(Originally published by Bloomberg Law on June 24, 2022) 

The US Supreme Court has produced the sea change in constitutional law that many expected since the hasty confirmation of Justice Amy Coney Barrett in the wake of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s death. Most immediately, the Supreme Court overturned the constitutional right to choose an abortion pronounced in 1973 in Roe v. Wade. In the longer term, the court’s decisions transform how we should expect it to understand constitutional rights going forward. And the news is not good.

In both its decision striking down New York State’s gun licensing regime as a violation of the Second Amendment right to bear arms and in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the abortion case overturning Roe, the high court tightly tethered the availability of a right to a historical analysis.

(Continue reading the opinion essay on Bloomberg Law’s page here.)