Published September 29, 2026 at 9:46 PM ET · Updated September 30, 2026 at 6:42 AM ET
1 independent outlet is covering this story, first reported here by Reason. Verification: Watching (how we verify). Every headline links to the original reporting.
Reason published an argument that Footnote 9 of the Supreme Court's Bruen decision does not exempt firearms laws from the ruling's Second Amendment test. The outlet contends the footnote is not a carve-out and that gun restrictions must still be evaluated under the test the decision established.
Patriot Watch first flagged this story 1 d ago, when Reason reported it. So far this remains a single-source report. The most recent report came 1 d ago from Reason.
⚖ The Constitutional Angle
Bruen held that when the Second Amendment's text covers conduct, the government must justify its rule with the historical tradition of firearms regulation, not means-end balancing. Heller noted longstanding prohibitions, like sensitive places and possession by felons, as presumptively lawful. Rahimi shows the path: even a disarmament ban survived only because surety and going armed traditions supported it.
New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Kevin P. Bruen, Superintendent of New York State Police 597 U.S. 1 (2022)
Vote: 6-3 · Opinion: Thomas
New York's requirement that applicants demonstrate 'proper cause' — a special need for self-protection distinguishable from the general community — to obtain an unrestricted public-carry license violates the Fourteenth Amendment by preventing law-abiding citizens with ordinary self-defense needs from exercising their Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms in public. The Court held the Second Amendment protects a right to carry handguns publicly for self-defense, and rejected the two-step means-end framework lower courts had applied after Heller.
District of Columbia v. Heller 554 U.S. 570 (2008)
Vote: 5-4 · Opinion: Scalia
The Second Amendment protects an individual right to possess a firearm unconnected with service in a militia and to use it for traditionally lawful purposes such as self-defense within the home. The right is not unlimited: the Court noted that longstanding prohibitions (e.g., possession by felons and the mentally ill, carrying in sensitive places, conditions on commercial sale) remain presumptively lawful. D.C.'s ban on handgun possession in the home and its requirement that lawful firearms in the home be kept nonfunctional violate the Second Amendment.
United States v. Zackey Rahimi 602 U.S. 680 (2024)
Vote: 8-1 · Opinion: Roberts (C.J.)
When an individual has been found by a court to pose a credible threat to the physical safety of another, that individual may be temporarily disarmed consistent with the Second Amendment. 18 U.S.C. §922(g)(8), which bars firearm possession by persons subject to a domestic-violence restraining order containing such a judicial finding, is facially constitutional. The Court grounded the statute in the combined tradition of surety laws and 'going armed' laws, which permitted preventing individuals who threaten physical harm to others from misusing firearms.
Precedent facts from the PW Law Library — primary-source verified & independently audited
The Patriot Watch Daily Brief
Every morning. The stories that matter, first — straight to your inbox. Free.
