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![handle is hein.crs/govepkm0001 and id is 1 raw text is: The Second Amendment at the Supreme
Court: Challenges to Federal Gun Laws
Updated July 8, 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 modem 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 ofthe Second Amendment
covers the regulated conduct, the Constitution presumptively protects it; to justify a regulation of that
conduct, the government must demonstrate that a challenged law is consistent with the nation's historical
tradition offirearm regulation.
Following Bruen, parties filed a number of legal actions contesting various firearm laws and regulations,
including federal categorical prohibitions on who may possess a firearm. In 2024, the Supreme Court held
in United States v. Rahimi that one such prohibition, 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(8), which applies to persons
subject to certain domestic-violence restraining orders, is generally consistent with the Second
Amendment. The Court determined that sufficient historical support existed for the principle that [w]hen
an individual poses a clear threat of physical violence to another, the threatening individual may be
disarmed temporarily.
Congressional Research Service
https://crsreports.congress.gov
LSB11108
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