How the Supreme Court has voted on guns and the Second Amendment.
Each ruling shows the vote, which justices joined each side, and a link to the opinion.
United States v. Cruikshank
MajorityQuestion: Whether the federal indictment could stand on charges that the defendants conspired to deprive citizens of rights including the right to bear arms.
Ruling: The Court held that the right to bear arms is not granted by the Constitution and that the Second Amendment restricts only Congress, and the judgment against the defendants was arrested.
Decided in the October 1875 term. Justice Clifford wrote separately, agreeing the indictment failed on other grounds.
Presser v. Illinois
No dissentQuestion: Whether an Illinois law barring unauthorized armed groups from drilling or parading violated the Second Amendment.
Ruling: The Court held that the Second Amendment limits only Congress and the national government, not the states, and upheld the Illinois law.
No dissent was recorded.
Miller v. Texas
No dissentQuestion: Whether a Texas weapons-carrying law, applied in a state murder prosecution, violated the Second and Fourth Amendments.
Ruling: The Court dismissed the writ of error because no federal question was properly raised in the state courts, noting that those amendments do not apply to proceedings in state courts.
No dissent was recorded.
United States v. Miller
8-0Question: Whether the National Firearms Act, as applied to an unregistered short-barreled shotgun, violated the Second Amendment.
Ruling: The Court reversed the ruling that the Act was unconstitutional, holding that without evidence a short-barreled shotgun relates to a well regulated militia it could not say the Second Amendment protects it.
No dissent. Justice Douglas took no part.
Lewis v. United States
6-3Question: Whether a felon may be convicted of possessing a firearm when the prior felony conviction may be open to challenge because the defendant had no lawyer.
Ruling: The Court held that the prior conviction supports the federal firearm-possession charge until it is set aside, and that the law is rational under the Fifth Amendment.
United States v. Thompson/Center Arms Co.
5-4Question: Whether packaging a pistol with a kit that can convert it into a short-barreled or a long-barreled rifle counts as making a short-barreled rifle under the National Firearms Act.
Ruling: The Court held that the statute is ambiguous on this point, applied the rule of lenity, and ruled that the package was not a short-barreled rifle.
Plurality: Souter announced the judgment, joined by Rehnquist and O'Connor. Scalia, joined by Thomas, concurred in the judgment. Stevens also filed a separate dissent.
Staples v. United States
7-2Question: Whether the National Firearms Act requires the government to prove a defendant knew his rifle had the features that made it a machinegun.
Ruling: The Court held that the government must prove that knowledge, and reversed the conviction.
Ginsburg, joined by O'Connor, concurred in the judgment.
United States v. Lopez
5-4Question: Whether the Gun-Free School Zones Act of 1990 was a valid use of Congress's Commerce Clause power.
Ruling: The Court held that the Act exceeded Congress's Commerce Clause power and affirmed the reversal of the conviction.
Decided on Commerce Clause grounds, not the Second Amendment. Kennedy (joined by O'Connor) and Thomas concurred. Stevens and Souter dissented separately; Breyer dissented, joined by Stevens, Souter and Ginsburg.
Printz v. United States
5-4Question: Whether the Brady Act could require local chief law enforcement officers to run background checks on handgun buyers.
Ruling: The Court held that the federal government cannot compel state and local officers to carry out a federal program, and struck the background-check requirement.
Decided on Tenth Amendment and federalism grounds. O'Connor and Thomas concurred. Separate dissents by Souter and by Breyer (joined by Stevens).
District of Columbia v. Heller
5-4Question: Whether the District of Columbia's ban on handgun possession in the home and its trigger-lock rule violated the Second Amendment.
Ruling: The Court held that the Second Amendment protects an individual right to keep and bear arms and struck the handgun ban and the rule that home firearms be kept inoperable.
Two dissents: Stevens and Breyer, each joined by the other three dissenters.
United States v. Hayes
7-2Question: Whether the domestic relationship must be an element of the earlier misdemeanor for the 18 U.S.C. 922(g)(9) firearm ban to apply.
Ruling: The Court held that it need not be an element of the earlier offense, though the relationship must be proven in the firearm case.
Thomas joined all but Part III.
McDonald v. City of Chicago
5-4Question: Whether the Second Amendment right recognized in Heller applies to state and local governments.
Ruling: The Court held that the Fourteenth Amendment makes the Second Amendment right binding on state and local governments.
Thomas joined only parts of the Alito opinion and concurred in the judgment, relying on the Privileges or Immunities Clause. Scalia concurred. Stevens dissented alone; Breyer dissented, joined by Ginsburg and Sotomayor.
United States v. Castleman
9-0Question: Whether a conviction for knowingly or intentionally causing bodily injury to the mother of one's child is a misdemeanor crime of domestic violence under 18 U.S.C. 922(g)(9).
Ruling: The Court held that it is, so the federal firearm ban applies.
Scalia concurred in part and in the judgment. Alito, joined by Thomas, concurred in the judgment.
Abramski v. United States
5-4Question: Whether a buyer's false statement that he is the actual purchaser of a gun is material when the true buyer could legally own one.
Ruling: The Court held that the false statement is material under 18 U.S.C. 922(a)(6) and affirmed the conviction.
Caetano v. Massachusetts
8-0Question: Whether Massachusetts courts properly upheld a ban on stun guns on the grounds that they did not exist at the founding and are not useful in warfare.
Ruling: The Court vacated the decision, holding that the reasoning conflicted with Heller, and returned the case to the state court.
Unsigned opinion with no dissent, decided by an eight-member Court. Alito, joined by Thomas, concurred in the judgment.
Voisine v. United States
6-2Question: Whether a misdemeanor assault conviction for reckless conduct triggers the federal firearm ban for domestic violence misdemeanants.
Ruling: The Court held that a reckless domestic assault qualifies under 18 U.S.C. 922(g)(9).
Sotomayor joined Parts I and II of the Thomas dissent. Eight justices sat.
Rehaif v. United States
7-2Question: Whether the government must prove a defendant knew he belonged to a category of persons barred from possessing firearms.
Ruling: The Court held that the government must prove the defendant knew both that he possessed a firearm and that he belonged to the barred category.
New York State Rifle & Pistol Ass'n v. City of New York
6-3Question: Whether a challenge to New York City's rule on transporting licensed handguns remained live after the City and State changed the law.
Ruling: The Court held that the challenge to the old rule was moot, vacated the lower court judgment, and sent the case back.
Unsigned opinion. Kavanaugh concurred. Alito dissented, joined by Gorsuch and in part by Thomas.
New York State Rifle & Pistol Ass'n v. Bruen
6-3Question: Whether New York's requirement that applicants show proper cause to obtain an unrestricted public-carry license violated the Second Amendment.
Ruling: The Court held that the proper-cause requirement violates the Constitution because it prevents law-abiding citizens with ordinary self-defense needs from carrying arms in public.
Alito, Kavanaugh (joined by Roberts) and Barrett concurred.
Garland v. Cargill
6-3Question: Whether a semiautomatic rifle equipped with a bump stock is a machinegun under federal law.
Ruling: The Court held that it is not, so the ATF exceeded its authority by classifying bump stocks as machineguns.
Alito concurred.
United States v. Rahimi
8-1Question: Whether 18 U.S.C. 922(g)(8), which bars firearm possession by people under certain domestic violence restraining orders, violates the Second Amendment.
Ruling: The Court held that a person found by a court to pose a credible threat to the physical safety of another may be temporarily disarmed consistent with the Second Amendment.
Concurrences by Sotomayor (joined by Kagan), Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, Barrett and Jackson.
Bondi v. VanDerStok
7-2Question: Whether the ATF's 2022 rule covering weapon parts kits and unfinished frames or receivers is facially inconsistent with the Gun Control Act.
Ruling: The Court held that the rule is not facially invalid because at least some parts kits and partially complete frames or receivers fall within the Act.
Argued as Garland v. VanDerStok. Sotomayor, Kavanaugh and Jackson concurred. Thomas and Alito dissented separately.
Smith & Wesson Brands, Inc. v. Estados Unidos Mexicanos
9-0Question: Whether Mexico's lawsuit plausibly alleged that USA gun manufacturers aided and abetted unlawful sales by dealers, so as to fall outside the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act.
Ruling: The Court held that the complaint did not plausibly allege aiding and abetting, so the Act bars the suit.
Unanimous. Thomas and Jackson concurred. The case turned on gun-industry liability under the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act.
United States v. Hemani
9-0Question: Whether prosecuting a marijuana user under 18 U.S.C. 922(g)(3) for possessing a firearm is consistent with the Second Amendment.
Ruling: The Court held, as applied to Hemani, that the prosecution is inconsistent with the Second Amendment because the government's historical analogues did not justify disarming him, and affirmed dismissal of the indictment.
As-applied ruling; facial challenges and other applications not decided. Thomas concurred; Jackson, joined by Sotomayor, concurred; Alito, joined by Kagan, concurred in the judgment only.
Wolford v. Lopez
6-3Question: Whether Hawaii may bar concealed-carry permit holders from carrying handguns on private property open to the public unless the owner gives express permission.
Ruling: The Court held that the default rule in Haw. Rev. Stat. 134-9.5(a) violates the Second and Fourteenth Amendments, and reversed the Ninth Circuit.
Barrett concurred, joined by Thomas and Gorsuch as to Part II-B. Kagan dissented; Jackson dissented, joined by Sotomayor.
M = joined the majority, D = dissented. Cell color shows what the ruling did. Name color shows the party of the appointing President.
| Lewis 1980 | Thompson/ Center 1992 | Staples 1994 | Lopez 1995 | Printz 1997 | Heller 2008 | Hayes 2009 | McDonald 2010 | Castleman 2014 | Abramski 2014 | Caetano 2016 | Voisine 2016 | Rehaif 2019 | NYSRPA v. NYC 2020 | Bruen 2022 | Cargill 2024 | Rahimi 2024 | VanDerStok 2025 | S&W v. Mexico 2025 | Hemani 2026 | Wolford 2026 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Blackmun | M | D | D | ||||||||||||||||||
| Brennan | D | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Burger | M | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Marshall | D | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Powell | D | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Rehnquist | M | M | M | M | M | ||||||||||||||||
| Stevens | M | D | D | D | D | D | M | D | |||||||||||||
| Stewart | M | ||||||||||||||||||||
| White | M | D | |||||||||||||||||||
| Kennedy | D | M | M | M | M | M | M | M | M | M | M | ||||||||||
| O'Connor | M | M | M | M | |||||||||||||||||
| Scalia | M | M | M | M | M | D | M | M | D | ||||||||||||
| Souter | M | M | D | D | D | M | |||||||||||||||
| Thomas | M | M | M | M | M | M | M | M | D | M | D | D | D | M | M | D | D | M | M | M | |
| Ginsburg | M | D | D | D | M | D | M | M | M | M | M | M | |||||||||
| Breyer | D | D | D | M | D | M | M | M | M | M | M | D | |||||||||
| Alito | M | M | M | M | D | M | M | D | D | M | M | M | D | M | M | M | |||||
| Roberts | M | D | M | M | D | M | M | M | M | M | M | M | M | M | M | M | |||||
| Sotomayor | D | M | M | M | D | M | M | D | D | M | M | M | M | D | |||||||
| Kagan | M | M | M | M | M | M | D | D | M | M | M | M | D | ||||||||
| Gorsuch | M | D | M | M | M | M | M | M | M | ||||||||||||
| Kavanaugh | M | M | M | M | M | M | M | M | M | ||||||||||||
| Barrett | M | M | M | M | M | M | M | ||||||||||||||
| Jackson | D | M | M | M | M | D |
Ruling labels describe the outcome for gun owners, not whether the decision was right.
Appointing President shown for context only; justices often split from that party.
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