New York State Rifle & Pistol Association, Inc. v. Bruen Quotes

“Ironically, the only two “relevan[t]” metrics that the Court does identify are “how and why” a gun control regulation “burden[s the] right to armed self-defense.” In other words, the Court believes that the most relevant metrics of comparison are a regulation’s means (how) and ends (why)—even as it rejects the utility of means-end scrutiny.”
― Stephen G. Breyer, New York State Rifle & Pistol Association, Inc. v. Bruen

“The Court’s insistence that judges and lawyers rely nearly exclusively on history to interpret the Second Amendment thus raises a host of troubling questions. Consider, for example, the following. Do lower courts have the research resources necessary to conduct exhaustive historical analyses in every Second Amendment case? What historical regulations and decisions qualify as representative analogues to modern laws? How will judges determine which historians have the better view of close historical questions? Will the meaning of the Second Amendment change if or when new historical evidence becomes available? And, most importantly, will the Court’s approach permit judges to reach the outcomes they prefer and then cloak those outcomes in the language of history?”
― Stephen G. Breyer, New York State Rifle & Pistol Association, Inc. v. Bruen