NEW YORK STATE RIFLE & PISTOL ASSN., INC. v. BRUEN
https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/21pdf/20-843_7j80.pdf
Syllabus
Held: New York’s proper-cause requirement 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 for self-defense.
American pro-gun persons appear to me to be celebrating about this decision on New York’s victim disarmament laws. I am baffled as to why. The Supreme Court has neutered, arguably invalidated, the 2nd Amendment and it’s being trumpeted as a victory for gun rights. Madness. The Supreme Court is redefining the 2nd Amendment to be about self defense which it is not. At the time the 2nd Amendment was written nobody would have questioned your right to have weapons for self defense, even in England. In England you didn’t have the right to own a war horse but you had the right to have a pistol for self defense. The US 2nd Amendment is intended to guarantee the possession of military weapons, stockpiles of military weapons, and organizing as militia for military purposes. Around the 1680s and even before Acts were passed in England making such activities illegal whilst individual self defense was assumed as a normative right. Statutes made reference to classes of weapons and material that were for war purposes vs hunting and self defence. Pistols were owned and carried for self defence in England well into the C20th. England not having a constitution worth talking about, the Home Secretary invalidated the lawful ownership of pistols for self defense by fiat just after WW2.
In the US the government is far more concerned about neutering the 2nd Amendment than worrying about the comparatively trivial issue of serfs carrying guns for self defense. Why the 2nd Amendment can’t stand on its own without the 14th is also mysterious.
In the grand scheme of bringing government to heel this is a defeat not a victory, as usual people are too entranced by shiny things to see the man behind the curtain.
“When I use a word,’ Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, ‘it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.’
’The question is,’ said Alice, ‘whether you can make words mean so many different things.’
’The question is,’ said Humpty Dumpty, ‘which is to be master — that’s all.”