The Supreme Court upended gun laws nationwide. Mass confusion has followed.
Semiautomatic weapons. Large-capacity magazines. Guns with scratched-off serial numbers. Ghost guns. Guns in bars and restaurants. Guns in the hands of people who have threatened to kill themselves or someone else. Which firearms are legal and who can have them all expanded in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark decision two years ago in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen, which strengthened Second Amendment rights in America and launched hundreds of lawsuits challenging gun restrictions nationwide. This summer, the Supreme Court said it had been misunderstood: Courts were taking too far Bruen’s guidance that gun laws must align with U.S. “history and tradition.” People under domestic violence restraining orders, the justices decreed, could be barred from having guns, allowing a looser interpretation of its decision from two years ago. But on both sides of the gun-control debate, people say the ruling will do little to ease the confusion and disruption unleashed by the high court’s 2022 historical mandate.
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