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Second Amendment Roundup: How a Fake Citation Misled Courts to Uphold "Sensitive Place" Gun Bans

The Second Circuit’s Misunderstanding of Founding-Era Law on Going Armed

Stephen Halbrook | 5.5.2026 9:59 PM

My article with the above title has now been published online by the Journal of Law & Civil Governance at Texas A&M.  The following is the Abstract:

This article concerns how a fake citation has misled courts to uphold "sensitive place" gun bans. New York State Rifle & Pistol Ass'n v. Bruen held that the Second Amendment presumptively protects conduct covered by its plain text. A state must justify its restriction by showing it to be consistent with America's historical tradition of firearm regulation. The original public understanding at the Founding is key to that question.

Post-Bruen, courts have sought to uphold restrictions that ban firearms in various "sensitive places" based on a misunderstanding of the Founding-era offense of going armed in a manner that terrorized the public.  Antonyuk v. James upheld New York's place restrictions based on its claim that Founding-era Virginia and North Carolina laws banned going armed per se in fairs and markets. However, it conceded that Virginia only prohibited going armed "in terror of the Country," but maintained that North Carolina had no such element of the offense, adding that place restrictions in the late 19th century followed the North Carolina model. That historical tradition of regulation, the Second Circuit held, justifies New York's current........

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