![handle is hein.crs/govehxq0001 and id is 1 raw text is: *Congressional ______
Research Servi e
The Second Amendment at the Supreme
Court: New York State Rifle & Pistol Ass'n v.
Bruen
June 29, 2022
On June 23, 2022, the Supreme Court issued its opinion in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v.
Bruen, a case challenging the constitutionality of a portion of New York's firearms licensing scheme that
restricts the carrying of certain licensed firearms outside the home under the Second and Fourteenth
Amendments. In a 6-3 decision, the Court struck down New York's requirement that an applicant for an
unrestricted license to carry a handgun outside the home for self-defense must establish proper cause,
ruling that the requirement is at odds with the Second Amendment (as made applicable to the states
through the Fourteenth Amendment). In doing so, the Court recognized that the Second Amendment
protects a right that extends beyond the home and also clarified that the proper test for evaluating Second
Amendment challenges to firearms laws is an approach rooted in text and the historical tradition of
firearms regulation, rejecting a two-step methodology employed by many of the lower courts.
This Legal Sidebar provides an overview of Supreme Court and lower court Second Amendment
precedent, describes the underlying litigation and issues in Bruen, summarizes the Supreme Court's
decision, and briefly discusses some possible implications of the decision.
Second Amendment Background
The Second Amendment provides in full: A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a
free state, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed. In its 2008 decision in
District of Columbia v Heller, a majority of the Supreme Court held, after a lengthy historical analysis,
that the Amendment protects an individual right to possess firearms for historically lawful purposes,
including at least self-defense in the home. The Heller majority also provided some guidance on the scope
of the right, explaining that it is not unlimited and that nothing in [the] opinion should be taken to cast
doubt on longstanding prohibitions like laws forbidding the carrying of firearms in sensitive places
such as schools and government buildings, among other presumptively lawful regulations.
Nevertheless, the Heller Court struck down the District of Columbia's prohibition on the private
possession of operative handguns in the home, specifying that the home is where the need for self-defense
is most acute. In a later case, McDonald v City of Chicago, the Court concluded that the right to keep
Congressional Research Service
https://crsreports. congress.gov
LSB10773
CRS Legal Sidebar
Prepared for Members and
Committees of Congress](ViewImageLocal?handle=hein.crs/govehxq0001&div=1&collection=&method=preview&ext=.png&size=3)
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