonly
used firearms for personal defense.  Nor, subject to a few 
late-in-time outliers, have American governments required 
law-abiding, responsible citizens to “demonstrate a special
need  for  self-protection  distinguishable  from  that  of  the
general  community”  in  order  to  carry  arms  in  public. 
Klenosky, 75 App. Div., at 793, 428 N. Y. S. 2d, at 257. 

IV 
The  constitutional  right  to  bear  arms  in  public  for  self-
defense is not “a second-class right, subject to an entirely 
different body of rules than the other Bill of Rights guaran-
tees.”  McDonald, 561 U. S., at 780 (plurality opinion).  We 
know  of  no  other  constitutional  right  that  an  individual 
may exercise only after demonstrating to government offic-

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for the defense of his person, property or family.”  Salina, Kan., Rev. Or-
dinance No. 268, §2.