The Second Amendment "is the very product of an interest balancing by the people" — a constitutional guarantee subject to judges' case-by-case assessments is no constitutional guarantee at all.

That line from Thomas's majority is the whole ballgame. For over a decade, federal courts were essentially doing a cost-benefit analysis on your right to carry — weighing your need against the government's interest in restricting you. That's not how any other enumerated right works, and the Court finally said so out loud.

The Constitution presumptively protects conduct covered by the Second Amendment's plain text. The government must then demonstrate the regulation is consistent with the Nation's historical tradition of firearm regulation.

What this means practically: if you're a law-abiding citizen and you want to carry a handgun in public, the burden is no longer on you to prove why you need it. It flips to the government to find a historical analogue for the restriction. That's a fundamental reversal — and it's why so many post-Bruen challenges to things like suppressor laws, pistol brace rules, and magazine capacity limits are now going back through the courts using this exact framework.

Worth noting that Nash's original application was denied even after he cited a string of nearby robberies in his neighborhood. The licensing officer essentially told him the whole point of his restricted license was to keep him from carrying anywhere the public goes. That's the system Bruen struck down — one where a bureaucrat's discretion stood between you and a constitutional right.

Question for the room: If you were carrying under a may-issue permit before Bruen — or you live somewhere that shifted to shall-issue after the ruling — did anything change about how you approach your carry setup or where you're comfortable carrying?

Read the full article in The Handbook → | By The Boise Gun Club Team