From Mark Joseph Stern of Slate:

The Supreme Court’s fourth and final opinion of the day is in Bruen. In a 6–3 opinion, [Clarence] Thomas writes that New York’s strict limits on the concealed carry of firearms in public violates the Second Amendment.

Thomas’ opinion for the court dramatically expands the scope of the Second Amendment, blasting past ostensible restrictions laid out in Heller to establish a new test that will render many, many more gun control laws unconstitutional.

Before today, about 83 million people—about one in every four Americans—lived in a state that strictly limited concealed carry to those who had a heightened need for self-defense. Now, zero people live in such a state.

Thomas’ opinion for the court suggests that judges may NOT consider empirical evidence about the dangers posed by firearms when evaluating gun control laws. They may only ask whether a modern regulation has some analogue that is rooted in American history.

It’s difficult to overstate how devastating Thomas’ opinion is for gun control laws. This goes so, so far beyond concealed carry. The Supreme Court has effectively rendered gun restrictions presumptively unconstitutional. This is a revolution in Second Amendment law.

From Paul Waldman of The Washington Post:

Just getting started reading the gun decision, but every sentence so far makes clear what a joke and a scam “originalism” is. It continues to amaze me that anyone takes it seriously.

It’s just one assertion after another about how what people thought in 1790 is sacrosanct, except when it isn’t, but also here’s a novel way to think about 1790, but also that doesn’t matter either. It’s Calvinball as legal reasoning. The bad faith is just incredible.

[Note: Calvinball is a game invented by Calvin and Hobbes. Calvinball has no rules; the players make up their own rules as they go along.]

From yours truly and Matt from the UK:

Isn’t the entire problem here that you’re paralysed by your constitution, because it makes the question into exegesis of this supposedly infallible document, rather than actually analysing the problem and considering what to do about it?

Excellent point. We are paralyzed by a document that’s 230 years old and difficult to amend. But we are also paralyzed by right-wing judges (i.e. politicians) who use this vague notion of “originalism” (what the founders intended) to justify their contemporary political beliefs.

Yes, but then ‘originalism’ is possible because of the written form. Without one, my country has no equivalent paralysis. Plenty of our own constitutional problems, of course, but they don’t really result in regular spree killings in schools.

Yes, having a written constitution is clearly a constraint, being old & difficult to amend adds to that basic constraint, and having a Supreme Court with too much power & too many political hacks issuing dictates makes it even worse. (My answer assumes there can be degrees of paralysis.)