The Supreme Court’s Bruen decision in 2020 was a seismic shift for Second Amendment rights, ditching the fuzzy interest-balancing tests that lower courts had twisted into pretzels to uphold gun control schemes. Instead, Justice Thomas laid down a crystal-clear rule: firearm regulations must align with our nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation at the time of the Founding or Reconstruction. It’s a masterstroke that neutered much of the post-Heller sophistry, forcing judges to grapple with actual history rather than their policy preferences. But here’s the rub—Bruen stopped short of a nationwide floor for carry rights, leaving a patchwork of state-level chaos where may-issue permitting lingers in places like California and New York, doled out like party favors to the politically connected.

Expanding Bruen isn’t just a wishlist item; it’s a constitutional imperative to fulfill the promise of an individual right to keep and bear arms for self-defense, wherever life takes you. Imagine a trucker from Texas rolling into Jersey only to become a felon for his holstered sidearm— that’s the dystopian reality Bruen hinted at fixing but didn’t fully deliver. The implications for the 2A community are massive: a true expansion could vaporize discretionary permitting, assault weapon bans, and red-flag laws masquerading as safety measures, all without historical analogs. Post-Bruen wins like the Fifth Circuit’s strike-down of bump stock bans show the momentum, but without SCOTUS doubling down—perhaps via cert on cases like Rahimi or Bianchi—we risk lower courts slow-walking history back into the shadows.

Gun owners, this is our Alamo moment. Rally behind amicus briefs, support test-case plaintiffs, and keep the pressure on. Bruen was the opening salvo; expansion is the knockout punch that cements the Second Amendment as a robust shield, not a polite suggestion. The Founders didn’t ratify a regional right—they enshrined a national bulwark against tyranny. Time for the Court to make it so.