What is the Second Amendment?
The Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, ratified December 15, 1791 as part of the Bill of Rights, states: '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.' The Supreme Court held in District of Columbia v. Heller (2008) that the Second Amendment protects an individual right to possess firearms for traditionally lawful purposes, such as self-defense within the home. McDonald v. City of Chicago (2010) extended that right to state and local governments. New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen (2022) established that gun regulations must be consistent with the nation's historical tradition of firearm regulation. Gun policy -- background checks, red flag laws, and assault-weapon restrictions -- is a major issue in the 2028 presidential race.
The Second Amendment reads in full: '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.' It was ratified on December 15, 1791, as one of the ten amendments that together form the Bill of Rights -- the same day the First through Tenth Amendments all took effect. The amendment's prefatory clause ('A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State') and its operative clause ('the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed') generated a long-running interpretive dispute about whether the protected right was individual or tied to militia service. The Supreme Court resolved that dispute in District of Columbia v. Heller (2008).
District of Columbia v. Heller, 554 U.S. 570 (2008), is the controlling precedent establishing the individual right to keep and bear arms. The case arose from two District of Columbia laws: a provision effectively prohibiting most residents from registering a handgun and a separate requirement that lawfully owned firearms kept in the home be stored unloaded and disassembled or fitted with a trigger lock. The Court held 5-4, with Justice Scalia writing for the majority (joined by Roberts, Kennedy, Thomas, and Alito), that the Second Amendment protects an individual right to possess firearms for traditionally lawful purposes -- including self-defense within the home -- independent of any connection to militia service. Both the handgun ban and the trigger-lock requirement were struck down. The majority also specified that the right is not unlimited: the Court listed as 'presumptively lawful' regulatory measures including prohibitions on firearm possession by felons and the mentally ill, laws forbidding firearms in sensitive places such as schools and government buildings, laws imposing conditions and qualifications on commercial sale of arms, and prohibitions on carrying dangerous and unusual weapons.
McDonald v. City of Chicago, 561 U.S. 742 (2010), extended the Heller right to state and local governments. Chicago had enacted a near-total handgun ban in 1982. Because Heller addressed a federal enclave (the District of Columbia is under federal jurisdiction), the question remained whether the Second Amendment constrained state and local action. The Court held 5-4 that it does. A plurality of four Justices (Alito, Roberts, Scalia, Kennedy) held the Second Amendment is incorporated against the states through the Due Process Clause of the 14th Amendment; Justice Thomas concurred in the judgment but would have relied instead on the Privileges or Immunities Clause of the 14th Amendment. The Chicago handgun ban was struck down. After McDonald, any state or local gun regulation -- in all 50 states -- is subject to Second Amendment scrutiny.
New York State Rifle & Pistol Association, Inc. v. Bruen, 597 U.S. 1 (2022), reset the legal standard for evaluating Second Amendment challenges. New York's licensing law required applicants for a permit to carry a handgun in public to demonstrate 'proper cause' -- a particularized need for self-defense beyond the general desire for personal protection. The Court struck down that requirement 6-3, with Justice Thomas writing for the majority (joined by Roberts, Alito, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, and Barrett). The decision also replaced the means-ends interest-balancing test that many lower courts had applied after Heller with a new text-and-history test: when the government seeks to defend a firearm regulation against a Second Amendment challenge, it must demonstrate that the regulation is consistent with the nation's historical tradition of firearm regulation -- that is, it must point to a historical analogue from around 1791 (when the Second Amendment was ratified) or, for regulations of newly prevalent societal concerns, from the broader historical period including 1868 (when the 14th Amendment was ratified). If the government cannot identify a historical analogue, the regulation fails. Post-Bruen litigation has produced conflicting lower-court rulings on restrictions ranging from bump stocks and large-capacity magazines to possession prohibitions for persons subject to domestic violence restraining orders and for persons convicted of nonviolent felonies -- questions that will likely reach the Supreme Court in the years leading up to and after the 2028 election.
Related: What is the First Amendment? (free speech, press, and religion -- the other Bill of Rights guarantees with the most direct election bearing) | What is the 3rd Amendment? (the Third Amendment immediately follows the Second in the Bill of Rights sequence; together the Second and Third Amendments address the Founders' concerns about standing armies -- the Second through individual arms-bearing, the Third through the quartering bar) | What is the 14th Amendment? (due process and equal protection -- used to incorporate the Second Amendment against the states in McDonald v. City of Chicago) | Who can run for president in 2028? | What is the 2028 election about? | When is the 2028 election? | How has the Supreme Court interpreted the Second Amendment? Heller, Bruen, and the historical tradition test (deeper dive into the two-clause structure of Heller, McDonald's incorporation, Bruen's replacement of means-ends balancing with the text-and-history standard, Rahimi (2024), and post-Bruen circuit splits over felon-in-possession, magazine limits, and assault weapons)
Related questions
Does the Second Amendment protect an individual right to own a gun?
What is the Bruen test for gun regulations?
What gun regulations does the Second Amendment permit?
Can Congress ban assault weapons under the Second Amendment?
How does the Second Amendment affect the 2028 presidential race?
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Related explainers
The First Amendment prohibits Congress from making any law that abridges freedom of speech, the press, peaceful assembly, or the right to petition the government. Ratified December 15, 1791, as part of the Bill of Rights, it also bars laws that establish a religion or prohibit its free exercise. The Supreme Court has held that political speech -- including campaign spending -- receives the highest First Amendment protection, directly shaping every presidential election, including 2028.
The Third Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, ratified December 15, 1791 as part of the Bill of Rights, reads: 'No Soldier shall, in time of peace be quartered in any house, without the consent of the Owner, nor in time of war, but in a manner to be prescribed by law.' The Amendment was a direct response to the British Quartering Acts of 1765 and 1774, which required American colonists to house and supply British troops. It is the least-litigated provision of the Bill of Rights -- no Supreme Court case has ever decided a dispute primarily on Third Amendment grounds. The Second Circuit held in Engblom v. Carey, 677 F.2d 957 (2d Cir. 1982), that the Third Amendment is incorporated against the states through the Fourteenth Amendment's Due Process Clause. In Griswold v. Connecticut, 381 U.S. 479 (1965), Justice William O. Douglas cited the Third Amendment alongside the First, Fourth, Fifth, and Ninth Amendments as amendments whose 'penumbras' together protect a broader constitutional right of privacy -- the theoretical basis for striking Connecticut's contraceptive ban. For the 2028 election, the Third Amendment's structural principle -- that the government may not commandeer private homes without consent -- informs broader civil-liberties debates about government intrusion into private life.
The 14th Amendment (ratified July 9, 1868) established birthright citizenship, equal protection of the laws, and due process protections against state action. Its Section 3 bars from office anyone who swore a constitutional oath and then engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the United States -- but only Congress, not individual states, can enforce Section 3 against federal candidates, as the Supreme Court unanimously held in Trump v. Anderson (March 4, 2024).
Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, 558 U.S. 310 (2010), is the landmark Supreme Court decision holding that the First Amendment prohibits the government from restricting independent political expenditures by corporations, associations, and labor unions. Decided January 21, 2010, by a 5-4 vote, it overruled Austin v. Michigan Chamber of Commerce (1990) and parts of McConnell v. FEC (2003), and is the constitutional foundation for unlimited super PAC spending in every U.S. election, including 2028.
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