Full Opinion

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE THIRD CIRCUIT Nos. 24-2415, 24-2450 & 24-2506 ______________ ASSOCIATION OF NEW JERSEY RIFLE AND PISTOL CLUBS, INC.; BLAKE ELLMAN; MARC WEINBERG v. ATTORNEY GENERAL NEW JERSEY; SUPERINTENDENT NEW JERSEY STATE POLICE; OFFICER IN CHARGE OF THE CHESTER POLICE DEPARTMENT; CHIEF OF POLICE OF THE PARK RIDGE POLICE DEPARTMENT (D.C. No. 1:18-cv-10507) MARK CHEESEMAN; TIMOTHY CONNELLY; FIREARMS POLICY COALITION, INC., Appellants in No. 24-2415 v. ATTORNEY GENERAL NEW JERSEY; SUPERINTENDENT NEW JERSEY STATE POLICE; GLOUCESTER COUNTY PROSECUTOR; OCEAN COUNTY PROSECUTOR, Appellants in No. 24-2450 (D.C. No. 1:22-cv-04360) BLAKE ELLMAN; THOMAS R. ROGERS; ASSOCIATION OF NEW JERSEY RIFLE AND PISTOL CLUBS, INC.; MARC WEINBERG, Appellants in No. 24-2506 v. ATTORNEY GENERAL NEW JERSEY; SUPERINTENDENT NEW JERSEY STATE POLICE; OFFICER IN CHARGE OF THE CHESTER POLICE DEPARTMENT; CHIEF OF THE WALL TOWNSHIP POLICE DEPARTMENT (D.C. 1:22-cv-04397) ______________ Appeal from the U.S. District Court, D.N.J. Judge Peter G. Sheridan Before: CHAGARES, Chief Judge, HARDIMAN, SHWARTZ, KRAUSE, RESTREPO, BIBAS, PORTER, MATEY, PHIPPS, FREEMAN, MONTGOMERY-REEVES, CHUNG, BOVE, MASCOTT, and SMITH, Circuit Judges Argued before Merits Panel July 1, 2025 Argued en banc Oct. 15, 2025 Decided July 17, 2026 ______________ OPINION OF THE COURT 2 FREEMAN, Circuit Judge, filed the Opinion of the Court with whom CHAGARES, Chief Judge, and HARDIMAN, BIBAS, PORTER, MATEY, MONTGOMERY-REEVES, and BOVE, Circuit Judges, join, and with whom PHIPPS, Circuit Judge, joins in part. MATEY, Circuit Judge, filed a concurring opinion with whom MASCOTT, Circuit Judge, joins. PHIPPS, Circuit Judge, filed an opinion concurring in part and concurring in the judgment. MONTGOMERY-REEVES, Circuit Judge, filed a concurring opinion. MASCOTT, Circuit Judge, filed an opinion concurring in part and concurring in the judgment. CHUNG, Circuit Judge, filed an opinion concurring in part and dissenting in part. SHWARTZ, Circuit Judge, filed a dissenting opinion with whom KRAUSE, RESTREPO, and SMITH, Circuit Judges, join. KRAUSE, Circuit Judge, filed a dissenting opinion with whom RESTREPO and SMITH, Circuit Judges, join. SMITH, Circuit Judge, filed a dissenting opinion. New Jersey criminalizes the possession of a class of weapons that the State labels “assault firearms.” The State also restricts the possession of what it labels “large capacity ammunition magazines” (LCMs), which it currently defines as magazines that can hold more than 10 rounds of ammunition. We will refer to those laws as the “Assault Firearm Provisions” and the “LCM Provisions,” respectively. In three separate lawsuits, gun owners and groups advocating for gun rights challenged both laws under the Second Amendment. One of those lawsuits also challenged the LCM Provisions under the Fifth Amendment’s Takings Clause. The District Court consolidated the three cases and resolved them on cross-motions for summary judgment. 3 When it addressed the Assault Firearm Provisions, the District Court focused its analysis on one brand and model of prohibited firearm: the Colt AR-15. It determined that New Jersey’s ban on Colt AR-15s violates the Second Amendment. When it turned to the LCM Provisions, it held that the law does not violate the Second Amendment or the Takings Clause. Applying the framework announced in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen, 597 U.S. 1 (2022), we agree with the District Court that New Jersey’s ban on Colt AR-15s violates the Second Amendment. However, because the record supports the same result for all semi-automatic rifles—not only Colt AR-15s—we will MODIFY the District Court’s order so that it deems the Assault Firearm Provisions unconstitutional with respect to the full class of semi-automatic rifles. We will AFFIRM that part of the order as modified. The LCM Provisions also violate the Second Amendment, so we will REVERSE the District Court’s order with respect to those. Because the LCM Provisions violate the Second Amendment, we need not address the Takings Clause challenge. We will REMAND these matters to the District Court for further proceedings, including for resolution of the Second Amendment challenge to the other models and types of firearms covered by the Assault Firearm Provisions. I. A. New Jersey passed the Assault Firearm Provisions and the LCM Provisions in 1990. 1990 N.J. Sess. Law Serv. Ch. 4 32 (West) (the “Act”). The regulations were inspired, in part, by a high-profile mass shooting at a California elementary school that left five children dead and thirty-three others injured. As New Jersey’s governor at the time explained, “guns capable of wholesale destruction are a direct threat to our police, our citizens and especially our children,” and the Act aimed to ensure that “no one can walk off the street and purchase a gun that is designed to wipe out the greatest number of people in the shortest possible time.” App. 4651–52. Under the Act’s Assault Firearm Provisions, it is a crime in New Jersey to knowingly possess an unlicensed assault firearm. See N.J. Stat. Ann. § 2C:39-5(f). 1 The Act defines “assault firearm” to include a list of over thirty models and types of semi-automatic rifles, pistols, and shotguns, plus any firearm “substantially identical to any of the firearms listed.” Id. § 2C:39-1(w)(1)–(2). The Act also includes descriptions of features that make a weapon an “assault firearm,” id. § 2C:39-1(w)(3)–(6), resulting in the current definition: w. “Assault firearm” means: (1) The following firearms: [listing numerous models and types, including the “Colt AR-15 and CAR-15 1 All citations to New Jersey statutes refer to the version of the statutes in effect as of June 13, 2018, unless otherwise indicated. See 2018 N.J. Sess. Law Serv. Ch. 39 (West). 5 series”]; 2 (2) Any firearm manufactured under any designation which is substantially identical to any of the firearms listed above. 3 (3) A semi-automatic shotgun with either a magazine capacity exceeding six rounds, a pistol grip, or a folding stock. (4) A semi-automatic rifle with a fixed magazine capacity exceeding 10 rounds [except] . . . a semi-automatic rifle which has an attached tubular device and which is capable of operating 2 The complete list is reproduced at Appendix A. 3 In 1996, the New Jersey Attorney General issued guidance about the characteristics that make semi-automatic rifles, pistols, and shotguns “substantially identical” to those on the list of banned firearms. For example, a semi-automatic rifle is “substantially identical” to a listed weapon if it “has the ability to accept a detachable magazine” and at least two of the following characteristics: (1) “a folding or telescoping stock,” (2) “a pistol grip that protrudes conspicuously beneath . . . the weapon,” (3) “a bayonet mount,” (4) “a flash suppressor” or a “barrel designed to accommodate [one],” and (5) “a grenade launcher.” Att’y Gen. Peter Verniero, Guidelines Regarding the “Substantially Identical” Provision (Aug. 19, 1996), https://perma.cc/337W-82Q9. 6 only with .22 caliber rimfire ammunition. 4 (5) A part or combination of parts designed or intended to convert a firearm into an assault firearm, or any combination of parts from which an assault firearm may be readily assembled if those parts are in the possession or under the control of the same person. (6) A firearm with a bump stock attached. Id. § 2C:39-1(w). The Act allows for individuals to receive licenses to purchase, possess, or carry an assault firearm. However, a person can receive such a license only if a state court determines (after a hearing, investigation, and recommendation of a county prosecutor) “that the public safety and welfare . . . require” the issuance of that license. Id. §§ 2C:58-5(a)–(b), 2C:39-5(f). The parties challenging the Assault Firearm Provisions submit—and New Jersey does not dispute—that no one in the State has ever received a license for an assault firearm. The exemptions from the law are narrow. Individuals in the military or law enforcement are exempt from the criminal provisions of the Act. Id. § 2C:39-6(a), (j). And people who own certain “assault firearms determined by the Attorney General to be legitimate for target-shooting 4 Until the 2018 amendments to the Act, this provision read: “(4) A semi-automatic rifle with a fixed magazine capacity exceeding 15 rounds.” See 2018 N.J. Sess. Law Serv. Ch. 39 (West); see also infra pp. 9–10. 7 purposes” may register and lawfully possess those firearms only if they satisfy several requirements. Among other things, they must have purchased said firearms on or before May 1, 1990 (the date when the Act took effect), be members of a rifle or pistol club that existed before the Act took effect, and have joined the rifle or pistol club no more than 210 days after the Act took effect. Id. § 2C:58-12(a)–(b). Owners of assault firearms may avoid criminal liability by rendering those weapons inoperable. But absent licensure or registration under the strict terms described above, a civilian who knowingly possesses an operable assault firearm in New Jersey commits a crime punishable by up to ten years’ imprisonment and a $150,000 fine. Id. §§ 2C:39-5(f), 2C:43-3(a)(2), 2C:43-6(a)(2). The Act also includes the LCM Provisions. Those provisions restrict the possession of LCMs to a narrow class of individuals: those who (a) possess licensed “assault firearms” and (b) only use the magazine in connection with competitive shooting events sanctioned by a United States Army official. Id. § 2C:39-3(j). When passed in 1990, the Act defined “large capacity” to mean capable of holding more than 15 rounds of ammunition. Id. § 2C:39-1(y) (1990) (“‘Large capacity ammunition magazine’ means a box, drum, tube or other container which is capable of holding more than 15 rounds of ammunition to be fed continuously and directly therefrom into a semi-automatic firearm.”). But in 2018, in response to an increased threat of mass shootings, New Jersey amended the Act to define “large capacity . . . magazine” as one capable of holding more than 10 rounds of ammunition. See 2018 N.J. Sess. Law Serv. Ch. 39 (West) (codified as amended at N.J. 8 Stat. Ann. § 2C:39-l(y)). The 2018 amendments gave New Jersey residents 180 days to either voluntarily surrender to the government any magazines that could hold more than 10 rounds; transfer those magazines to someone legally entitled to possess them; render those magazines inoperable; or permanently modify them to accept 10 or fewer rounds. N.J. Stat. Ann. § 2C:39-19. The 2018 amendments contain exemptions for firearms purchased before the amendments’ effective date that have “a fixed magazine capacity of up to 15 rounds” or that “only accept[ ] a detachable magazine with a capacity of up to 15 rounds” that cannot be modified to comply with the amendment’s 10-round limit, id. § 2C:39-20, as well as for the magazines that such firearms require, id. § 2C:39-3(j)(2). 5 B. When New Jersey amended the LCM Provisions in 2018 to lower the maximum lawful capacity from 15 rounds to 10, the Association of New Jersey Rifle & Pistol Clubs and two of its members (collectively, the “ANJRPC Plaintiffs”) sued the State’s Attorney General and three police officials (collectively, “New Jersey” or the “State”), asserting that the LCM Provisions violate the Second Amendment and the Fifth Amendment’s Takings Clause. Soon after filing suit, the ANJRPC Plaintiffs filed a motion for a preliminary injunction against the enforcement of the LCM Provisions. After an evidentiary hearing, the District Court denied that motion, concluding the plaintiffs were not likely to succeed on the 5 The exemptions to the Assault Firearm and LCM Provisions both require that the owner of an exempt firearm register it with the State. N.J. Stat. Ann. §§ 2C:39-3(j)(2); 2C:39-20. 9 merits. See Ass’n of N.J. Rifle & Pistol Clubs, Inc. v. Grewal (“ANJRPC I”), No. 3:17-cv-10507, 2018 WL 4688345, at *13 (D.N.J. Sept. 28, 2018). We affirmed that order on appeal. See Ass’n of N.J. Rifle & Pistol Clubs, Inc. v. Att’y Gen. N.J. (“ANJRPC II”), 910 F.3d 106, 110 (3d Cir. 2018). Under our then-binding precedent from United States v. Marzzarella, 614 F.3d 85 (3d Cir. 2010), we applied intermediate scrutiny to the LCM Provisions and held that they did not violate the Second Amendment. ANJRPC II, 910 F.3d at 122. 6 We also rejected the Takings Clause claim. Id. at 124. We reasoned that the LCM Provisions did not effect a physical taking because owners could sell their over-10-round magazines, modify them, or register any magazines that could not be modified. Id. We determined there was no regulatory taking because magazines capable of holding 10 or fewer rounds could still function. Id. at 124–25. 7 Following a remand, the District Court granted summary judgment to New Jersey. See Ass’n of N.J. Rifle & Pistol Clubs, Inc. v. Grewal (“ANJRPC III”), 6 In a dissent, one of our colleagues contended that we should have applied strict scrutiny to the Second Amendment claim, though the LCM Provisions did not withstand even intermediate scrutiny. ANJRPC II, 910 F.3d at 127–30 (Bibas, J., dissenting). The dissent did not address the Takings Clause claim. 7 The ANJRPC Plaintiffs also brought an unsuccessful Fourteenth Amendment equal protection claim based on the exceptions for law enforcement. They do not re-raise their equal protection claim here. 10 No. 3:18-cv-10507, 2019 WL 3430101 (D.N.J. July 29, 2019). In a short opinion, the District Court explained that summary judgment was appropriate because there were no genuine disputes of material fact and because our opinion in ANJRPC II “resolve[d] all legal issues” in the case. Id. at *3. The ANJRPC Plaintiffs appealed the summary judgment order, and we affirmed it. See Ass’n of N.J. Rifle & Pistol Clubs Inc. v. Att’y Gen. N.J. (“ANJRPC IV”), 974 F.3d 237 (3d Cir. 2020), cert. granted, judgment vacated sub. nom., Ass’n of N.J. Rifle & Pistol Clubs, Inc. v. Bruck, 142 S. Ct. 2894 (2022). We explained that, when we addressed the preliminary injunction issue in ANJRPC II, our opinion went “beyond the question of likelihood of success and declared a holding on the merits.” Id. at 246. In other words, in the prior appeal, we “held very plainly that the [LCM Provisions] do[] not violate the Second Amendment [or] the Fifth Amendment’s Takings Clause.” Id. Because our holding in the prior appeal was not clearly wrong or manifestly unjust, we determined that it bound us under the law-of-the-case doctrine. Id. at 247. 8 The ANJRPC Plaintiffs petitioned for certiorari. After the Supreme Court decided Bruen, it granted the certiorari petition, vacated our judgment in ANJRPC IV, and remanded the matter to us for further consideration in light of Bruen. Ass’n of N.J. Rifle & Pistol Clubs, Inc. v. Bruck, 142 S. Ct. 8 In a dissent from our ANJRPC IV opinion, one of our colleagues opined that we should reconsider our precedent under which intermediate scrutiny applies to Second Amendment cases. See ANJRPC IV, 974 F.3d at 248–63 (Matey, J., dissenting). 11 2894 (2022). In turn, we remanded the case to the District Court “for further record development, targeted at the legal and historical analysis required under Bruen.” See Ass’n of N.J. Rifle & Pistol Clubs Inc. v. Att’y Gen. N.J., No. 19-3142, 2022 WL 22860232, at *1 n.1 (3d Cir. Aug. 25, 2022). The Bruen decision also prompted challenges to the Assault Firearm Provisions. On the day Bruen was decided, Mark Cheeseman, Timothy Connolly, and the Firearms Policy Coalition (collectively, the “Cheeseman Plaintiffs”) challenged the Assault Firearm Provisions under the Second Amendment. One week later, ANJRPC and two of its individual members (the “Ellman Plaintiffs”) filed their own challenge to the Assault Firearm Provisions. 9 The District Court consolidated all three cases. Following discovery, the parties cross-moved for summary judgment, and the District Court issued an order and opinion resolving all three cases. See Ass’n of N.J. Rifle & Pistol Clubs, Inc. v. Platkin (“ANJRPC V”), 742 F. Supp. 3d 421 (D.N.J. 2024). That is the decision currently on appeal. The District Court began its analysis by limiting the scope of its assault-firearm decision to the Colt AR-15. Id. at 424–25. It explained that it did so because “the information presented to the Court focuse[d] largely on . . . the [Colt] 9 At summary judgment, the Ellman Plaintiffs did not challenge the restrictions on parts “designed or intended to convert a firearm into an assault firearm” or from which an assault firearm could be “readily assembled,” nor did they challenge the state’s ban on firearms with bump stocks attached. 12 AR-15,” 10 and each of the other firearms regulated by the Assault Firearm Provisions presented “nuances” that the Court was not equipped to examine. Id. at 424. Applying the Bruen framework to the Colt AR-15, the District Court first determined that the plain text of the Second Amendment “covers Plaintiffs’ proposed course of conduct— the possession and use of [Colt] AR-15s within the home for self-defense.” Id. at 442–43. 11 Next, the District Court determined that New Jersey’s restrictions on possessing the Colt AR-15 “cannot stand since [they are] inconsistent with our Nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation.” Id. at 445. It reasoned that the “AR-15 Provision acts effectively as the total prohibition on a commonly used firearm for self-defense . . . within the home,” which it deemed “impermissible under the plain text of [District of Columbia v. Heller, 554 U.S. 570 (2008)].” Id. at 446. Turning to the LCM Provisions, the District Court followed our opinion in ANJRPC II, which said LCMs are “Arms” within the meaning of the Second Amendment. Id. at 448; see ANJRPC II, 910 F.3d at 116 (“Because magazines feed ammunition into certain guns, and ammunition is necessary for such a gun to function as intended, magazines are ‘arms’ within the meaning of the Second Amendment.”). It 10 Although the District Court referred to “the AR-15” in its analysis, it explained that its decision does not reach beyond the AR-15 manufactured by Colt. ANJRPC V, 742 F. Supp. 3d at 425 nn.4 & 5. 11 As we discuss below, Plaintiffs seek to possess these weapons for lawful purposes including, but not limited to, self-defense. 13 then determined that the Nation has a historical tradition of restricting certain arms (though not banning them outright) in response to safety concerns of the time. ANJRPC V, 742 F. Supp. 3d at 451–52. It reasoned that the LCM Provisions achieve New Jersey’s stated purpose of “effectively slow[ing] down a mass shooter” without resorting to an outright ban, so those provisions comport with the Second Amendment. Id. at 452. Finally, the District Court reasoned that nothing about Bruen disrupted our Fifth Amendment Takings Clause analysis in ANJRPC IV, so the LCM Provisions do not violate that clause. Id. at 452–53. All parties cross-appealed the District Court’s summary judgment order, and we consolidated those appeals. We heard oral argument as a three-judge panel in July 2025, and we reheard the appeals en banc in October 2025. 12 12 Some members of our Court would opt not to decide these consolidated appeals because the Supreme Court will address the constitutionality of AR-15 bans next term. See Krause Op. at 3, 30; Montgomery-Reeves Op. at 1–3; Viramontes v. Cook County, No. 24-1437, 2025 WL 1553896 (7th Cir. June 2, 2025), cert. granted, --- S. Ct. ----, 2026 WL 1871322 (June 30, 2026); Nat’l Ass’n for Gun Rts. v. Lamont, 153 F.4th 213 (2d Cir. 2025), cert. granted sub nom., Grant v. Higgins, --- S. Ct. ----, 2026 WL 1871312 (June 30, 2026). But our decision in these cases resolves a question the Supreme Court has not committed to addressing: the constitutionality of a law restricting possession of magazines that can hold more than 10 rounds of ammunition. Moreover, despite one party notifying us of the Supreme Court’s grant of certiorari to address AR-15 14 II. 13 The Second Amendment provides: “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.” U.S. Const. amend. II. In District of Columbia v. Heller, the Supreme Court determined that the Second Amendment’s language “confer[s] an individual right to keep and bear arms.” 554 U.S. 570, 595 (2008). Soon after Heller, the Court clarified that the “Due bans, to date no party to these long-pending cases has asked us to hold our decision pending the Supreme Court’s decision. 13 The District Court had subject matter jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. §§ 1331 and 1343(a)(3). We have jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1291. We review a district court’s order resolving cross-motions for summary judgment de novo. Spivack v. City of Philadelphia, 109 F.4th 158, 165 (3d Cir. 2024). When we do so, we apply “the same standards and presumptions as the District Court.” Mid-Century Ins. Co. v. Werley, 114 F.4th 200, 207 (3d Cir. 2024) (citation modified). That is, we ask whether, “viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the nonmoving party and drawing all inferences in favor of that party, there is no genuine issue of material fact and the moving party is entitled to judgment as a matter of law.” Auto-Owners Ins. Co. v. Stevens & Ricci Inc., 835 F.3d 388, 402 (3d Cir. 2016); Fed. R. Civ. P. 56(a). When presented with cross-motions for summary judgment, “courts must rule on each party’s motion on an individual and separate basis, determining, for each side, whether a judgment may be entered in accordance with the summary judgment standard.” Spivack, 109 F.4th at 166 n.5 (citation modified). 15 Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment incorporates the Second Amendment right recognized in Heller” against the states. McDonald v. City of Chicago, 561 U.S. 742, 791 (2010). The individual right is incorporated against the states because “the Framers and ratifiers of the Fourteenth Amendment counted the right to keep and bear arms among those fundamental rights necessary to our system of ordered liberty.” Id. at 778. In Heller, after the Supreme Court addressed the meaning of the Second Amendment, the Court turned to the law at issue in that case: a District of Columbia law that (1) “totally ban[ned] handgun possession in the home,” and (2) “require[d] that any lawful firearm in the home be disassembled or bound by a trigger lock at all times, rendering it inoperable.” 554 U.S. at 628. It summarized the handgun ban as “a prohibition of an entire class of ‘arms’ that is overwhelmingly chosen by American society for [self-defense],” and a prohibition that “extends . . . to the home, where the need for defense of self, family, and property is most acute.” Id. It concluded that, “[u]nder any of the standards of scrutiny . . . applied to enumerated constitutional rights,” the handgun ban “would fail constitutional muster.” Id. at 628–29. As for the prohibition on operable firearms in the home, the Court noted that the provision “ma[de] it impossible for citizens to use [firearms] for the core lawful purpose of self-defense.” Id. at 630. Thus, that prohibition also violated the Second Amendment—at least as applied to the handgun the respondent, Dick Heller, wished to possess in his home for purposes of self-defense. Id.; see also id. at 575–76 & n.2. For several years, our Court and our sister circuits interpreted Heller to require means-end scrutiny as a part of the 16 Second Amendment analysis. See Marzzarella, 614 F.3d at 89; Bruen, 597 U.S. at 17 (“[T]he Courts of Appeals have coalesced around a ‘two-step’ framework for analyzing Second Amendment challenges that combines history with means-end scrutiny.”). As it turns out, we all missed the mark. In Bruen, the Supreme Court clarified that means-end scrutiny has no place in Heller’s methodology. Bruen, 597 U.S. at 19. Instead, courts must approach Second Amendment cases under a different two-step framework. At the first step, we ask whether “the Second Amendment’s plain text covers an individual’s conduct.” Id. at 17. If the answer is yes, then “the Constitution presumptively protects that conduct,” and the government cannot “justify its regulation” by “simply posit[ing] that the regulation promotes an important interest.” Id. Instead, at the second step the government “must demonstrate that the regulation is consistent with this Nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation.” Id. If the regulation is not consistent with that historical tradition, it cannot stand. Id. The government may carry its burden at Bruen’s second step by demonstrating that “relevantly similar . . . modern and historical regulations impose a comparable burden on the right of armed self-defense” and that the burden imposed is “comparably justified.” Id. at 29. In comparing modern and historical regulations, we consider “at least two metrics: how and why the regulations burden a law-abiding citizen’s right to armed self-defense.” Id. Still, the Supreme Court warned against overly stringent analogical reasoning. It explained that the historical analysis “requires only that the government identify a well-established and representative historical analogue, not a historical twin.” Id. at 30. Thus, a modern 17 regulation need not be a “dead ringer” for a historical one to survive Second Amendment scrutiny. Id. After clarifying the proper methodology in Bruen, the Supreme Court applied that methodology to the contested regulation: a New York State law limiting the public carry of handguns to individuals who could prove “a special need for self-protection distinguishable from that of the general community.” Id. at 11–12 (quoting In re Klenosky, 428 N.Y.S.2d 256, 257 (App. Div. 1980)). Under that state law, mere desire to carry handguns in public for self-defense did not suffice. Id. at 12–13, 15–16. As a threshold matter, the Court noted the lack of dispute about whether the law’s challengers—“two ordinary, law-abiding, adult citizens”—were “part of ‘the people’ whom the Second Amendment protects.” Id. at 31–32. 14 The Court then turned to a disputed question in the first step of the inquiry: “whether the plain text of the Second Amendment protects [the challengers’] proposed course of conduct— carrying handguns publicly for self-defense.” Id. at 32. The Court had “little difficulty concluding that it does.” Id. “After all, the Second Amendment guarantees an ‘individual right to possess and carry weapons in case of confrontation,’ and confrontation can surely take place outside the home.” Id. at 33 (citation omitted) (quoting Heller, 554 U.S. at 592). At the second step of the inquiry, the Court conducted a lengthy examination of the historical regulations New York 14 The Court also said there was no dispute that “handguns are weapons ‘in common use’ today for self-defense.” Bruen, 597 U.S. at 32 (quoting Heller, 554 U.S. at 627). 18 invoked in support of its law. Id. at 33–70. It summarized: “Apart from . . . outlier jurisdictions, American governments simply have not broadly prohibited the public carry of commonly used firearms for personal defense,” or “required law-abiding, responsible citizens to demonstrate a special need for self-protection distinguishable from that of the general community in order to carry arms in public.” Id. at 70 (citation modified). Because there was no historical analogue for how New York chose to regulate firearms, the Court concluded that New York did not carry its “burden to identify an American tradition justifying the State’s [public-carry regulation].” Id.15 Two years after Bruen, the Court provided additional detail about how to apply the Second Amendment framework. In United States v. Rahimi, the Court clarified that the methodology in Bruen was “not meant to suggest a law trapped in amber.” 602 U.S. 680, 691 (2024). Rather, just as the Second Amendment “is not limited only to those arms that were in existence at the founding,” the Amendment also “permits more than just those regulations identical to ones that could be found in 1791.” Id. at 691–92. Thus, courts must ask “whether the challenged regulation is consistent with the principles that underpin our regulatory tradition.” Id. at 692. We do so by addressing the “central” considerations: “[w]hy and how the regulation burdens the [Second Amendment] 15 In Bruen, the Court did not explicitly address whether there was a historical analogue for why New York enacted its firearm law. Nonetheless, it observed that New York’s law sought to address “handgun violence, primarily in urban areas,” 597 U.S. at 27 (citation modified), and it did not distinguish any of the historical regulations it examined on the grounds of dissimilar “whys,” see id. at 42–60. 19 right.” Id. In Rahimi, the Court addressed a Second Amendment challenge to a federal law that bans firearm possession by an individual subject to a domestic violence restraining order if that order includes a finding that the individual represents a credible threat to the physical safety of an intimate partner. 602 U.S. at 684–85. The Court determined that the provision is relevantly similar to historical regulations in why it burdens the Second Amendment right. It discussed historical surety and affray laws, which demonstrate that, “[f]rom the earliest days of the common law, firearm regulations have included provisions barring people from misusing weapons to harm or menace others.” Id. at 694. The Court also determined that our Nation’s historical tradition supports how the provision seeks to accomplish its goal: by temporarily disarming a person after an individualized assessment that he poses a credible threat to the physical safety of others. Id. at 699–700. Because the “why” and the “how” of the provision “fit[ ] comfortably” within our Nation’s tradition of weapons regulations, the law withstood Second Amendment scrutiny. Id. at 690. 16 16 The Supreme Court also applied this framework in United States v. Hemani, 146 S. Ct. 1677 (2026). There, a man who uses marijuana about every other day challenged his federal prosecution for possessing a firearm as an “unlawful user of . . . [a] controlled substance.” Id. at 1684–85 (quoting 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(3)). The Court determined that the government’s proffered analogues—vagrancy, civil-commitment, and surety laws (categories of what the government called “habitual drunkard laws”)—were not 20 This term, in Wolford v. Lopez, the Supreme Court refined the framework set forth in Bruen. Wolford, No. 24-1046, --- S. Ct. ----, 2026 WL 1825723 (U.S. June 25, 2026). It explained the plain-text analysis required at Bruen’s first step “entails three subsidiary questions”: whether (1) the law applies to “the people,” defined to mean “all members of the political community, id. at *6 (quoting Heller, 554 U.S. at 580); (2) the law concerns “any form of ‘Arms,’ i.e., any weapon customarily used for offensive or defensive purposes,” id.; and (3) the law restricts “either the ‘keep[ing]’ (i.e., possession) or the ‘bear[ing]’ (i.e., carrying) of arms,” id. (alterations in original). The Court also elaborated on Bruen’s second step: where the government has an opportunity to “show that its challenged law did not infringe the historical understanding of the codified right.” Id. It explained that courts evaluating historical analogues should consider three factors: (1) the number of jurisdictions in which the historical restrictions were adopted, (2) the extent to which the historical restrictions were well-accepted, whether expressly or tacitly, and (3) whether the historical restrictions are “relevantly similar” to the modern challenged law. Id. (quoting Bruen, 597 U.S. at 29). To be relevantly similar, “the ‘how’ and ‘why’ of the historical analogue and modern regulation must be close enough to enable a court to say: ‘Because this historical law was understood to be compatible with the right codified by the Second Amendment, we can infer that the restriction imposed by the modern law is likewise consistent with that right.’” Id. relevantly similar to the “why” or the “how” of the modern law. Id. at 1687–92, 1694. 21 Applying this framework in Wolford, the Court struck down a Hawaii law that required anyone carrying a firearm on private property to have the express consent of the property owner. Id. at *7–8. The Court concluded that the restriction easily fell within the Second Amendment’s plain text, so it proceeded to Bruen’s second step. Id. at *9–10. There, it rejected the state’s historical analogues, which were primarily laws prohibiting unauthorized hunting of game on someone else’s property. Id. at *12–13. Those historical laws were not relevantly similar in why they were enacted. Targeted at unauthorized hunting, those laws aimed to prevent theft of game and the firing of guns that could inflict injury or disturb others on private property. Id. at *13. But Hawaii’s modern law does not address any of those unwanted effects. Id. The historical laws also were not relevantly similar in how they functioned. They applied only “to land where game could be found, not retail establishments that residents of cities and suburbs frequent as part of their daily routines.” Id. 17 In the years since the Supreme Court announced the historical inquiry required under Heller and its progeny, it has 17 The Court also rejected two other “weaker” historical analogues. Wolford, 2026 WL 1825723, at *13. It explained that, even if an 1893 Oregon statute could be read to prohibit the carrying of weapons in commercial establishments, “a lone statute adopted nearly a century after the adoption of the Second Amendment and well after the adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment sheds little if any light on the meaning of the Second Amendment right.” Id. And an 1865 Louisiana law that prohibited the carrying of weapons on the “premises or plantations” of another person without their consent was “neither widespread nor widely accepted.” Id. at *14. 22 not needed to address which historical period—the 1791 adoption of the Bill of Rights or the 1868 ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment—courts should primarily look to when considering the Second Amendment as incorporated against the States. See Bruen, 597 U.S. at 37–38; Rahimi, 602 U.S. at 692 n.1. But we have. In Lara v. Commissioner Pennsylvania State Police, we assessed a Pennsylvania law that “effectively ban[ned] 18-to-20-year-olds from carrying firearms outside their homes during a state of emergency.” 125 F.4th 428, 431 (3d Cir. 2025). When conducting the historical inquiry, we saw that the principles underpinning Founding-era firearm regulations pointed in one direction while the principles underpinning mid-to-late-nineteenth century laws pointed in the opposite direction. Id. at 441. Faced with an “irreconcilable conflict” between the laws of those two timeframes, we concluded that we must look to Founding-era laws for analogies to modern-day regulations. Id. at 441–42. We reached that conclusion based on the Supreme Court’s guidance that the Second Amendment’s “meaning is fixed according to the understandings of those who ratified it.” Id. at 441 (quoting Bruen, 597 U.S. at 28). 18 Under Lara, we consider historical examples from “before, during, and even after the founding,” while “guard[ing] against giving postenactment history more weight than it can rightly bear.” Id. at 434 (quoting Bruen, 597 U.S. at 27, 34–35). 18 We also noted the Supreme Court’s statement that it has “generally assumed that the scope of the protection[s] applicable to the Federal Government and States is pegged to the public understanding of the right when the Bill of Rights was adopted in 1791.” Lara, 125 F.4th at 441 (alteration in original) (quoting Bruen, 597 U.S. at 37). 23 As the Supreme Court explained in Bruen, the historical inquiry is “fairly straightforward” in some cases. 597 U.S. at 26. For instance, if “a challenged regulation addresses a general societal problem that has persisted since the 18th century, the lack of a distinctly similar historical regulation addressing that problem” is evidence that the challenged regulation violates the Second Amendment. Id. Heller is an example of such a straightforward case. Id. at 27. Heller involved a “flat ban on the possession of handguns in the home” that the District of Columbia enacted to address the “perceived societal problem [of] firearm violence in densely populated communities.” Id. As the Bruen Court explained, the ban at issue in Heller was a regulation “that the Founders themselves could have adopted to confront that problem.” Id. Yet the Court found no analogous laws in “founding-era historical precedent,” so it concluded that the District of Columbia’s ban was unconstitutional. Id. (quoting Heller, 554 U.S. at 631). Bruen, too, required only a straightforward historical inquiry. Id. (“[T]he historical analogies here and in Heller are relatively simple to draw”). The Court assessed a restriction on the public carry of firearms that New York enacted to address “the same alleged societal problem addressed in Heller: ‘handgun violence,’ primarily in ‘urban area[s].’” Id. (quoting Heller, 554 U.S. at 634). The Court determined that New York’s regulation violated the Second Amendment for the same reason as the regulation in Heller: there was no Founding-era precedent comparable to the modern regulation. Id. The Supreme Court acknowledged that not all historical analogies are as straightforward as those in Bruen and Heller.