In the distressing wake of the recent mass shooting in Maine, the Supreme Court will hear oral arguments next week in U.S. v. Zackey Rahimi, the latest case to test its emerging jurisprudence on gun rights. In these cases, the key text for the justices is, of course, the Constitution’s Second Amendment. Ratified in 1791, it reads in its entirety: “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.”As the court’s conservative majority has made clear, its current interpretation of the amendment depends decisively on its view of the nation’s long history of firearms ownership and regulation. If the most urgent question for ordinary citizens is how these rulings affect their ability to live securely in their homes, schools and public spaces, the narrower question for historians is how well the historical evidence cited by the court holds up. Where those concerns intersect is in the tragic fact that, on this issue of such importance to public safety, the justices are very poor and tendentious historians.

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Persons: Zackey Rahimi Locations: Maine