New York State Rifle & Pistol Association Inc. v. City of New York, the first Second Amendment case to receive a Supreme Court hearing in a decade, was supposed to be the Second Amendment decision of this generation.
In the briefing in that case (of which I participated as amicus on behalf of neither party) all the hopes and fears of ten years of waiting appear on full display. What methodological tools should courts use to decide a Second Amendment case? Should they use the two-part framework adopted by all the circuits, with historical/categorical reasoning in step one, and tailoring through strict or intermediate scrutiny in step two? Or should they abandon this framework as illegitimate “balancing” and apply something perhaps more originalist: a test focused solely on the text, history and tradition of the Second Amendment? Is the Second Amendment confined to the home – as some readings of District of Columbia v. Heller would suggest – or does the right extend to bearing firearms for personal protection outside of the home as well?