Opinion ID: 2762420
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Two-Step Approach

Text: To resolve Second Amendment challenges, we have adopted a two-step approach. United States v. Greeno, 679 F.3d 510, 518 (6th Cir. 2012). The first step asks “whether the challenged law burdens conduct that falls within the scope of the Second Amendment right, as No. 13-1876 Tyler v. Hillsdale Cnty. Sheriff’s Dep’t, et al. Page 11 historically understood.” Ibid. If the government “demonstrates that the challenged statute regulates activity falling outside the scope of the Second Amendment right as it was understood [in 1791, at the Bill of Rights’ ratification, or in 1868, at the Fourteenth Amendment’s ratification], then the analysis can stop there.” Ibid. (internal quotation marks omitted). In that case, “the regulated activity is categorically unprotected, and the law is not subject to further Second Amendment review.” Ibid. On the other hand, “[i]f the government cannot establish this—if the historical evidence is inconclusive or suggests that the regulated activity is not categorically unprotected—then there must be a second inquiry into the strength of the government’s justification for restricting or regulating the exercise of Second Amendment rights.” Ibid. The second step involves “appl[ying] the appropriate level of scrutiny. If the law satisfies the applicable standard, it is constitutional. If it does not, it is invalid.” Ibid. (internal citations and quotation marks omitted); see also United States v. Marzzarella, 614 F.3d 85, 89 (3d Cir. 2010) (Under the second step, a court will “evaluate the law under some form of meansend scrutiny.”).7 There may be a number of reasons to question the soundness of this two-step approach. It derives from the Third Circuit’s decision in United States v. Marzzarella, which primarily rested on a view that because “Heller itself repeatedly invokes the First Amendment in establishing principles governing the Second Amendment,” that fact “implies the structure of First Amendment doctrine should inform . . . analysis of the Second Amendment.” 614 F.3d at 89 n.4. There is significant language in Heller itself, however, that would indicate that lower courts should not conduct interest balancing or apply levels of scrutiny. See Heller, 554 U.S. at 634–35 (“We know of no other enumerated constitutional right whose core protection has been subjected to a freestanding ‘interest-balancing’ approach. The very enumeration of the right takes out of the hands of government—even the Third Branch of Government—the power to decide on a case-by-case basis whether the right is really worth insisting upon.”). This view was reiterated by the Supreme Court’s subsequent decision in McDonald. 561 U.S. at 790–91 (noting that the Heller Court “specifically rejected” “an interest-balancing test”). Although 7 The Ninth Circuit has used a different two-step approach, which asks “first, whether” the relevant conduct “amount[s] to ‘keeping and bearing Arms’ within the meaning of the Second Amendment and, next, whether the challenged laws, if they indeed d[o] burden constitutionally protected conduct, ‘infring[e]’ the right.” Peruta, 742 F.3d at 1150 (internal quotation and alteration marks omitted). No. 13-1876 Tyler v. Hillsdale Cnty. Sheriff’s Dep’t, et al. Page 12 reams of analysis have been devoted to this question,8 Greeno clearly gives us the law to apply in this circuit at this time.