New York State Rifle & Pistol Assn., INC. v. BRUEN

NOTICE: This opinion is subject to formal revision before publication in the preliminary print of the United States Reports. Readers are requested to notify the Reporter of Decisions, Supreme Court of the United States, Washington, D. C. 20543, of any typographical or other formal errors, in order that corrections may be made before the preliminary print goes to press.

SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES

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No. 20–843

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New York State Rifle & Pistol Association, Inc., et al., PETITIONERS v. Kevin P. Bruen, inhis official capacity as Superintendent of New York State Police, et al.

on writ of certiorari to the united states court of appeals for the second circuit

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 Justice Thomas delivered the opinion of the Court.

 In District of Columbia v. Heller, 554 U. S. 570 (2008), and McDonald v. Chicago, 561 U. S. 742 (2010), we recognized that the Second and Fourteenth Amendments protect the right of an ordinary, law-abiding citizen to possess a handgun in the home for self-defense. In this case, petitioners and respondents agree that ordinary, law-abiding citizens have a similar right to carry handguns publicly for their self-defense. We too agree, and now hold, consistent with Heller and McDonald, that the Second and Fourteenth Amendments protect an individual’s right to carry a handgun for self-defense outside the home.

 The parties nevertheless dispute whether New York’s licensing regime respects the constitutional right to carry handguns publicly for self-defense. In 43 States, the government issues licenses to carry based on objective criteria. But in six States, including New York, the government further conditions issuance of a license to carry on a citizen’s showing of some additional special need. Because the State  of New York issues public-carry licenses only when an applicant demonstrates a special need for self-defense, we conclude that the State’s licensing regime violates the Constitution.

I

A

 New York State has regulated the public carry of handguns at least since the early 20th century. In 1905, New York made it a misdemeanor for anyone over the age of 16 to “have or carry concealed upon his person in any city or village of [New York], any pistol, revolver or other firearm without a written license . . . issued to him by a police magistrate.” 1905 N. Y. Laws ch. 92, §2, pp. 129–130; see also 1908 N. Y. Laws ch. 93, §1, pp. 242–243 (allowing justices of the peace to issue licenses). In 1911, New York’s “Sullivan Law” expanded the State’s criminal prohibition to the possession of all handguns—concealed or otherwise—without a government-issued license. See 1911 N. Y. Laws ch. 195, §1, p. 443. New York later amended the Sullivan Law to clarify the licensing standard: Magistrates could “issue to [a] person a license to have and carry concealed a pistol or revolver without regard to employment or place of possessing such weapon” only if that person proved “good moral character” and “proper cause.” 1913 N. Y. Laws ch. 608, §1, p. 1629.

 Today’s licensing scheme largely tracks that of the early 1900s. It is a crime in New York to possess “any firearm” without a license, whether inside or outside the home, punishable by up to four years in prison or a $5,000 fine for a felony offense, and one year in prison or a $1,000 fine for a misdemeanor. See N. Y. Penal Law Ann. §§265.01–b (West 2017), 261.01(1) (West Cum. Supp. 2022), 70.00(2)(e) and (3)(b), 80.00(1)(a) (West 2021), 70.15(1), 80.05(1). Meanwhile, possessing a loaded firearm outside one’s home or place of business without a license is a felony punishable by  up to 15 years in prison. §§265.03(3) (West 2017), 70.00(2)(c) and (3)(b), 80.00(1)(a).

 A license applicant who wants to possess a firearm at home (or in his place of business) must convince a “licensing officer”—usually a judge or law enforcement officer—that, among other things, he is of good moral character, has no history of crime or mental illness, and that “no good cause exists for the denial of the license.” §§400.00(1)(a)–(n) (West Cum. Supp. 2022). If he wants to carry a firearm outside his home or place of business for self-defense, the applicant must obtain an unrestricted license to “have and carry” a concealed “pistol or revolver.” §400.00(2)(f ). To secure that license, the applicant must prove that “proper cause exists” to issue it. Ibid. If an applicant cannot make that showing, he can receive only a “restricted” license for public carry, which allows him to carry a firearm for a limited purpose, such as hunting, target shooting, or employment. See, e.g., In re O’Brien, 87 N. Y. 2d 436, 438–439, 663 N. E. 2d 316, 316–317 (1996); Babernitz v. Police Dept. of City of New York, 65 App. Div. 2d 320, 324, 411 N. Y. S. 2d 309, 311 (1978); In re O’Connor, 154 Misc. 2d 694, 696–698, 585 N. Y. S. 2d 1000, 1003 (Westchester Cty. 1992).

 No New York statute defines “proper cause.” But New York courts have held that an applicant shows proper cause only if he can “demonstrate a special need for self-protection distinguishable from that of the general community.” E.g., In re Klenosky, 75 App. Div. 2d 793, 428 N. Y. S. 2d 256, 257 (1980). This “special need” standard is demanding. For example, living or working in an area “ ‘noted for criminal activity’ ” does not suffice. In re Bernstein, 85 App. Div. 2d 574, 445 N. Y. S. 2d 716, 717 (1981). Rather, New York courts generally require evidence “of particular threats, attacks or other extraordinary danger to personal safety.” In re Martinek, 294 App. Div. 2d 221, 222, 743 N. Y. S. 2d 80, 81 (2002); see also In re Kaplan, 249 App. Div. 2d 199, 201, 673 N. Y. S. 2d 66, 68 (1998) (approving the New York  City Police Department’s requirement of “ ‘extraordinary personal danger, documented by proof of recurrent threats to life or safety’ ” (quoting 38 N. Y. C. R. R. §5–03(b))).

 When a licensing officer denies an application, judicial review is limited. New York courts defer to an officer’s application of the proper-cause standard unless it is “arbitrary and capricious.” In re Bando, 290 App. Div. 2d 691, 692, 735 N. Y. S. 2d 660, 661 (2002). In other words, the decision “must be upheld if the record shows a rational basis for it.” Kaplan, 249 App. Div. 2d, at 201, 673 N. Y. S. 2d, at 68. The rule leaves applicants little recourse if their local licensing officer denies a permit.

 New York is not alone in requiring a permit to carry a handgun in public. But the vast majority of States—43 by our count—are “shall issue” jurisdictions, where authorities must issue concealed-carry licenses whenever applicants satisfy certain threshold requirements, without granting licensing officials discretion to deny licenses based on a perceived lack of need or suitability.¹ Meanwhile, only six  States and the District of Columbia have “may issue” licensing laws, under which authorities have discretion to deny concealed-carry licenses even when the applicant satisfies the statutory criteria, usually because the applicant has not demonstrated cause or suitability for the relevant license. Aside from New York, then, only California, the District of Columbia, Hawaii, Maryland, Massachusetts, and New  Jersey have analogues to the “proper cause” standard.² All of these “proper cause” analogues have been upheld by the Courts of Appeals, save for the District of Columbia’s, which has been permanently enjoined since 2017. Compare Gould v. Morgan, 907 F. 3d 659, 677 (CA1 2018); Kachalsky v. County of Westchester, 701 F. 3d 81, 101 (CA2 2012); Drake v. Filko, 724 F. 3d 426, 440 (CA3 2013); United States v. Masciandaro, 638 F. 3d 458, 460 (CA4 2011); Young v. Hawaii, 992 F. 3d 765, 773 (CA9 2021) (en banc), with Wrenn v. District of Columbia, 864 F. 3d 650, 668 (CADC 2017).

B

 As set forth in the pleadings below, petitioners Brandon Koch and Robert Nash are law-abiding, adult citizens of Rensselaer County, New York. Koch lives in Troy, while Nash lives in Averill Park. Petitioner New York State Rifle & Pistol Association, Inc., is a public-interest group organized to defend the Second Amendment rights of New Yorkers. Both Koch and Nash are members.

 In 2014, Nash applied for an unrestricted license to carry a handgun in public. Nash did not claim any unique danger to his personal safety; he simply wanted to carry a handgun for self-defense. In early 2015, the State denied Nash’s application for an unrestricted license but granted him a restricted license for hunting and target shooting only. In late 2016, Nash asked a licensing officer to remove the restrictions, citing a string of recent robberies in his neighborhood. After an informal hearing, the licensing officer denied the request. The officer reiterated that Nash’s existing license permitted him “to carry concealed for purposes of off  road back country, outdoor activities similar to hunting,” such as “fishing, hiking & camping etc.” App. 41. But, at the same time, the officer emphasized that the restrictions were “intended to prohibit [Nash] from carrying concealed in ANY LOCATION typically open to and frequented by the general public.” Ibid.

 Between 2008 and 2017, Koch was in the same position as Nash: He faced no special dangers, wanted a handgun for general self-defense, and had only a restricted license permitting him to carry a handgun outside the home for hunting and target shooting. In late 2017, Koch applied to a licensing officer to remove the restrictions on his license, citing his extensive experience in safely handling firearms. Like Nash’s application, Koch’s was denied, except that the officer permitted Koch to “carry to and from work.” Id., at 114.

C

 Respondents are the superintendent of the New York State Police, who oversees the enforcement of the State’s licensing laws, and a New York Supreme Court justice, who oversees the processing of licensing applications in Rensselaer County. Petitioners sued respondents for declaratory and injunctive relief under Rev. Stat. 1979, 42 U. S. C. §1983, alleging that respondents violated their Second and Fourteenth Amendment rights by denying their unrestricted-license applications on the basis that they had failed to show “proper cause,” i.e., had failed to demonstrate a unique need for self-defense.

 The District Court dismissed petitioners’ complaint and the Court of Appeals affirmed. See 818 Fed. Appx. 99, 100 (CA2 2020). Both courts relied on the Court of Appeals’ prior decision in Kachalsky, 701 F. 3d 81, which had sustained New York’s proper-cause standard, holding that the requirement was “substantially related to the achievement of an important governmental interest.” Id., at 96.

  We granted certiorari to decide whether New York’s denial of petitioners’ license applications violated the Constitution. 593 U. S. ___ (2021).

II

 In Heller and McDonald, we held that the Second and Fourteenth Amendments protect an individual right to keep and bear arms for self-defense. In doing so, we held unconstitutional two laws that prohibited the possession and use of handguns in the home. In the years since, the Courts of Appeals have coalesced around a “two-step” framework for analyzing Second Amendment challenges that combines history with means-end scrutiny.

 Today, we decline to adopt that two-part approach. In keeping with Heller, we hold that when the Second Amendment’s plain text covers an individual’s conduct, the Constitution presumptively protects that conduct. To justify its regulation, the government may not simply posit that the regulation promotes an important interest. Rather, the government must demonstrate that the regulation is consistent with this Nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation. Only if a firearm regulation is consistent with this Nation’s historical tradition may a court conclude that the individual’s conduct falls outside the Second Amendment’s “unqualified command.” Konigsberg v. State Bar of Cal., 366 U. S. 36, 50, n. 10 (1961).³

 A

 Since Heller and McDonald, the two-step test that Courts of Appeals have developed to assess Second Amendment claims proceeds as follows. At the first step, the government may justify its regulation by “establish[ing] that the challenged law regulates activity falling outside the scope of the right as originally understood.” E.g., Kanter v. Barr, 919 F. 3d 437, 441 (CA7 2019) (internal quotation marks omitted). But see United States v. Boyd, 999 F. 3d 171, 185 (CA3 2021) (requiring claimant to show “ ‘a burden on conduct falling within the scope of the Second Amendment’s guarantee’ ”). The Courts of Appeals then ascertain the original scope of the right based on its historical meaning. E.g., United States v. Focia, 869 F. 3d 1269, 1285 (CA11 2017). If the government can prove that the regulated conduct falls beyond the Amendment’s original scope, “then the analysis can stop there; the regulated activity is categorically unprotected.” United States v. Greeno, 679 F. 3d 510, 518 (CA6 2012) (internal quotation marks omitted). But if the historical evidence at this step is “inconclusive or suggests that the regulated activity is not categorically unprotected,” the courts generally proceed to step two. Kanter, 919 F. 3d, at 441 (internal quotation marks omitted).

 At the second step, courts often analyze “how close the law comes to the core of the Second Amendment right and the severity of the law’s burden on that right.” Ibid. (internal quotation marks omitted). The Courts of Appeals generally maintain “that the core Second Amendment right is limited to self-defense in the home.” Gould, 907 F. 3d, at 671 (emphasis added). But see Wrenn, 864 F. 3d, at 659 (“[T]he Amendment’s core generally covers carrying in public for self defense”). If a “core” Second Amendment right is burdened, courts apply “strict scrutiny” and ask whether the Government can prove that the law is “narrowly tailored to achieve a compelling governmental interest.” Kolbe v. Hogan, 849 F. 3d 114, 133 (CA4 2017) (internal quotation  marks omitted). Otherwise, they apply intermediate scrutiny and consider whether the Government can show that the regulation is “substantially related to the achievement of an important governmental interest.” Kachalsky, 701 F. 3d, at 96.⁴ Both respondents and the United States largely agree with this consensus, arguing that intermediate scrutiny is appropriate when text and history are unclear in attempting to delineate the scope of the right. See Brief for Respondents 37; Brief for United States as Amicus Curiae 4.

B

 Despite the popularity of this two-step approach, it is one step too many. Step one of the predominant framework is broadly consistent with Heller, which demands a test rooted in the Second Amendment’s text, as informed by history. But Heller and McDonald do not support applying means-end scrutiny in the Second Amendment context. Instead, the government must affirmatively prove that its firearms regulation is part of the historical tradition that delimits the outer bounds of the right to keep and bear arms.

1

 To show why Heller does not support applying means-end scrutiny, we first summarize Heller’s methodological approach to the Second Amendment.

 In Heller, we began with a “textual analysis” focused on  the “ ‘normal and ordinary’ ” meaning of the Second Amendment’s language. 554 U. S., at 576–577, 578. That analysis suggested that the Amendment’s operative clause—“the right of the people to keep and bear Arms shall not be infringed”—“guarantee[s] the individual right to possess and carry weapons in case of confrontation” that does not depend on service in the militia. Id., at 592.

 From there, we assessed whether our initial conclusion was “confirmed by the historical background of the Second Amendment.” Ibid. We looked to history because “it has always been widely understood that the Second Amendment . . . codified a pre-existing right.” Ibid. The Amendment “was not intended to lay down a novel principle but rather codified a right inherited from our English ancestors.” Id., at 599 (alterations and internal quotation marks omitted). After surveying English history dating from the late 1600s, along with American colonial views leading up to the founding, we found “no doubt, on the basis of both text and history, that the Second Amendment conferred an individual right to keep and bear arms.” Id., at 595.

 We then canvassed the historical record and found yet further confirmation. That history included the “analogous arms-bearing rights in state constitutions that preceded and immediately followed adoption of the Second Amendment,” id., at 600–601, and “how the Second Amendment was interpreted from immediately after its ratification through the end of the 19th century,” id., at 605. When the principal dissent charged that the latter category of sources was illegitimate “postenactment legislative history,” id., at 662, n. 28 (opinion of Stevens, J.), we clarified that “examination of a variety of legal and other sources to determine the public understanding of a legal text in the period after its enactment or ratification” was “a critical tool of constitutional interpretation,” id., at 605 (majority opinion).

 In assessing the postratification history, we looked to four  different types of sources. First, we reviewed “[t]hree important founding-era legal scholars [who] interpreted the Second Amendment in published writings.” Ibid. Second, we looked to “19th-century cases that interpreted the Second Amendment” and found that they “universally support an individual right” to keep and bear arms. Id., at 610. Third, we examined the “discussion of the Second Amendment in Congress and in public discourse” after the Civil War, “as people debated whether and how to secure constitutional rights for newly freed slaves.” Id., at 614. Fourth, we considered how post-Civil War commentators understood the right. See id., at 616–619.

 After holding that the Second Amendment protected an individual right to armed self-defense, we also relied on the historical understanding of the Amendment to demark the limits on the exercise of that right. We noted that, “[l]ike most rights, the right secured by the Second Amendment is not unlimited.” Id., at 626. “From Blackstone through the 19th-century cases, commentators and courts routinely explained that the right was not a right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever in any manner whatsoever and for whatever purpose.” Ibid. For example, we found it “fairly supported by the historical tradition of prohibiting the carrying of ‘dangerous and unusual weapons’ ” that the Second Amendment protects the possession and use of weapons that are “ ‘in common use at the time.’ ” Id., at 627 (first citing 4 W. Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England 148–149 (1769); then quoting United States v. Miller, 307 U. S. 174, 179 (1939)). That said, we cautioned that we were not “undertak[ing] an exhaustive historical analysis today of the full scope of the Second Amendment” and moved on to considering the constitutionality of the District of Columbia’s handgun ban. 554 U. S., at 627.

  We assessed the lawfulness of that handgun ban by scrutinizing whether it comported with history and tradition. Although we noted that the ban “would fail constitutional  muster” “[u]nder any of the standards of scrutiny that we have applied to enumerated constitutional rights,” id., at 628–629, we did not engage in means-end scrutiny when resolving the constitutional question. Instead, we focused on the historically unprecedented nature of the District’s ban, observing that “[f]ew laws in the history of our Nation have come close to [that] severe restriction.” Id., at 629. Likewise, when one of the dissents attempted to justify the District’s prohibition with “founding-era historical precedent,” including “various restrictive laws in the colonial period,” we addressed each purported analogue and concluded that they were either irrelevant or “d[id] not remotely burden the right of self-defense as much as an absolute ban on handguns.” Id., at 631–632; see id., at 631–634. Thus, our earlier historical analysis sufficed to show that the Second Amendment did not countenance a “complete prohibition” on the use of “the most popular weapon chosen by Americans for self-defense in the home.” Id., at 629.

2

 As the foregoing shows, Heller’s methodology centered on constitutional text and history. Whether it came to defining the character of the right (individual or militia dependent), suggesting the outer limits of the right, or assessing the constitutionality of a particular regulation, Heller relied on text and history. It did not invoke any means-end test such as strict or intermediate scrutiny.

 Moreover, Heller and McDonald expressly rejected the application of any “judge-empowering ‘interest-balancing inquiry’ that ‘asks whether the statute burdens a protected interest in a way or to an extent that is out of proportion to the statute’s salutary effects upon other important governmental interests.’ ” Heller, 554 U. S., at 634 (quoting id., at 689–690 (Breyer, J., dissenting)); see also McDonald, 561 U. S., at 790–791 (plurality opinion) (the Second Amendment does not permit—let alone require—“judges to assess  the costs and benefits of firearms restrictions” under means-end scrutiny). We declined to engage in means-end scrutiny because “[t]he very enumeration of the right takes out of the hands of government—even the Third Branch of Government—the power to decide on a case-by-case basis whether the right is really worth insisting upon.” Heller, 554 U. S., at 634. We then concluded: “A constitutional guarantee subject to future judges’ assessments of its usefulness is no constitutional guarantee at all.” Ibid.

 Not only did Heller decline to engage in means-end scrutiny generally, but it also specifically ruled out the intermediate-scrutiny test that respondents and the United States now urge us to adopt. Dissenting in Heller, Justice Breyer’s proposed standard—“ask[ing] whether [a] statute burdens a protected interest in a way or to an extent that is out of proportion to the statute’s salutary effects upon other important governmental interests,” id., at 689–690 (dissenting opinion)—simply expressed a classic formulation of intermediate scrutiny in a slightly different way, see Clark v. Jeter, 486 U. S. 456, 461 (1988) (asking whether the challenged law is “substantially related to an important government objective”). In fact, Justice Breyer all but admitted that his Heller dissent advocated for intermediate scrutiny by repeatedly invoking a quintessential intermediate- scrutiny precedent. See Heller, 554 U. S., at 690, 696, 704–705 (citing Turner Broadcasting System, Inc. v. FCC, 520 U. S. 180 (1997)). Thus, when Heller expressly rejected that dissent’s “interest-balancing inquiry,” 554 U. S., at 634 (internal quotation marks omitted), it necessarily rejected intermediate scrutiny.⁵

  In sum, the Courts of Appeals’ second step is inconsistent with Heller’s historical approach and its rejection of means-end scrutiny. We reiterate that the standard for applying the Second Amendment is as follows: When the Second Amendment’s plain text covers an individual’s conduct, the Constitution presumptively protects that conduct. 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.” Konigsberg, 366 U. S., at 50, n. 10.

C

 This Second Amendment standard accords with how we protect other constitutional rights. Take, for instance, the freedom of speech in the First Amendment, to which Heller repeatedly compared the right to keep and bear arms. 554 U. S., at 582, 595, 606, 618, 634–635. In that context, “[w]hen the Government restricts speech, the Government bears the burden of proving the constitutionality of its actions.” United States v. Playboy Entertainment Group, Inc., 529 U. S. 803, 816 (2000); see also Philadelphia Newspapers, Inc. v. Hepps, 475 U. S. 767, 777 (1986). In some cases, that burden includes showing whether the expressive conduct falls outside of the category of protected speech. See Illinois ex rel. Madigan v. Telemarketing Associates, Inc., 538 U. S. 600, 620, n. 9 (2003). And to carry that burden, the government must generally point to historical evidence about the reach of the First Amendment’s protections. See, e.g., United States v. Stevens, 559 U. S. 460, 468–471 (2010) (placing the burden on the government to show that a type of speech belongs to a “historic and traditional categor[y]” of constitutionally unprotected speech “long familiar to the bar” (internal quotation marks omitted)).

 And beyond the freedom of speech, our focus on history also comports with how we assess many other constitutional claims. If a litigant asserts the right in court to “be confronted with the witnesses against him,” U. S. Const., Amdt. 6, we require courts to consult history to determine the scope of that right. See, e.g., Giles v. California, 554 U. S. 353, 358 (2008) (“admitting only those exceptions [to the Confrontation Clause] established at the time of the founding” (internal quotation marks omitted)). Similarly, when a litigant claims a violation of his rights under the Establishment Clause, Members of this Court “loo[k] to history for guidance.” American Legion v. American Humanist Assn., 588 U. S. ___, ___ (2019) (plurality opinion) (slip op., at 25). We adopt a similar approach here.

 To be sure, “[h]istorical analysis can be difficult; it sometimes requires resolving threshold questions, and making nuanced judgments about which evidence to consult and how to interpret it.” McDonald, 561 U. S., at 803–804 (Scalia, J., concurring). But reliance on history to inform the meaning of constitutional text—especially text meant to codify a pre-existing right—is, in our view, more legitimate, and more administrable, than asking judges to “make difficult empirical judgments” about “the costs and benefits of firearms restrictions,” especially given their “lack [of] expertise” in the field. Id., at 790–791 (plurality opinion).⁶

  If the last decade of Second Amendment litigation has taught this Court anything, it is that federal courts tasked with making such difficult empirical judgments regarding firearm regulations under the banner of “intermediate scrutiny” often defer to the determinations of legislatures. But while that judicial deference to legislative interest balancing is understandable—and, elsewhere, appropriate—it is not deference that the Constitution demands here. The Second Amendment “is the very product of an interest balancing by the people” and it “surely elevates above all other interests the right of law-abiding, responsible citizens to use arms” for self-defense. Heller, 554 U. S., at 635. It is this balance—struck by the traditions of the American people—that demands our unqualified deference.

D

 The test that we set forth in Heller and apply today requires courts to assess whether modern firearms regulations are consistent with the Second Amendment’s text and historical understanding. In some cases, that inquiry will be fairly straightforward. For instance, when 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 relevant evidence that the challenged regulation is inconsistent with the Second Amendment. Likewise, if earlier generations addressed the societal problem, but did so through materially different means, that also could be evidence that  a modern regulation is unconstitutional. And if some jurisdictions actually attempted to enact analogous regulations during this timeframe, but those proposals were rejected on constitutional grounds, that rejection surely would provide some probative evidence of unconstitutionality.

 Heller itself exemplifies this kind of straightforward historical inquiry. One of the District’s regulations challenged in Heller “totally ban[ned] handgun possession in the home.” Id., at 628. The District in Heller addressed a perceived societal problem—firearm violence in densely populated communities—and it employed a regulation—a flat ban on the possession of handguns in the home—that the Founders themselves could have adopted to confront that problem. Accordingly, after considering “founding-era historical precedent,” including “various restrictive laws in the colonial period,” and finding that none was analogous to the District’s ban, Heller concluded that the handgun ban was unconstitutional. Id., at 631; see also id., at 634 (describing the claim that “there were somewhat similar restrictions in the founding period” a “false proposition”).

 New York’s proper-cause requirement concerns the same alleged societal problem addressed in Heller: “handgun violence,” primarily in “urban area[s].” Ibid. Following the course charted by Heller, we will consider whether “historical precedent” from before, during, and even after the founding evinces a comparable tradition of regulation. Id., at 631. And, as we explain below, we find no such tradition in the historical materials that respondents and their amici have brought to bear on that question. See Part III–B, infra.

 While the historical analogies here and in Heller are relatively simple to draw, other cases implicating unprecedented societal concerns or dramatic technological changes may require a more nuanced approach. The regulatory challenges posed by firearms today are not always the same  as those that preoccupied the Founders in 1791 or the Reconstruction generation in 1868. Fortunately, the Founders created a Constitution—and a Second Amendment—“intended to endure for ages to come, and consequently, to be adapted to the various crises of human affairs.” McCulloch v. Maryland, 4 Wheat. 316, 415 (1819) (emphasis deleted). Although its meaning is fixed according to the understandings of those who ratified it, the Constitution can, and must, apply to circumstances beyond those the Founders specifically anticipated. See, e.g., United States v. Jones, 565 U. S. 400, 404–405 (2012) (holding that installation of a tracking device was “a physical intrusion [that] would have been considered a ‘search’ within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment when it was adopted”).

 We have already recognized in Heller at least one way in which the Second Amendment’s historically fixed meaning applies to new circumstances: Its reference to “arms” does not apply “only [to] those arms in existence in the 18th century.” 554 U. S., at 582. “Just as the First Amendment protects modern forms of communications, and the Fourth Amendment applies to modern forms of search, the Second Amendment extends, prima facie, to all instruments that constitute bearable arms, even those that were not in existence at the time of the founding.” Ibid. (citations omitted). Thus, even though the Second Amendment’s definition of “arms” is fixed according to its historical understanding, that general definition covers modern instruments that facilitate armed self-defense. Cf. Caetano v. Massachusetts, 577 U. S. 411, 411–412 (2016) (per curiam) (stun guns).

 Much like we use history to determine which modern “arms” are protected by the Second Amendment, so too does history guide our consideration of modern regulations that were unimaginable at the founding. When confronting such present-day firearm regulations, this historical inquiry that courts must conduct will often involve reasoning by analogy—a commonplace task for any lawyer or judge. Like all  analogical reasoning, determining whether a historical regulation is a proper analogue for a distinctly modern firearm regulation requires a determination of whether the two regulations are “relevantly similar.” C. Sunstein, On Analogical Reasoning, 106 Harv. L. Rev. 741, 773 (1993). And because “[e]verything is similar in infinite ways to everything else,” id., at 774, one needs “some metric enabling the analogizer to assess which similarities are important and which are not,” F. Schauer & B. Spellman, Analogy, Expertise, and Experience, 84 U. Chi. L. Rev. 249, 254 (2017). For instance, a green truck and a green hat are relevantly similar if one’s metric is “things that are green.” See ibid. They are not relevantly similar if the applicable metric is “things you can wear.”

 While we do not now provide an exhaustive survey of the features that render regulations relevantly similar under the Second Amendment, we do think that Heller and McDonald point toward at least two metrics: how and why the regulations burden a law-abiding citizen’s right to armed self-defense. As we stated in Heller and repeated in McDonald, “individual self-defense is ‘the central component’ of the Second Amendment right.” McDonald, 561 U. S., at 767 (quoting Heller, 554 U. S., at 599); see also id., at 628 (“the inherent right of self-defense has been central to the Second Amendment right”). Therefore, whether modern and historical regulations impose a comparable burden on the right of armed self-defense and whether that burden is comparably justified are “ ‘central’ ” considerations when engaging in an analogical inquiry. McDonald, 561 U. S., at 767 (quoting Heller, 554 U. S., at 599).⁷

  To be clear, analogical reasoning under the Second Amendment is neither a regulatory straightjacket nor a regulatory blank check. On the one hand, courts should not “uphold every modern law that remotely resembles a historical analogue,” because doing so “risk[s] endorsing outliers that our ancestors would never have accepted.” Drummond v. Robinson, 9 F. 4th 217, 226 (CA3 2021). On the other hand, analogical reasoning requires only that the government identify a well-established and representative historical analogue, not a historical twin. So even if a modern-day regulation is not a dead ringer for historical precursors, it still may be analogous enough to pass constitutional muster.

 Consider, for example, Heller’s discussion of “longstanding” “laws forbidding the carrying of firearms in sensitive places such as schools and government buildings.” 554 U. S., at 626. Although the historical record yields relatively few 18th- and 19th-century “sensitive places” where weapons were altogether prohibited—e.g., legislative assemblies, polling places, and courthouses—we are also aware of no disputes regarding the lawfulness of such prohibitions. See D. Kopel & J. Greenlee, The “Sensitive Places” Doctrine, 13 Charleston L. Rev. 205, 229–236, 244–247 (2018); see also Brief for Independent Institute as Amicus Curiae 11–17. We therefore can assume it settled that these locations were “sensitive places” where arms carrying could be prohibited consistent with the Second Amendment. And courts can use analogies to those historical regulations of “sensitive places” to determine that modern regulations prohibiting the carry of firearms in new and analogous sensitive places are constitutionally permissible.

 Although we have no occasion to comprehensively define  “sensitive places” in this case, we do think respondents err in their attempt to characterize New York’s proper-cause requirement as a “sensitive-place” law. In their view, “sensitive places” where the government may lawfully disarm law-abiding citizens include all “places where people typically congregate and where law-enforcement and other  public-safety professionals are presumptively available.” Brief for Respondents 34. It is true that people sometimes congregate in “sensitive places,” and it is likewise true that law enforcement professionals are usually presumptively available in those locations. But expanding the category of “sensitive places” simply to all places of public congregation that are not isolated from law enforcement defines the category of “sensitive places” far too broadly. Respondents’ argument would in effect exempt cities from the Second Amendment and would eviscerate the general right to publicly carry arms for self-defense that we discuss in detail below. See Part III–B, infra. Put simply, there is no historical basis for New York to effectively declare the island of Manhattan a “sensitive place” simply because it is crowded and protected generally by the New York City Police Department.

 Like Heller, we “do not undertake an exhaustive historical analysis . . . of the full scope of the Second Amendment.” 554 U. S., at 626. And we acknowledge that “applying constitutional principles to novel modern conditions can be difficult and leave close questions at the margins.” Heller v. District of Columbia, 670 F. 3d 1244, 1275 (CADC 2011) (Kavanaugh, J., dissenting). “But that is hardly unique to the Second Amendment. It is an essential component of judicial decisionmaking under our enduring Constitution.” Ibid. We see no reason why judges frequently tasked with answering these kinds of historical, analogical questions cannot do the same for Second Amendment claims.

 III

 Having made the constitutional standard endorsed in Heller more explicit, we now apply that standard to New York’s proper-cause requirement.

A

 It is undisputed that petitioners Koch and Nash—two ordinary, law-abiding, adult citizens—are part of “the people” whom the Second Amendment protects. See Heller, 554 U. S., at 580. Nor does any party dispute that handguns are weapons “in common use” today for self-defense. See id., at 627; see also Caetano, 577 U. S., at 411–412. We therefore turn to whether the plain text of the Second Amendment protects Koch’s and Nash’s proposed course of conduct—carrying handguns publicly for self-defense.

 We have little difficulty concluding that it does. Respondents do not dispute this. See Brief for Respondents 19. Nor could they. Nothing in the Second Amendment’s text draws a home/public distinction with respect to the right to keep and bear arms. As we explained in Heller, the “textual elements” of the Second Amendment’s operative clause— “the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed”—“guarantee the individual right to possess and carry weapons in case of confrontation.” 554 U. S., at 592. Heller further confirmed that the right to “bear arms” refers to the right to “wear, bear, or carry . . . upon the person or in the clothing or in a pocket, for the purpose . . . of being armed and ready for offensive or defensive action in a case of conflict with another person.” Id., at 584 (quoting Muscarello v. United States, 524 U. S. 125, 143 (1998) (Ginsburg, J., dissenting); internal quotation marks omitted).

 This definition of “bear” naturally encompasses public carry. Most gun owners do not wear a holstered pistol at their hip in their bedroom or while sitting at the dinner table. Although individuals often “keep” firearms in their home, at the ready for self-defense, most do not “bear” (i.e.,  carry) them in the home beyond moments of actual confrontation. To confine the right to “bear” arms to the home would nullify half of the Second Amendment’s operative protections.

 Moreover, confining the right to “bear” arms to the home would make little sense given that self-defense is “the central component of the [Second Amendment] right itself.” Heller, 554 U. S., at 599; see also McDonald, 561 U. S., at 767. After all, the Second Amendment guarantees an “individual right to possess and carry weapons in case of confrontation,” Heller, 554 U. S., at 592, and confrontation can surely take place outside the home.

 Although we remarked in Heller that the need for armed self-defense is perhaps “most acute” in the home, id., at 628, we did not suggest that the need was insignificant elsewhere. Many Americans hazard greater danger outside the home than in it. See Moore v. Madigan, 702 F. 3d 933, 937 (CA7 2012) (“[A] Chicagoan is a good deal more likely to be attacked on a sidewalk in a rough neighborhood than in his apartment on the 35th floor of the Park Tower”). The text of the Second Amendment reflects that reality.

 The Second Amendment’s plain text thus presumptively guarantees petitioners Koch and Nash a right to “bear” arms in public for self-defense.

B

 Conceding that the Second Amendment guarantees a general right to public carry, contra, Young, 992 F. 3d, at 813, respondents instead claim that the Amendment “permits a State to condition handgun carrying in areas ‘frequented by the general public’ on a showing of a non- speculative need for armed self-defense in those areas,” Brief for Respondents 19 (citation omitted).⁸ To support  that claim, the burden falls on respondents to show that New York’s proper-cause requirement is consistent with this Nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation. Only if respondents carry that burden can they show that the pre-existing right codified in the Second Amendment, and made applicable to the States through the Fourteenth, does not protect petitioners’ proposed course of conduct.

 Respondents appeal to a variety of historical sources from the late 1200s to the early 1900s. We categorize these periods as follows: (1) medieval to early modern England; (2) the American Colonies and the early Republic; (3) antebellum America; (4) Reconstruction; and (5) the late-19th and early-20th centuries.

 We categorize these historical sources because, when it comes to interpreting the Constitution, not all history is created equal. “Constitutional rights are enshrined with the scope they were understood to have when the people adopted them.” Heller, 554 U. S., at 634–635 (emphasis added). The Second Amendment was adopted in 1791; the  Fourteenth in 1868. Historical evidence that long predates either date may not illuminate the scope of the right if linguistic or legal conventions changed in the intervening years. It is one thing for courts to “reac[h] back to the 14th century” for English practices that “prevailed up to the ‘period immediately before and after the framing of the Constitution.’ ” Sprint Communications Co. v. APCC Services, Inc., 554 U. S. 269, 311 (2008) (Roberts, C. J., dissenting). It is quite another to rely on an “ancient” practice that had become “obsolete in England at the time of the adoption of the Constitution” and never “was acted upon or accepted in the colonies.” Dimick v. Schiedt, 293 U. S. 474, 477 (1935).

 As with historical evidence generally, courts must be careful when assessing evidence concerning English  common-law rights. The common law, of course, developed over time. Associated Gen. Contractors of Cal., Inc. v. Carpenters, 459 U. S. 519, 533, n. 28 (1983); see also Rogers v. Tennessee, 532 U. S. 451, 461 (2001). And English common-law practices and understandings at any given time in history cannot be indiscriminately attributed to the Framers of our own Constitution. Even “the words of Magna Charta”—foundational as they were to the rights of America’s forefathers—“stood for very different things at the time of the separation of the American Colonies from what they represented originally” in 1215. Hurtado v. California, 110 U. S. 516, 529 (1884). Sometimes, in interpreting our own Constitution, “it [is] better not to go too far back into antiquity for the best securities of our liberties,” Funk v. United States, 290 U. S. 371, 382 (1933), unless evidence shows that medieval law survived to become our Founders’ law. A long, unbroken line of common-law precedent stretching from Bracton to Blackstone is far more likely to be part of our law than a short-lived, 14th-century English practice.

 Similarly, we must also guard against giving postenactment history more weight than it can rightly bear. It is true  that in Heller we reiterated that evidence of “how the Second Amendment was interpreted from immediately after its ratification through the end of the 19th century” represented a “critical tool of constitutional interpretation.” 554 U. S., at 605. We therefore examined “a variety of legal and other sources to determine the public understanding of [the Second Amendment] after its . . . ratification.” Ibid. And, in other contexts, we have explained that “ ‘a regular course of practice’ can ‘liquidate & settle the meaning of ’ disputed or indeterminate ‘terms & phrases’ ” in the Constitution. Chiafalo v. Washington, 591 U. S. ___, ___ (2020) (slip op., at 13) (quoting Letter from J. Madison to S. Roane (Sept. 2, 1819), in 8 Writings of James Madison 450 (G. Hunt ed. 1908)); see also, e.g., Houston Community College System v. Wilson, 595 U. S. ___, ___ (2022) (slip op., at 5) (same); The Federalist No. 37, p. 229 (C. Rossiter ed. 1961) (J. Madison); see generally C. Nelson, Stare Decisis and Demonstrably Erroneous Precedents, 87 Va. L. Rev. 1, 10–21 (2001); W. Baude, Constitutional Liquidation, 71 Stan. L. Rev. 1 (2019). In other words, we recognize that “where a governmental practice has been open, widespread, and unchallenged since the early days of the Republic, the practice should guide our interpretation of an ambiguous constitutional provision.” NLRB v. Noel Canning, 573 U. S. 513, 572 (2014) (Scalia, J., concurring in judgment); see also Myers v. United States, 272 U. S. 52, 174 (1926); Printz v. United States, 521 U. S. 898, 905 (1997).

 But to the extent later history contradicts what the text says, the text controls. “ ‘[L]iquidating’ indeterminacies in written laws is far removed from expanding or altering them.” Gamble v. United States, 587 U. S. ___, ___ (2019) (Thomas, J., concurring) (slip op., at 13); see also Letter from J. Madison to N. Trist (Dec. 1831), in 9 Writings of James Madison 477 (G. Hunt ed. 1910). Thus, “post- ratification adoption or acceptance of laws that are inconsistent with the original meaning of the constitutional text  obviously cannot overcome or alter that text.” Heller, 670 F. 3d, at 1274, n. 6 (Kavanaugh, J., dissenting); see also Espinoza v. Montana Dept. of Revenue, 591 U. S. ___, ___ (2020) (slip op., at 15).

 As we recognized in Heller itself, because post-Civil War discussions of the right to keep and bear arms “took place 75 years after the ratification of the Second Amendment, they do not provide as much insight into its original meaning as earlier sources.” 554 U. S., at 614; cf. Sprint Communications Co., 554 U. S., at 312 (Roberts, C. J., dissenting) (“The belated innovations of the mid- to late-19th-century  courts come too late to provide insight into the meaning of [the Constitution in 1787]”). And we made clear in Gamble that Heller’s interest in mid- to late-19th-century commentary was secondary. Heller considered this evidence “only after surveying what it regarded as a wealth of authority for its reading—including the text of the Second Amendment and state constitutions.” Gamble, 587 U. S., at ___ (majority opinion) (slip op., at 23). In other words, this 19th-century evidence was “treated as mere confirmation of what the Court thought had already been established.” Ibid.

 A final word on historical method: Strictly speaking, New York is bound to respect the right to keep and bear arms because of the Fourteenth Amendment, not the Second. See, e.g., Barron ex rel. Tiernan v. Mayor of Baltimore, 7 Pet. 243, 250–251 (1833) (Bill of Rights applies only to the Federal Government). Nonetheless, we have made clear that individual rights enumerated in the Bill of Rights and made applicable against the States through the Fourteenth Amendment have the same scope as against the Federal Government. See, e.g., Ramos v. Louisiana, 590 U. S. ___, ___ (2020) (slip op., at 7); Timbs v. Indiana, 586 U. S. ___, ___–___ (2019) (slip op., at 2–3); Malloy v. Hogan, 378 U. S. 1, 10–11 (1964). And we have generally assumed that the  scope of the protection 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. See, e.g., Crawford v. Washington, 541 U. S. 36, 42–50 (2004) (Sixth Amendment); Virginia v. Moore, 553 U. S. 164, 168–169 (2008) (Fourth Amendment); Nevada Comm’n on Ethics v. Carrigan, 564 U. S. 117, 122–125 (2011) (First Amendment).

 We also acknowledge that there is an ongoing scholarly debate on whether courts should primarily rely on the prevailing understanding of an individual right when the Fourteenth Amendment was ratified in 1868 when defining its scope (as well as the scope of the right against the Federal Government). See, e.g., A. Amar, The Bill of Rights: Creation and Reconstruction xiv, 223, 243 (1998); K. Lash, Re-Speaking the Bill of Rights: A New Doctrine of Incorporation (Jan. 15, 2021) (manuscript, at 2), https://papers.ssrn .com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3766917 (“When the people adopted the Fourteenth Amendment into existence, they readopted the original Bill of Rights, and did so in a manner that invested those original 1791 texts with new 1868 meanings”). We need not address this issue today because, as we explain below, the public understanding of the right to keep and bear arms in both 1791 and 1868 was, for all relevant purposes, the same with respect to public carry.

*  *  *

 With these principles in mind, we turn to respondents’ historical evidence. Throughout modern Anglo-American history, the right to keep and bear arms in public has traditionally been subject to well-defined restrictions governing the intent for which one could carry arms, the manner of carry, or the exceptional circumstances under which one could not carry arms. But apart from a handful of late-19th-century jurisdictions, the historical record compiled by respondents does not demonstrate a tradition of broadly  prohibiting the public carry of commonly used firearms for self-defense. Nor is there any such historical tradition limiting public carry only to those law-abiding citizens who demonstrate a special need for self-defense.⁹ We conclude that respondents have failed to meet their burden to identify an American tradition justifying New York’s proper-cause requirement. Under Heller’s text-and-history standard, the proper-cause requirement is therefore unconstitutional.

1

 Respondents’ substantial reliance on English history and custom before the founding makes some sense given our statement in Heller that the Second Amendment “codified a right ‘inherited from our English ancestors.’ ” 554 U. S., at 599 (quoting Robertson v. Baldwin, 165 U. S. 275, 281 (1897)); see also Smith v. Alabama, 124 U. S. 465, 478  (1888). But this Court has long cautioned that the English common law “is not to be taken in all respects to be that of America.” Van Ness v. Pacard, 2 Pet. 137, 144 (1829) (Story, J., for the Court); see also Wheaton v. Peters, 8 Pet. 591, 659 (1834); Funk, 290 U. S., at 384. Thus, “[t]he language of the Constitution cannot be interpreted safely except by reference to the common law and to British institutions as they were when the instrument was framed and adopted,” not as they existed in the Middle Ages. Ex parte Grossman, 267 U. S. 87, 108–109 (1925) (emphasis added); see also United States v. Reid, 12 How. 361, 363 (1852).

 We interpret the English history that respondents and the United States muster in light of these interpretive principles. We find that history ambiguous at best and see little reason to think that the Framers would have thought it applicable in the New World. It is not sufficiently probative to defend New York’s proper-cause requirement.

 To begin, respondents and their amici point to several medieval English regulations from as early as 1285 that they say indicate a longstanding tradition of restricting the public carry of firearms. See 13 Edw. 1, 102. The most prominent is the 1328 Statute of Northampton (or Statute), passed shortly after Edward II was deposed by force of arms and his son, Edward III, took the throne of a kingdom where “tendency to turmoil and rebellion was everywhere apparent throughout the realm.” N. Trenholme, The Risings in the English Monastic Towns in 1327, 6 Am. Hist. Rev. 650, 651 (1901). At the time, “[b]ands of malefactors, knights as well as those of lesser degree, harried the country, committing assaults and murders,” prompted by a more general “spirit of insubordination” that led to a “decay in English national life.” K. Vickers, England in the Later Middle Ages 107 (1926).

 The Statute of Northampton was, in part, “a product of . . . the acute disorder that still plagued England.” A. Verduyn, The Politics of Law and Order During the Early  Years of Edward III, 108 Eng. Hist. Rev. 842, 850 (1993). It provided that, with some exceptions, Englishmen could not “come before the King’s Justices, or other of the King’s Ministers doing their office, with force and arms, nor bring no force in affray of the peace, nor to go nor ride armed by night nor by day, in Fairs, Markets, nor in the presence of the Justices or other Ministers, nor in no part elsewhere, upon pain to forfeit their Armour to the King, and their Bodies to Prison at the King’s pleasure.” 2 Edw. 3 c. 3 (1328).

 Respondents argue that the prohibition on “rid[ing]” or “go[ing] . . . armed” was a sweeping restriction on public carry of self-defense weapons that would ultimately be adopted in Colonial America and justify onerous public-carry regulations. Notwithstanding the ink the parties spill over this provision, the Statute of Northampton—at least as it was understood during the Middle Ages—has little bearing on the Second Amendment adopted in 1791. The Statute of Northampton was enacted nearly 20 years before the Black Death, more than 200 years before the birth of Shakespeare, more than 350 years before the Salem Witch Trials, more than 450 years before the ratification of the Constitution, and nearly 550 years before the adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment.

 The Statute’s prohibition on going or riding “armed” obviously did not contemplate handguns, given they did not appear in Europe until about the mid-1500s. See K. Chase, Firearms: A Global History to 1700, p. 61 (2003). Rather, it appears to have been centrally concerned with the wearing of armor. See, e.g., Calendar of the Close Rolls, Edward III, 1330–1333, p. 131 (Apr. 3, 1330) (H. Maxwell-Lyte ed. 1898); id., at 243 (May 28, 1331); id., Edward III, 1327–1330, at 314 (Aug. 29, 1328) (1896). If it did apply beyond armor, it applied to such weapons as the “launcegay,” a 10- to 12-foot-long lightweight lance. See 7 Rich. 2 c. 13 (1383); 20 Rich. 2 c. 1 (1396).

 The Statute’s apparent focus on armor and, perhaps,  weapons like launcegays makes sense given that armor and lances were generally worn or carried only when one intended to engage in lawful combat or—as most early violations of the Statute show—to breach the peace. See, e.g., Calendar of the Close Rolls, Edward III, 1327–1330, at 402 (July 7, 1328); id., Edward III, 1333–1337, at 695 (Aug. 18, 1336) (1898). Contrast these arms with daggers. In the medieval period, “[a]lmost everyone carried a knife or a dagger in his belt.” H. Peterson, Daggers and Fighting Knives of the Western World 12 (2001). While these knives were used by knights in warfare, “[c]ivilians wore them for self-protection,” among other things. Ibid. Respondents point to no evidence suggesting the Statute applied to the smaller medieval weapons that strike us as most analogous to modern handguns.

 When handguns were introduced in England during the Tudor and early Stuart eras, they did prompt royal efforts at suppression. For example, Henry VIII issued several proclamations decrying the proliferation of handguns, and Parliament passed several statutes restricting their possession. See, e.g., 6 Hen. 8 c. 13, §1 (1514); 25 Hen. 8 c. 17, §1 (1533); 33 Hen. 8 c. 6 (1541); Prohibiting Use of Handguns and Crossbows (Jan. 1537), in 1 Tudor Royal Proclamations 249 (P. Hughes & J. Larkin eds. 1964). But Henry VIII’s displeasure with handguns arose not primarily from concerns about their safety but rather their inefficacy. Henry VIII worried that handguns threatened Englishmen’s proficiency with the longbow—a weapon many believed was crucial to English military victories in the 1300s and 1400s, including the legendary English victories at Crécy and Agincourt. See R. Payne-Gallwey, The Crossbow 32, 34 (1903); L. Schwoerer, Gun Culture in Early Modern England 54 (2016) (Schwoerer).

 Similarly, James I considered small handguns—called dags—“utterly unserviceable for defence, Militarie practise, or other lawful use.” A Proclamation Against Steelets,  Pocket Daggers, Pocket Dagges and Pistols (R. Barker printer 1616). But, in any event, James I’s proclamation in 1616 “was the last one regarding civilians carrying dags,” Schwoerer 63. “After this the question faded without explanation.” Ibid. So, by the time Englishmen began to arrive in America in the early 1600s, the public carry of handguns was no longer widely proscribed.

 When we look to the latter half of the 17th century, respondents’ case only weakens. As in Heller, we consider this history “[b]etween the [Stuart] Restoration [in 1660] and the Glorious Revolution [in 1688]” to be particularly instructive. 554 U. S., at 592. During that time, the Stuart Kings Charles II and James II ramped up efforts to disarm their political opponents, an experience that “caused Englishmen . . . to be jealous of their arms.” Id., at 593.

 In one notable example, the government charged Sir John Knight, a prominent detractor of James II, with violating the Statute of Northampton because he allegedly “did walk about the streets armed with guns, and that he went into the church of St. Michael, in Bristol, in the time of divine service, with a gun, to terrify the King’s subjects.” Sir John Knight’s Case, 3 Mod. 117, 87 Eng. Rep. 75, 76 (K. B. 1686). Chief Justice Holt explained that the Statute of Northampton had “almost gone in desuetudinem,” Rex v. Sir John Knight, 1 Comb. 38, 38–39, 90 Eng. Rep. 330 (K. B. 1686), meaning that the Statute had largely become obsolete through disuse.¹⁰ And the Chief Justice further explained  that the act of “go[ing] armed to terrify the King’s subjects” was “a great offence at the common law” and that the Statute of Northampton “is but an affirmance of that law.” 3 Mod., at 118, 87 Eng. Rep., at 76 (first emphasis added). Thus, one’s conduct “will come within the Act,”—i.e., would terrify the King’s subjects—only “where the crime shall appear to be malo animo,” 1 Comb., at 39, 90 Eng. Rep., at 330, with evil intent or malice. Knight was ultimately acquitted by the jury.¹¹

  Just three years later, Parliament responded by writing the “predecessor to our Second Amendment” into the 1689 English Bill of Rights, Heller, 554 U. S., at 593, guaranteeing that “Protestants . . . may have Arms for their Defence suitable to their Conditions, and as allowed by Law,” 1 Wm. & Mary c. 2, §7, in 3 Eng. Stat. at Large 417 (1689). Although this right was initially limited—it was restricted to Protestants and held only against the Crown, but not Parliament—it represented a watershed in English history. Englishmen had “never before claimed . . . the right of the individual to arms.” Schwoerer 156.¹² And as that individual right matured, “by the time of the founding,” the right to keep and bear arms was “understood to be an individual right protecting against both public and private violence.” Heller, 554 U. S., at 594.

 To be sure, the Statute of Northampton survived both Sir John Knight’s Case and the English Bill of Rights, but it was no obstacle to public carry for self-defense in the decades leading to the founding. Serjeant William Hawkins, in his widely read 1716 treatise, confirmed that “no wearing of Arms is within the meaning of [the Statute of Northampton], unless it be accompanied with such Circumstances as are apt to terrify the People.” 1 Pleas of the Crown 136. To illustrate that proposition, Hawkins noted as an example that “Persons of Quality” were “in no Danger of Offending against this Statute by wearing common Weapons” because, in those circumstances, it would be clear that they  had no “Intention to commit any Act of Violence or Disturbance of the Peace.” Ibid.; see also T. Barlow, The Justice of Peace 12 (1745). Respondents do not offer any evidence showing that, in the early 18th century or after, the mere public carrying of a handgun would terrify people. In fact, the opposite seems to have been true. As time went on, “domestic gun culture [in England] softened” any “terror” that firearms might once have conveyed. Schwoerer 4. Thus, whatever place handguns had in English society during the Tudor and Stuart reigns, by the time we reach the 18th century—and near the founding—they had gained a fairly secure footing in English culture.

 At the very least, we cannot conclude from this historical record that, by the time of the founding, English law would have justified restricting the right to publicly bear arms suited for self-defense only to those who demonstrate some special need for self-protection.

2

 Respondents next point us to the history of the Colonies and early Republic, but there is little evidence of an early American practice of regulating public carry by the general public. This should come as no surprise—English subjects founded the Colonies at about the time England had itself begun to eliminate restrictions on the ownership and use of handguns.

 In the colonial era, respondents point to only three restrictions on public carry. For starters, we doubt that three colonial regulations could suffice to show a tradition of public-carry regulation. In any event, even looking at these laws on their own terms, we are not convinced that they regulated public carry akin to the New York law before us.

 Two of the statutes were substantively identical. Colonial Massachusetts and New Hampshire both authorized justices of the peace to arrest “all Affrayers, Rioters, Disturbers, or Breakers of the Peace, and such as shall ride or  go armed Offensively . . . by Night or by Day, in Fear or Affray of Their Majesties Liege People.” 1692 Mass. Acts and Laws no. 6, pp. 11–12; see 1699 N. H. Acts and Laws ch. 1. Respondents and their amici contend that being “armed offensively” meant bearing any offensive weapons, including firearms. See Brief for Respondents 33. In particular, respondents’ amici argue that “ ‘offensive’ ” arms in the 1600s and 1700s were what Blackstone and others referred to as “ ‘dangerous or unusual weapons,’ ” Brief for Professors of History and Law as Amici Curiae 7 (quoting 4 Blackstone, Commentaries, at 148–149), a category that they say included firearms, see also post, at 40–42 (Breyer, J., dissenting).

 Respondents, their amici, and the dissent all misunderstand these statutes. Far from banning the carrying of any class of firearms, they merely codified the existing common-law offense of bearing arms to terrorize the people, as had the Statute of Northampton itself. See supra, at 34–37. For instance, the Massachusetts statute proscribed “go[ing] armed Offensively . . . in Fear or Affray” of the people, indicating that these laws were modeled after the Statute of Northampton to the extent that the statute would have been understood to limit public carry in the late 1600s. Moreover, it makes very little sense to read these statutes as banning the public carry of all firearms just a few years after Chief Justice Holt in Sir John Knight’s Case indicated that the English common law did not do so.

 Regardless, even if respondents’ reading of these colonial statutes were correct, it would still do little to support restrictions on the public carry of handguns today. At most, respondents can show that colonial legislatures sometimes prohibited the carrying of “dangerous and unusual weapons”—a fact we already acknowledged in Heller. See 554 U. S., at 627. Drawing from this historical tradition, we explained there that the Second Amendment protects only the carrying of weapons that are those “in common use at the  time,” as opposed to those that “are highly unusual in society at large.” Ibid. (internal quotation marks omitted). Whatever the likelihood that handguns were considered “dangerous and unusual” during the colonial period, they are indisputably in “common use” for self-defense today. They are, in fact, “the quintessential self-defense weapon.” Id., at 629. Thus, even if these colonial laws prohibited the carrying of handguns because they were considered “dangerous and unusual weapons” in the 1690s, they provide no justification for laws restricting the public carry of weapons that are unquestionably in common use today.

 The third statute invoked by respondents was enacted in East New Jersey in 1686. It prohibited the concealed carry of “pocket pistol[s]” or other “unusual or unlawful weapons,” and it further prohibited “planter[s]” from carrying all pistols unless in military service or, if “strangers,” when traveling through the Province. An Act Against Wearing Swords, &c., ch. 9, in Grants, Concessions, and Original Constitutions of the Province of New Jersey 290 (2d ed. 1881) (Grants and Concessions). These restrictions do not meaningfully support respondents. The law restricted only concealed carry, not all public carry, and its restrictions applied only to certain “unusual or unlawful weapons,” including “pocket pistol[s].” Ibid. It also did not apply to all pistols, let alone all firearms. “Pocket pistols” had barrel lengths of perhaps 3 or 4 inches, far smaller than the 6-inch to 14-inch barrels found on the other belt and hip pistols that were commonly used for lawful purposes in the 1600s. J. George, English Pistols and Revolvers 16 (1938); see also, e.g., 14 Car. 2 c. 3, §20 (1662); H. Peterson, Arms and Armor in Colonial America, 1526–1783, p. 208 (1956) (Peterson). Moreover, the law prohibited only the concealed carry of pocket pistols; it presumably did not by its terms touch the  open carry of larger, presumably more common pistols, except as to “planters.”¹³ In colonial times, a “planter” was simply a farmer or plantation owner who settled new territory. R. Lederer, Colonial American English 175 (1985); New Jersey State Archives, J. Klett, Using the Records of the East and West Jersey Proprietors 31 (rev. ed. 2014), https://www.nj.gov/state/archives/pdf/proprietors.pdf. While the reason behind this singular restriction is not entirely clear, planters may have been targeted because colonial-era East New Jersey was riven with “strife and excitement” between planters and the Colony’s proprietors “respecting titles to the soil.” See W. Whitehead, East Jersey Under the Proprietary Governments 150–151 (rev. 2d ed. 1875); see also T. Gordon, The History of New Jersey 49 (1834).

 In any event, we cannot put meaningful weight on this solitary statute. First, although the “planter” restriction may have prohibited the public carry of pistols, it did not prohibit planters from carrying long guns for self-defense—including the popular musket and carbine. See Peterson 41. Second, it does not appear that the statute survived for very long. By 1694, East New Jersey provided that no slave “be permitted to carry any gun or pistol . . . into the woods, or plantations” unless their owner accompanied them. Grants and Concessions 341. If slave-owning planters were prohibited from carrying pistols, it is hard to comprehend why slaves would have been able to carry them in the planter’s presence. Moreover, there is no evidence that the 1686 statute survived the 1702 merger of East and West New Jersey. See 1 Nevill, Acts of the General Assembly of the Province of New-Jersey (1752). At most eight years of  history in half a Colony roughly a century before the founding sheds little light on how to properly interpret the Second Amendment.

 Respondents next direct our attention to three late-18th-century and early-19th-century statutes, but each parallels the colonial statutes already discussed. One 1786 Virginia statute provided that “no man, great nor small, [shall] go nor ride armed by night nor by day, in fairs or markets, or in other places, in terror of the Country.” Collection of All Such Acts of the General Assembly of Virginia ch. 21, p. 33 (1794).¹⁴ A Massachusetts statute from 1795 commanded justices of the peace to arrest “all affrayers, rioters, disturbers, or breakers of the peace, and such as shall ride or go armed offensively, to the fear or terror of the good citizens of this Commonwealth.” 1795 Mass. Acts and Laws ch. 2, p. 436, in Laws of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. And an 1801 Tennessee statute likewise required any person who would “publicly ride or go armed to the terror of the people, or privately carry any dirk, large knife, pistol or any other dangerous weapon, to the fear or terror of any person” to post a surety; otherwise, his continued violation of the law would be “punished as for a breach of the peace, or riot at common law.” 1801 Tenn. Acts pp. 260–261.

 A by-now-familiar thread runs through these three statutes: They prohibit bearing arms in a way that spreads “fear” or “terror” among the people. As we have already explained, Chief Justice Holt in Sir John Knight’s Case interpreted this in Terrorem Populi element to require something more than merely carrying a firearm in public. See supra, at 34–35. Respondents give us no reason to think that the founding generation held a different view. Thus, all told, in the century leading up to the Second Amendment  and in the first decade after its adoption, there is no historical basis for concluding that the pre-existing right enshrined in the Second Amendment permitted broad prohibitions on all forms of public carry.

3

 Only after the ratification of the Second Amendment in 1791 did public-carry restrictions proliferate. Respondents rely heavily on these restrictions, which generally fell into three categories: common-law offenses, statutory prohibitions, and “surety” statutes. None of these restrictions imposed a substantial burden on public carry analogous to the burden created by New York’s restrictive licensing regime.

 Common-Law Offenses. As during the colonial and founding periods, the common-law offenses of “affray” or going armed “to the terror of the people” continued to impose some limits on firearm carry in the antebellum period. But as with the earlier periods, there is no evidence indicating that these common-law limitations impaired the right of the general population to peaceable public carry.

 For example, the Tennessee attorney general once charged a defendant with the common-law offense of affray, arguing that the man committed the crime when he “ ‘arm[ed] himself with dangerous and unusual weapons, in such a manner as will naturally cause terror to the people.’ ” Simpson v. State, 13 Tenn. 356, 358 (1833). More specifically, the indictment charged that Simpson “with force and arms being arrayed in a warlike manner . . . unlawfully, and to the great terror and disturbance of divers good citizens, did make an affray.” Id., at 361. The Tennessee Supreme Court quashed the indictment, holding that the Statute of Northampton was never part of Tennessee law. Id., at 359. But even assuming that Tennesseans’ ancestors brought with them the common law associated with the Statute, the Simpson court found that if the Statute had  made, as an “independent ground of affray,” the mere arming of oneself with firearms, the Tennessee Constitution’s Second Amendment analogue had “completely abrogated it.” Id., at 360. At least in light of that constitutional guarantee, the court did not think that it could attribute to the mere carrying of arms “a necessarily consequent operation as terror to the people.” Ibid.

 Perhaps more telling was the North Carolina Supreme Court’s decision in State v. Huntly, 25 N. C. 418 (1843) (per curiam). Unlike the Tennessee Supreme Court in Simpson, the Huntly court held that the common-law offense codified by the Statute of Northampton was part of the State’s law. See 25 N. C., at 421–422. However, consistent with the Statute’s long-settled interpretation, the North Carolina Supreme Court acknowledged “that the carrying of a gun” for a lawful purpose “per se constitutes no offence.” Id., at 422–423. Only carrying for a “wicked purpose” with a “mischievous result . . . constitute[d a] crime.” Id., at 423; see also J. Haywood, The Duty and Office of Justices of Peace 10 (1800); H. Potter, The Office and Duties of a Justice of the Peace 39 (1816).¹⁵ Other state courts likewise recognized that the common law did not punish the carrying of  deadly weapons per se, but only the carrying of such weapons “for the purpose of an affray, and in such manner as to strike terror to the people.” O’Neil v. State, 16 Ala. 65, 67 (1849). Therefore, those who sought to carry firearms publicly and peaceably in antebellum America were generally free to do so.

 Statutory Prohibitions. In the early to mid-19th century, some States began enacting laws that proscribed the concealed carry of pistols and other small weapons. As we recognized in Heller, “the majority of the 19th-century courts to consider the question held that [these] prohibitions on carrying concealed weapons were lawful under the Second Amendment or state analogues.” 554 U. S., at 626. Respondents unsurprisingly cite these statutes¹⁶—and decisions upholding them¹⁷—as evidence that States were historically free to ban public carry.

 In fact, however, the history reveals a consensus that States could not ban public carry altogether. Respondents’  cited opinions agreed that concealed-carry prohibitions were constitutional only if they did not similarly prohibit open carry. That was true in Alabama. See State v. Reid, 1 Ala. 612, 616, 619–621 (1840).¹⁸ It was also true in Louisiana. See State v. Chandler, 5 La. 489, 490 (1850).¹⁹ Kentucky, meanwhile, went one step further—the State Supreme Court invalidated a concealed-carry prohibition. See Bliss v. Commonwealth, 12 Ky. 90 (1822).²⁰

 The Georgia Supreme Court’s decision in Nunn v. State, 1 Ga. 243 (1846), is particularly instructive. Georgia’s 1837 statute broadly prohibited “wearing” or “carrying” pistols “as arms of offence or defence,” without distinguishing between concealed and open carry. 1837 Ga. Acts 90, §1. To the extent the 1837 Act prohibited “carrying certain weapons secretly,” the court explained, it was “valid.” Nunn, 1  Ga., at 251. But to the extent the Act also prohibited “bearing arms openly,” the court went on, it was “in conflict with the Constitutio[n] and void.” Ibid.; see also Heller, 554 U. S., at 612. The Georgia Supreme Court’s treatment of the State’s general prohibition on the public carriage of handguns indicates that it was considered beyond the constitutional pale in antebellum America to altogether prohibit public carry.

 Finally, we agree that Tennessee’s prohibition on carrying “publicly or privately” any “belt or pocket pisto[l],” 1821 Tenn. Acts ch. 13, p. 15, was, on its face, uniquely severe, see Heller, 554 U. S., at 629. That said, when the Tennessee Supreme Court addressed the constitutionality of a substantively identical successor provision, see 1870 Tenn. Acts ch. 13, §1, p. 28, the court read this language to permit the public carry of larger, military-style pistols because any categorical prohibition on their carry would “violat[e] the constitutional right to keep arms.” Andrews v. State, 50 Tenn. 165, 187 (1871); see also Heller, 554 U. S., at 629 (discussing Andrews).²¹

 All told, these antebellum state-court decisions evince a consensus view that States could not altogether prohibit the public carry of “arms” protected by the Second Amendment or state analogues.²²

  Surety Statutes. In the mid-19th century, many jurisdictions began adopting surety statutes that required certain individuals to post bond before carrying weapons in public. Although respondents seize on these laws to justify the proper-cause restriction, their reliance on them is misplaced. These laws were not bans on public carry, and they typically targeted only those threatening to do harm.

 As discussed earlier, Massachusetts had prohibited riding or going “armed offensively, to the fear or terror of the good citizens of this Commonwealth” since 1795. 1795 Mass. Acts and Laws ch. 2, at 436, in Laws of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. In 1836, Massachusetts enacted a new law providing:

“If any person shall go armed with a dirk, dagger, sword, pistol, or other offensive and dangerous weapon, without reasonable cause to fear an assault or other injury, or violence to his person, or to his family or property, he may, on complaint of any person having reasonable cause to fear an injury, or breach of the peace, be required to find sureties for keeping the peace, for a term not exceeding six months, with the right of appealing as before provided.” Mass. Rev. Stat., ch. 134, §16.

In short, the Commonwealth required any person who was reasonably likely to “breach the peace,” and who, standing accused, could not prove a special need for self-defense, to post a bond before publicly carrying a firearm. Between 1838 and 1871, nine other jurisdictions adopted variants of  the Massachusetts law.²³

 Contrary to respondents’ position, these “reasonable-cause laws” in no way represented the “direct precursor” to the proper-cause requirement. Brief for Respondents 27. While New York presumes that individuals have no public carry right without a showing of heightened need, the surety statutes presumed that individuals had a right to public carry that could be burdened only if another could make out a specific showing of “reasonable cause to fear an injury, or breach of the peace.” Mass. Rev. Stat., ch. 134, §16 (1836).²⁴ As William Rawle explained in an influential treatise, an individual’s carrying of arms was “sufficient cause to require him to give surety of the peace” only when “attended with circumstances giving just reason to fear that he purposes to make an unlawful use of them.” A View of the Constitution of the United States of America 126 (2d ed. 1829). Then, even on such a showing, the surety laws did not prohibit public carry in locations frequented by the general community. Rather, an accused arms-bearer “could go on carrying without criminal penalty” so long as he “post[ed] money that would be forfeited if he breached the peace or injured others—a requirement from which he was exempt if he needed self-defense.” Wrenn, 864 F. 3d, at 661.

 Thus, unlike New York’s regime, a showing of special need was required only after an individual was reasonably accused of intending to injure another or breach the peace. And, even then, proving special need simply avoided a fee rather than a ban. All told, therefore, “[u]nder surety laws  . . . everyone started out with robust carrying rights” and only those reasonably accused were required to show a special need in order to avoid posting a bond. Ibid. These antebellum special-need requirements “did not expand carrying for the responsible; it shrank burdens on carrying by the (allegedly) reckless.” Ibid.

 One Court of Appeals has nonetheless remarked that these surety laws were “a severe constraint on anyone thinking of carrying a weapon in public.” Young, 992 F. 3d, at 820. That contention has little support in the historical record. Respondents cite no evidence showing the average size of surety postings. And given that surety laws were “intended merely for prevention” and were “not meant as any degree of punishment,” 4 Blackstone, Commentaries, at 249, the burden these surety statutes may have had on the right to public carry was likely too insignificant to shed light on New York’s proper-cause standard—a violation of which can carry a 4-year prison term or a $5,000 fine. In Heller, we noted that founding-era laws punishing unlawful discharge “with a small fine and forfeiture of the weapon . . . , not with significant criminal penalties,” likely did not “preven[t] a person in the founding era from using a gun to protect himself or his family from violence, or that if he did so the law would be enforced against him.” 554 U. S., at 633–634. Similarly, we have little reason to think that the hypothetical possibility of posting a bond would have prevented anyone from carrying a firearm for self-defense in the 19th century.

 Besides, respondents offer little evidence that authorities ever enforced surety laws. The only recorded case that we know of involved a justice of the peace declining to require a surety, even when the complainant alleged that the arms-bearer “ ‘did threaten to beat, wou[n]d, mai[m], and kill’ ” him. Brief for Professor Robert Leider et al. as Amici Curiae 31 (quoting Grover v. Bullock, No. 185 (Worcester Cty.,  Aug. 13, 1853)); see E. Ruben & S. Cornell, Firearm Regionalism and Public Carry: Placing Southern Antebellum Case Law in Context, 125 Yale L. J. Forum 121, 130, n. 53 (2015). And one scholar who canvassed 19th-century newspapers—which routinely reported on local judicial matters—found only a handful of other examples in Massachusetts and the District of Columbia, all involving black defendants who may have been targeted for selective or pretextual enforcement. See R. Leider, Constitutional Liquidation, Surety Laws, and the Right To Bear Arms 15–17, in New Histories of Gun Rights and Regulation (J. Blocher, J. Charles, & D. Miller eds.) (forthcoming); see also Brief for Professor Robert Leider et al. as Amici Curiae 31–32. That is surely too slender a reed on which to hang a historical tradition of restricting the right to public carry.²⁵

 Respondents also argue that surety statutes were severe restrictions on firearms because the “reasonable cause to fear” standard was essentially pro forma, given that “merely carrying firearms in populous areas breached the peace” per se. Brief for Respondents 27. But that is a counterintuitive reading of the language that the surety statutes actually used. If the mere carrying of handguns breached the peace, it would be odd to draft a surety statute requiring a complainant to demonstrate “reasonable cause to fear an injury, or breach of the peace,” Mass. Rev. Stat., ch. 134, §16, rather than a reasonable likelihood that the arms-bearer carried a covered weapon. After all, if it was the nature of the weapon rather than the manner of carry that  was dispositive, then the “reasonable fear” requirement would be redundant.

 Moreover, the overlapping scope of surety statutes and criminal statutes suggests that the former were not viewed as substantial restrictions on public carry. For example, when Massachusetts enacted its surety statute in 1836, it reaffirmed its 1794 criminal prohibition on “go[ing] armed offensively, to the terror of the people.” Mass. Rev. Stat., ch. 85, §24. And Massachusetts continued to criminalize the carrying of various “dangerous weapons” well after passing the 1836 surety statute. See, e.g., 1850 Mass. Acts ch. 194, §1, p. 401; Mass. Gen. Stat., ch. 164, §10 (1860). Similarly, Virginia had criminalized the concealed carry of pistols since 1838, see 1838 Va. Acts ch. 101, §1, nearly a decade before it enacted its surety statute, see 1847 Va. Acts ch. 14, §16. It is unlikely that these surety statutes constituted a “severe” restraint on public carry, let alone a restriction tantamount to a ban, when they were supplemented by direct criminal prohibitions on specific weapons and methods of carry.

 To summarize: The historical evidence from antebellum America does demonstrate that the manner of public carry was subject to reasonable regulation. Under the common law, individuals could not carry deadly weapons in a manner likely to terrorize others. Similarly, although surety statutes did not directly restrict public carry, they did provide financial incentives for responsible arms carrying. Finally, States could lawfully eliminate one kind of public carry—concealed carry—so long as they left open the option to carry openly.

 None of these historical limitations on the right to bear arms approach New York’s proper-cause requirement because none operated to prevent law-abiding citizens with ordinary self-defense needs from carrying arms in public for that purpose.

 4

 Evidence from around the adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment also fails to support respondents’ position. For the most part, respondents and the United States ignore the “outpouring of discussion of the [right to keep and bear arms] in Congress and in public discourse, as people debated whether and how to secure constitutional rights for newly free slaves” after the Civil War. Heller, 554 U. S., at 614. Of course, we are not obliged to sift the historical materials for evidence to sustain New York’s statute. That is respondents’ burden. Nevertheless, we think a short review of the public discourse surrounding Reconstruction is useful in demonstrating how public carry for self-defense remained a central component of the protection that the Fourteenth Amendment secured for all citizens.

 A short prologue is in order. Even before the Civil War commenced in 1861, this Court indirectly affirmed the importance of the right to keep and bear arms in public. Writing for the Court in Dred Scott v. Sandford, 19 How. 393 (1857), Chief Justice Taney offered what he thought was a parade of horribles that would result from recognizing that free blacks were citizens of the United States. If blacks were citizens, Taney fretted, they would be entitled to the privileges and immunities of citizens, including the right “to keep and carry arms wherever they went.” Id., at 417 (emphasis added). Thus, even Chief Justice Taney recognized (albeit unenthusiastically in the case of blacks) that public carry was a component of the right to keep and bear arms—a right free blacks were often denied in antebellum America.

 After the Civil War, of course, the exercise of this fundamental right by freed slaves was systematically thwarted. This Court has already recounted some of the Southern abuses violating blacks’ right to keep and bear arms. See McDonald, 561 U. S., at 771 (noting the “systematic efforts”  made to disarm blacks); id., at 845–847 (Thomas, J., concurring in part and concurring in judgment); see also S. Exec. Doc. No. 43, 39th Cong., 1st Sess., 8 (1866) (“Pistols, old muskets, and shotguns were taken away from [freed slaves] as such weapons would be wrested from the hands of lunatics”).

 In the years before the 39th Congress proposed the Fourteenth Amendment, the Freedmen’s Bureau regularly kept it abreast of the dangers to blacks and Union men in the postbellum South. The reports described how blacks used publicly carried weapons to defend themselves and their communities. For example, the Bureau reported that a teacher from a Freedmen’s school in Maryland had written to say that, because of attacks on the school, “[b]oth the mayor and sheriff have warned the colored people to go armed to school, (which they do,)” and that the “[t]he superintendent of schools came down and brought [the teacher] a revolver” for his protection. Cong. Globe, 39th Cong., 1st Sess., 658 (1866); see also H. R. Exec. Doc. No. 68, 39th Cong., 2d Sess., 91 (1867) (noting how, during the New Orleans riots, blacks under attack “defended themselves . . . with such pistols as they had”).

 Witnesses before the Joint Committee on Reconstruction also described the depredations visited on Southern blacks, and the efforts they made to defend themselves. One Virginia music professor related that when “[t]wo Union men were attacked . . . they drew their revolvers and held their assailants at bay.” H. R. Rep. No. 30, 39th Cong., 1st Sess., pt. 2, p. 110 (1866). An assistant commissioner to the Bureau from Alabama similarly reported that men were “robbing and disarming negroes upon the highway,” H. R. Exec. Doc. No. 70, 39th Cong., 1st Sess., 297 (1866), indicating that blacks indeed carried arms publicly for their self- protection, even if not always with success. See also H. R. Exec. Doc. No. 329, 40th Cong., 2d Sess., 41 (1868) (describing a Ku Klux Klan outfit that rode “through the country  . . . robbing every one they come across of money, pistols, papers, &c.”); id., at 36 (noting how a black man in Tennessee had been murdered on his way to get book subscriptions, with the murderer taking, among other things, the man’s pistol).

 Blacks had “procured great numbers of old army muskets and revolvers, particularly in Texas,” and “employed them to protect themselves” with “vigor and audacity.” S. Exec. Doc. No. 43, 39th Cong., 1st Sess., at 8. Seeing that government was inadequately protecting them, “there [was] the strongest desire on the part of the freedmen to secure arms, revolvers particularly.” H. R. Rep. No. 30, 39th Cong., 1st Sess., pt. 3, at 102.

 On July 6, 1868, Congress extended the 1866 Freedmen’s Bureau Act, see 15 Stat. 83, and reaffirmed that freedmen were entitled to the “full and equal benefit of all laws and proceedings concerning personal liberty [and] personal security . . . including the constitutional right to keep and bear arms.” §14, 14 Stat. 176 (1866) (emphasis added). That same day, a Bureau official reported that freedmen in Kentucky and Tennessee were still constantly under threat: “No Union man or negro who attempts to take any active part in politics, or the improvement of his race, is safe a single day; and nearly all sleep upon their arms at night, and carry concealed weapons during the day.” H. R. Exec. Doc. No. 329, 40th Cong., 2d Sess., at 40.

 Of course, even during Reconstruction the right to keep and bear arms had limits. But those limits were consistent with a right of the public to peaceably carry handguns for self-defense. For instance, when General D. E. Sickles issued a decree in 1866 pre-empting South Carolina’s Black Codes—which prohibited firearm possession by blacks—he stated: “The constitutional rights of all loyal and well- disposed inhabitants to bear arms will not be infringed; nevertheless this shall not be construed to sanction the unlawful practice of carrying concealed weapons. . . . And no  disorderly person, vagrant, or disturber of the peace, shall be allowed to bear arms.” Cong. Globe, 39th Cong., 1st Sess., at 908–909; see also McDonald, 561 U. S., at 847–848 (opinion of Thomas, J.).²⁶ Around the same time, the editors of The Loyal Georgian, a prominent black-owned newspaper, were asked by “A Colored Citizen” whether “colored persons [have] a right to own and carry fire arms.” The editors responded that blacks had “the same right to own and carry fire arms that other citizens have.” The Loyal Georgian, Feb. 3, 1866, p. 3, col. 4. And, borrowing language from a Freedmen’s Bureau circular, the editors maintained that “[a]ny person, white or black, may be disarmed if convicted of making an improper or dangerous use of weapons,” even though “no military or civil officer has the right or authority to disarm any class of people, thereby placing them at the mercy of others.” Ibid. (quoting Circular No. 5, Freedmen’s Bureau, Dec. 22, 1865); see also McDonald, 561 U. S., at 848–849 (opinion of Thomas, J.).²⁷

  As for Reconstruction-era state regulations, there was little innovation over the kinds of public-carry restrictions that had been commonplace in the early 19th century. For instance, South Carolina in 1870 authorized the arrest of “all who go armed offensively, to the terror of the people,” 1870 S. C. Acts p. 403, no. 288, §4, parroting earlier statutes that codified the common-law offense. That same year, after it cleaved from Virginia, West Virginia enacted a surety statute nearly identical to the one it inherited from Virginia. See W. Va. Code, ch. 153, §8. Also in 1870, Tennessee essentially reenacted its 1821 prohibition on the public carry of handguns but, as explained above, Tennessee courts interpreted that statute to exempt large pistols suitable for military use. See supra, at 46.

 Respondents and the United States, however, direct our attention primarily to two late-19th-century cases in Texas. In 1871, Texas law forbade anyone from “carrying on or about his person . . . any pistol . . . unless he has reasonable grounds for fearing an unlawful attack on his person.” 1871 Tex. Gen. Laws §1. The Texas Supreme Court upheld that restriction in English v. State, 35 Tex. 473 (1871). The Court reasoned that the Second Amendment, and the State’s constitutional analogue, protected only those arms “as are useful and proper to an armed militia,” including holster pistols, but not other kinds of handguns. Id., at 474–475. Beyond that constitutional holding, the English court further opined that the law was not “contrary to public policy,” id., at 479, given that it “ma[de] all necessary exceptions” allowing deadly weapons to “be carried as means of self-defense,” and therefore “fully cover[ed] all wants of society,” id., at 477.

 Four years later, in State v. Duke, 42 Tex. 455 (1875), the Texas Supreme Court modified its analysis. The court reinterpreted Texas’ State Constitution to protect not only  military-style weapons but rather all arms “as are commonly kept, according to the customs of the people, and are appropriate for open and manly use in self-defense.” Id., at 458. On that understanding, the court recognized that, in addition to “holster pistol[s],” the right to bear arms covered the carry of “such pistols at least as are not adapted to being carried concealed.” Id., at 458–459. Nonetheless, after expanding the scope of firearms that warranted state constitutional protection, Duke held that requiring any pistol-bearer to have “ ‘reasonable grounds fearing an unlawful attack on [one’s] person’ ” was a “legitimate and highly proper” regulation of handgun carriage. Id., at 456, 459–460. Duke thus concluded that the 1871 statute “appear[ed] to have respected the right to carry a pistol openly when needed for self-defense.” Id., at 459.

 We acknowledge that the Texas cases support New York’s proper-cause requirement, which one can analogize to Texas’ “reasonable grounds” standard. But the Texas statute, and the rationales set forth in English and Duke, are outliers. In fact, only one other State, West Virginia, adopted a similar public-carry statute before 1900. See W. Va. Code, ch. 148, §7 (1887). The West Virginia Supreme Court upheld that prohibition, reasoning that no handguns of any kind were protected by the Second Amendment, a rationale endorsed by no other court during this period. See State v. Workman, 35 W. Va. 367, 371–374, 14 S. E. 9, 11 (1891). The Texas decisions therefore provide little insight into how postbellum courts viewed the right to carry protected arms in public.

 In the end, while we recognize the support that postbellum Texas provides for respondents’ view, we will not give disproportionate weight to a single state statute and a pair of state-court decisions. As in Heller, we will not “stake our interpretation of the Second Amendment upon a single law, in effect in a single [State], that contradicts the overwhelming weight of other evidence regarding the right to keep and  bear arms for defense” in public. 554 U. S., at 632.

5

 Finally, respondents point to the slight uptick in gun regulation during the late-19th century—principally in the Western Territories. As we suggested in Heller, however, late-19th-century evidence cannot provide much insight into the meaning of the Second Amendment when it contradicts earlier evidence. See id., at 614; supra, at 28.²⁸ Here, moreover, respondents’ reliance on late-19th-century laws has several serious flaws even beyond their temporal distance from the founding.

 The vast majority of the statutes that respondents invoke come from the Western Territories. Two Territories prohibited the carry of pistols in towns, cities, and villages, but seemingly permitted the carry of rifles and other long guns everywhere. See 1889 Ariz. Terr. Sess. Laws no. 13, §1, p. 16; 1869 N. M. Laws ch. 32, §§1–2, p. 72.²⁹ Two others prohibited the carry of all firearms in towns, cities, and villages, including long guns. See 1875 Wyo. Terr. Sess. Laws ch. 52, §1; 1889 Idaho Terr. Gen. Laws §1, p. 23. And one Territory completely prohibited public carry of pistols everywhere, but allowed the carry of “shot-guns or rifles” for certain purposes. See 1890 Okla. Terr. Stats., Art. 47, §§1–2, 5, p. 495.

 These territorial restrictions fail to justify New York’s  proper-cause requirement for several reasons. First, the bare existence of these localized restrictions cannot overcome the overwhelming evidence of an otherwise enduring American tradition permitting public carry. For starters, “[t]he very transitional and temporary character of the American [territorial] system” often “permitted legislative improvisations which might not have been tolerated in a permanent setup.” E. Pomeroy, The Territories and the United States 1861–1890, p. 4 (1947). These territorial “legislative improvisations,” which conflict with the Nation’s earlier approach to firearm regulation, are most unlikely to reflect “the origins and continuing significance of the Second Amendment” and we do not consider them “instructive.” Heller, 554 U. S., at 614.

 The exceptional nature of these western restrictions is all the more apparent when one considers the miniscule territorial populations who would have lived under them. To put that point into perspective, one need not look further than the 1890 census. Roughly 62 million people lived in the United States at that time. Arizona, Idaho, New Mexico, Oklahoma, and Wyoming combined to account for only 420,000 of those inhabitants—about two-thirds of 1% of the population. See Dept. of Interior, Compendium of the Eleventh Census: 1890, Part I.–Population 2 (1892). Put simply, these western restrictions were irrelevant to more than 99% of the American population. We have already explained that we will not stake our interpretation of the Second Amendment upon a law in effect in a single State, or a single city, “that contradicts the overwhelming weight of other evidence regarding the right to keep and bear arms” in public for self-defense. Heller, 554 U. S., at 632; see supra, at 57–58. Similarly, we will not stake our interpretation on a handful of temporary territorial laws that were enacted nearly a century after the Second Amendment’s adoption, governed less than 1% of the American population, and also “contradic[t] the overwhelming weight” of  other, more contemporaneous historical evidence. Heller, 554 U. S., at 632.

 Second, because these territorial laws were rarely subject to judicial scrutiny, we do not know the basis of their perceived legality. When States generally prohibited both open and concealed carry of handguns in the late-19th century, state courts usually upheld the restrictions when they exempted army revolvers, or read the laws to exempt at least that category of weapons. See, e.g., Haile v. State, 38 Ark. 564, 567 (1882); Wilson v. State, 33 Ark. 557, 560 (1878); Fife v. State, 31 Ark. 455, 461 (1876); State v. Wilburn, 66 Tenn. 57, 60 (1872); Andrews, 50 Tenn., at 187.³⁰ Those state courts that upheld broader prohibitions without qualification generally operated under a fundamental misunderstanding of the right to bear arms, as expressed in Heller. For example, the Kansas Supreme Court upheld a complete ban on public carry enacted by the city of Salina in 1901 based on the rationale that the Second Amendment protects only “the right to bear arms as a member of the state militia, or some other military organization provided for by law.” Salina v. Blaksley, 72 Kan. 230, 232, 83 P. 619, 620 (1905). That was clearly erroneous. See Heller, 554 U. S., at 592.

 Absent any evidence explaining why these unprecedented prohibitions on all public carry were understood to comport with the Second Amendment, we fail to see how they inform “the origins and continuing significance of the Amendment.” Id., at 614; see also The Federalist No. 37,  at 229 (explaining that the meaning of ambiguous constitutional provisions can be “liquidated and ascertained by a series of particular discussions and adjudications” (emphasis added)).

 Finally, these territorial restrictions deserve little weight because they were—consistent with the transitory nature of territorial government—short lived. Some were held unconstitutional shortly after passage. See In re Brickey, 8 Idaho 597, 70 P. 609 (1902). Others did not survive a Territory’s admission to the Union as a State. See Wyo. Rev. Stat., ch. 3, §5051 (1899) (1890 law enacted upon statehood prohibiting public carry only when combined with “intent, or avowed purpose, of injuring [one’s] fellow-man”). Thus, they appear more as passing regulatory efforts by not-yet-mature jurisdictions on the way to statehood, rather than part of an enduring American tradition of state regulation.

 Beyond these Territories, respondents identify one Western State—Kansas—that instructed cities with more than 15,000 inhabitants to pass ordinances prohibiting the public carry of firearms. See 1881 Kan. Sess. Laws §§1, 23, pp. 79, 92.³¹ By 1890, the only cities meeting the population threshold were Kansas City, Topeka, and Wichita. See Compendium of the Eleventh Census: 1890, at 442–452. Even if each of these three cities enacted prohibitions by 1890, their combined population (93,000) accounted for only 6.5% of Kansas’ total population. Ibid. Although other Kansas cities may also have restricted public carry unilaterally,³² the lone late-19th-century state law respondents  identify does not prove that Kansas meaningfully restricted public carry, let alone demonstrate a broad tradition of States doing so.

*  *  *

 At the end of this long journey through the Anglo-American history of public carry, we conclude that respondents have not met their burden to identify an American tradition justifying the State’s proper-cause requirement. The Second Amendment guaranteed to “all Americans” the right to bear commonly used arms in public subject to certain reasonable, well-defined restrictions. Heller, 554 U. S., at 581. Those restrictions, for example, limited the intent for which one could carry arms, the manner by which one carried arms, or the exceptional circumstances under which one could not carry arms, such as before justices of the peace and other government officials. Apart from a few late-19th-century outlier jurisdictions, American governments simply have not broadly prohibited the public carry of commonly used firearms for personal defense. Nor, subject to a few late-in-time outliers, have American governments 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. Klenosky, 75 App. Div., at 793, 428 N. Y. S. 2d, at 257.

IV

 The constitutional right to bear arms in public for self-defense is not “a second-class right, subject to an entirely different body of rules than the other Bill of Rights guarantees.” McDonald, 561 U. S., at 780 (plurality opinion). We know of no other constitutional right that an individual may exercise only after demonstrating to government offic ers some special need. That is not how the First Amendment works when it comes to unpopular speech or the free exercise of religion. It is not how the Sixth Amendment works when it comes to a defendant’s right to confront the witnesses against him. And it is not how the Second Amendment works when it comes to public carry for self-defense.

 New York’s proper-cause requirement violates the Fourteenth Amendment in that it prevents law-abiding citizens with ordinary self-defense needs from exercising their right to keep and bear arms. We therefore reverse the judgment of the Court of Appeals and remand the case for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.

It is so ordered.