Reading the Alito concurring opinion this morning....
I would summarize (my words) Alitos rebuttal to Bryer as follows.... "The arguments you make in your dissent are stupid, you dummy head."
Plenty of things still to worry about... The Antis will be dissecting this for opportunity.
And from Kavanaugh (with Roberts joining)..... p80Our holding decides nothing about who may lawfully possess a firearm or the requirements that must be met to buy a gun. Nor does it decide anything about the kinds of weapons that people may possess. Nor have we disturbed anything that we said in Heller or McDonald v. Chicago, 561 U. S. 742 (2010), about restrictions that may be imposed on the possession or carrying of guns.
Barretts' concurring opinion primarily highlights what historical practice is, may be, or is not relevant to interpretation of Constitutional Rights... IMO, her opinion is weighty, informative and sets a clear standard for lower courts to follow. 2 pages worth a read, starting on p82.Going forward, therefore, the 43 States that employ objective shall-issue licensing regimes for carrying handguns for self-defense may continue to do so. Likewise, the 6 States including New York potentially affected by today’s decision may continue to require licenses for carrying handguns for self-defense so long as those States employ objective licensing requirements like those used by the 43 shall-issue States.
So today’s decision should not be understood to endorse freewheeling reliance on historical practice from the mid-to-late 19th century to establish the original meaning of the Bill of Rights. On the contrary, the Court is careful to caution “against giving post enactment history more weight than it can rightly bear.”
Bryers dissent starts with a lot of Democrat fear mongering.... setting that aside.... Bryer argues that since there has been no evidentiary hearing proving that "discretion" of license officials has been abused then the Court is out of order on deciding that NY is denying Rights to license applicants. He also argues that the 7 may-issue states are not outliers because they represent a much greater percentage of the population than 7/50ths. He also claims that Heller did not reject means-end scrutiny and claims that Judges, Quoting here.... "understand well how to weigh a law’s objectives (its“ends”) against the methods used to achieve those objectives (its “means”). Judges are far less accustomed to resolving difficult historical questions. Courts are, after all, staffed by lawyers, not historians.".... He goes on to worry about whether courts are adequately staffed to evaluate historical questions on every 2A case. Bryer goes on to give lots of examples of regulating arms from England through 20th Century. If you read Thomas, you've read the rebuttal to all of that....