What You Need To Know About The Big Gun Rights Case The Supreme Court Just Took

On Monday, the Supreme Court agreed to hear an appeal by two petitioners challenging New York’s denial of their applications for concealed-carry firearm licenses. The case, New York State Rifle & Pistol Association, Inc. v. Corlett, represents the first time in more than a decade that the high court will hear a Second Amendment case. Here’s your lawsplainer for the case—and Second Amendment jurisprudence.

The Second Amendment provides: “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.” In 2008, in District of Columbia v. Heller, the Supreme Court held the Second Amendment protects “the individual right to possess and carry weapons in case of confrontation.” The Heller decision further held that an individual’s right exists regardless of his service in a militia, reasoning that the “militia” clause served as a prefatory clause, explaining the purpose of the protection contained in the operative clause, but not limiting the individual right.

The court in Heller reached these conclusions after a detailed examination of the origins of the Second Amendment: “Heller explored the right’s origins, noting that the 1689 English Bill of Rights explicitly protected a right to keep arms for self-defense, and that by 1765, [William] Blackstone was able to assert that the right to keep and bear arms was ‘one of the fundamental rights of Englishmen.’”