The Myth of Continuity in American Gun Culture

The Supreme Court’s 2022 decision in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen elevated history, text, and tradition as the sole criteria for assessing the constitutionality of firearms restrictions. Gun rights advocates have responded to Bruen with a wave of Second Amendment challenges, most employing a three-part argument: (1) X firearms-related issue has existed since the Founding; (2) the Founders did little or nothing about it; and, therefore, (3) we cannot do anything about it, either. Legal scholars are engaged in critical work on parts (2) and (3) of that argument. As a professional historian involved in several ongoing Second Amendment cases, I have the disciplinary expertise to offer a critique of part (1). This Article explains why the argument for continuity in American gun culture is largely a myth and offers a case study of the role that historical research can play in Second Amendment cases in the Bruen era.