Published July 16, 2026 at 1:31 PM ET · Updated July 16, 2026 at 2:31 PM ET
Ninth Circuit judge urges Supreme Court to rein in lower court on Second Amendment rulings
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⚖ The Constitutional Angle
Bruen held that when the Amendment's text covers conduct, the Constitution presumptively protects it and the government must justify regulation through the Nation's historical tradition of firearms law. The Court expressly rejected the two-step means-end test lower courts used after Heller. A judge urging the Supreme Court to correct a lower court is contesting whether that history-only standard is being faithfully applied.
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.
Precedent facts from the PW Law Library — primary-source verified & independently audited
