By: Quinn Yeargain.
In Bruen, the U.S. Supreme Court laid down a new test for evaluating the constitutionality of gun regulations under the Second Amendment, which has unleashed a wave of new lawsuits challenging federal and state regulations alike. For state courts, this adds pressure to the extant state trend of amending their constitutions to incorporate more aggressive protections of the right to keep and bear arms. As the Court tinkers with the Bruen test, advocates seeking a maximalist view of their rights to bear arms seem likely to turn to state courts to maximize the confluence of their state and federal protections. In this Article, I lay out the development of gun rights in state constitutions and argue that state courts and constitutions may emerge as new flash points in legal battles.