Somewhere in Queens, Bernie Goetz is smiling: Disregarding half of the Second Amendment, contrary history and common sense, the United States Supreme Court struck down a century-old New York statute that requires "proper cause" to issue a permit to carry a handgun in public. In the name of self-defense, the court has done the indefensible and turned America's fourth largest state, and its most populous city, into a free-fire zone.

New York State Rifle & Pistol Ass'n, Inc. v. Bruen is the latest—and most dangerous—chapter in one of the most unlikely success stories in the history of constitutional litigation. A few decades ago, the notion that states could not restrict gun ownership or possession, or that a handful of unelected judges could override the choice of legislatures to enact such restrictions, would have been laughed out of court.