Among semiautomatic weapons, large-capacity magazines, guns with scratched-off serial numbers, "ghost guns," guns in bars and restaurants, and guns in the hands of people who have threatened to kill themselves or others, which firearms are legal expanded after the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision two years ago in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen, which strengthened Second Amendment rights and launched hundreds of lawsuits challenging gun restrictions. Now, the high court says it was misunderstood: Courts were taking too far Bruen’s guidance that gun laws must align with U.S. “history and tradition.” People under domestic violence restraining orders, the justices said, could be barred from having guns, allowing a looser interpretation of its decision from two years ago. On both sides of the gun-control debate, people say the ruling will do little to ease the confusion unleashed by the 202 ruling, reports the Washington Post. Only eight of 500 federal court cases challenging the constitutionality of firearms restrictions since Bruen that are being tracked by the gun-control advocacy group Brady involve the law recently upheld by the Supreme Court.
Those opposing gun regulations still plan to aggressively target laws that they believe violate the Constitution. The high court also didn’t clarify how far back in history judges must go to justify allowing firearms regulations. That leaves other major gun laws vulnerable at a time when the U.S. surgeon general has declared gun violence a public health crisis and as a new study reports that gun rulings have become more politically polarized. The Bruen test was created in response to conservative complaints that the Second Amendment was not taken seriously enough, with courts too often prioritizing public safety concerns over gun rights. In Bruen, the court said no such choice was allowed — all that matters is whether there is a historical analogue for the regulation being challenged. Experts say the new decision was written so narrowly that it does not make clear how to address other clauses of the same federal law on domestic violence. The court declined to clear up a dispute over whether judges must find historical analogues from the late 1700s or the 1860s. One judge lamented that “we are not experts in what white, wealthy, and male property owners thought about firearms regulation in 1791.”