Replies

I haven’t read everything about this decision, but in all I’ve seen there’s no mention of open/concealed carry.
When SCOTUS refers to carrying, which one are they talking about? Because, speaking of two-step processes, in some states you can open carry but you need a special permission for concealed.

“When SCOTUS refers to carrying, which one are they talking about?”

Both, actually. Basically the decision says that a State can not create a regulatory scheme that ends up denying a law abiding citizen their right to carry a firearm for personal defense. “May issue” systems across the country have been declared un-Constitutional.

If a State wishes to allow open carry they are free to do so. If they wish to ban it they are free to do so. If they wish to have a straightforward licensing scheme they can do that, too. But that scheme can not have the effect of allowing some government official to decide who does or does not have “good cause” to exercise a fundamental Constitutional right.

Go read the decision for yourself. Thomas’s in particular.

I haven’t read everything about this decision, but in all I’ve seen there’s no mention of open/concealed carry.

The decision only strikes down the New York Sullivan law, especially the "good cause" provision.

The meat, though is in the process Clarence Thomas and the decision set up on how to decide what is protected, and what is not.

All kinds of carry was protected at the ratification in 1791, both open and concealed. But by 1868, after the Barron decision where the Supreme Court ruled the Bill of Rights did not apply to the states, a few states were banning concealed carry.

Therefore, a case can be made that concealed carry may be banned if open carry is allowed, when the Fourteenth Amendment was ratified in 1868. I think it is a weak case, but it can be made.

There is still much restoration of the right to keep and bear arms to come. The court is reluctant to make big jumps.

I am working on an article about the right to be armed while traveling.

Many laws restricting carry made exceptions for when people were traveling. The current system, where states ban people who are traveling (from other states) from carrying, concealed or openly, would never have been accepted in either 1791 or 1868.