What a constitutional contest is opened by the remarks of Judge Carlton Reeves of the United States District Court at Jackson, Mississippi. His Honor is complaining that the justices of the Supreme Court want the lower courts to “play historian.” This arises because of Justice Clarence Thomas’s remarks about the Second Amendment, and now Judge Reeves is talking about hiring a historian to fight — so to speak — fire with fire.

In New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen, Justice Thomas signaled that only restrictions “consistent with this Nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation” pass constitutional muster. The justice offered his own historical precis as ballast to the majority’s holding that the Empire State’s permitting regulations on concealed carry were unconstitutionally arduous. We look, the justice instructed, to “history and tradition.”