SCOTUSblog: LIVE Announcement of opinions for Thursday, June 23

[mahatmakanejeeves]

10. We have Bruen.

It is by Justice Thomas, and it is 6-3.

Breyer dissents, joined by Sotomayor and Kagan.

Here's the link: https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/21pdf/20-843_7j80.pdf

The court holds that New York's "proper-cause" requirement to obtain a concealed-carry license violates the Constitution 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.

Thomas says in the intro that the court is holding "that the Second and Fourteenth Amendments protect an individual's right to carry a handgun for self-defense outside the home.

The New York "proper cause" requirement violates the Constitution, Thomas explains, because it only allows public-carry licenses when an applicant shows a special need for self-defense.

135 page opinion

The New York "proper cause" requirement violates the Constitution, Thomas explains, because it only allows public-carry licenses when an applicant shows a special need for self-defense.

The court rejects the "two-part" approach used by the courts of appeals in Second Amendment cases. "In keeping with Heller," Thomas writes, "we hold that when the Second Amendment's plain text covers an individual's conduct, the Constitution presumptively protects that conduct."

Justice Breyer refers to Uvalde and Buffalo. But Justice Alito has a retort regarding Buffalo.

The government will have to show, Thomas says, that a gun regulation "is consistent with this Nation's historical tradition of firearm regulation."

In this case, Thomas explains, nothing in the Second Amendment distinguishes between home and public "with respect to the right to keep and bear arms."

Page 2 of Alito's concurrence is notable and troubling. He dismisses Breyer's recounting of mass shootings. "Why, for example, does the dissent think it is relevant to recount the mass shootings that have occurred in recent years? ... The New York law at issue in this case obviously did not stop that [Buffalo] perpetrator."