History plays a prominent role in the briefs on both sides of the New York gun case New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen. Curiously, much of the discussion focuses on medieval English history and the laws and regulations governing armed travel in public from the pre-Civil War era. Few of the briefs discuss the period most relevant to understanding the connections between the Second and the 14th amendments: reconstruction. For challenges to state laws, it is the period around the adoption of the 14th Amendment, the Reconstruction Era, that is most relevant to evaluating the role of history in Second Amendment cases. There are three important facts about this era that the justices need to take cognizance of when deciding this case.

First, the language of state arms-bearing provisions changed dramatically after the Civil War. Founding-era state constitutions were shaped by long-standing fears of standing armies, professional troops and mercenaries. These hireling soldiers had been used by British monarchs to subdue their people, and America's first constitutions expressly affirmed the right to bear arms as a check on this danger. A well-regulated militia, according to this view, was the only reliable check on the danger of military tyranny.