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1 1 (January 18, 2024)

handle is hein.crs/goveoax0001 and id is 1 raw text is: * Congressional ______ Research Servi e Current Second Amendment Cases Before the Supreme Court January 18, 2024 Ratified in 1791, the Second Amendment provides, 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. For over 200 years, the Supreme Court remained largely silent on the Second Amendment. In a series of relatively recent decisions, however, the Court has provided guidance on the substance and scope of the constitutional provision. In 2008, in District of Columbia v. Heller, the Supreme Court held that the Second Amendment protects an individual right to possess firearms for certain purposes, including at least self-defense in the home. Two years later, in McDonald v. City of Chicago, the Court determined that the right to bear arms is a fundamental right. Accordingly, the Second Amendment applies not only to laws imposed by the federal government, but to laws enacted at the state and local level as well. In 2016, in Caetano v. Massachusetts, the Court in a brief opinion clarified that arms within the meaning of the Second Amendment encompass modern arms, including stun guns, that did not exist at the time of the founding. In 2022, the Supreme Court in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen resolved two of the questions left open following Heller and McDonald: does the right to bear arms extend beyond the home, and how are courts to assess purported infringements of the right? In Bruen, the Court held that the protections of the Second Amendment extend beyond the home and announced the standard to be used in assessing Second Amendment challenges to firearm laws: when the plain text of the Second Amendment covers the regulated conduct, the Constitution presumptively protects it. Accordingly, to justify a regulation of that conduct, the government must demonstrate that a challenged law is consistent with the Nation's historical tradition of firearm regulation. Following Bruen, plaintiffs filed a number of legal actions contesting various federal and state firearm laws. One of these cases has since been accepted for review by the Supreme Court, and petitions for review in several other cases are pending before the Court. This Sidebar surveys these Second Amendment cases, focusing on cases involving federal statutes. The Sidebar addresses these cases in three sections: (1) the petition for review that the Supreme Court has granted; (2) pending petitions for review that the federal government has filed with the Court (which may be more likely to be granted relative to petitions filed by other parties); and (3) pending petitions for review involving federal statutes that have been filed with the Court by non-federal-government parties. Congressional Research Service https://crsreports.congress.gov LSB11108 CRS Legal Sidebar Prepared for Members and Committees of Congress

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