The Supreme Court’s New Second Amendment Test Is Off to a Wild Start

[Chris]

Protection of gun rights used to consider two tests: One, a history-and-tradition test, two, a test of balance between need against right. Now it consists of only the first as rights are now presumed. Originalism is now mandatory.

The Supreme Court’s New Second Amendment Test Is Off to a Wild Start

...Until recently, most federal courts had settled on a two-step test for the constitutionality of gun restrictions. The first step generally required judges to decide whether the restriction fit within a history or tradition of gun restrictions. In short, if a court found examples of similar restrictions when the Second Amendment was ratified, then it would be presumptively constitutional. If no examples could be found, the courts would then move to the second step and try to balance the need for the restriction against the individual right to bear arms. That balancing act often allowed restrictions to stand.

Justice Clarence Thomas, writing for the six-justice majority in Bruen, eliminated the second step altogether. “When the Second Amendment’s plain text covers an individual’s conduct, the Constitution presumptively protects that conduct,” he wrote for the court. “The government must then justify its regulation by demonstrating that it is consistent with the nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation. Only then may a court conclude that the individual’s conduct falls outside the Second Amendment’s ‘unqualified command.’” In short, it made originalism mandatory in Second Amendment cases....

The article goes on somewhat negatively if you want to read that.

[Peter1469]

Shall not be infindged means something I guess. And looking at the law from the Founding until Lautenberg isn't unusal.

[carolina73]

So don't use the Constitution as the guide to SCOTUS but instead use previous more leftist rulings?
I thought the judges followed the Constitution and the legislature changed it.

[Chris]

So don't use the Constitution as the guide to SCOTUS but instead use previous more leftist rulings?
I thought the judges followed the Constitution and the legislature changed it.

I think what Thomas said was no more tests of the 2nd amendment against what politicians present as public need--like Biden's sick comments. Look at legal history of gun laws at the time the 2nd was ratified to determine original views.