The full U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit convened en banc on February 11, 2026, to hear argument in Koons v. Platkin, No. 23-1900, and Siegel v. Platkin, No. 23-2043 — consolidated challenges to New Jersey’s P.L. 2022, c.131, the post-Bruen overhaul that created roughly two dozen “sensitive place” gun-free zones. All fifteen judges, with Chief Judge Michael Chagares presiding, are now deciding a question the Supreme Court left open in New York State Rifle & Pistol Ass’n, Inc. v. Bruen, 597 U.S. 1 (2022): what makes a location a “sensitive place” where the government can strip a licensed carrier of the right to bear arms?
My answer: comprehensive, government-provided security — armed guards, metal detectors, and controlled points of entry. That is the only principle consistent with history, and it is the only one with a limiting principle.
What Bruen Actually Said — and Didn’t Say
Bruen named three historical sensitive places drawn from the founding era: legislative chambers, courthouses, and polling places. The Court was explicit that it was not comprehensively defining the doctrine, but it was equally explicit that New York could not use the concept to swallow the rule. As the majority put it, there is “no historical basis for New York to effectively declare the island of Manhattan a sensitive place simply because it is crowded and protected generally by the New York City Police Department.”
That passage does a lot of work. Population density, ubiquitous police presence, and congregation of people — including children — are not enough. Bruen also reaffirmed that the Second Amendment applies in urban areas. At the Boston Massacre trial in 1770, John Adams argued that Boston colonists had every right to bear arms at the Custom House on King Street, provided they did so peacefully and for self-defense. The founding-era principle has never been “cities are sensitive places.”
The Comprehensive-Security Test
I have argued in detail in my article, “Dangerous, but not Unusual: Mistakes Commonly Made by Courts in Post-Bruen Litigation,” Georgetown Journal of Law & Public Policy, Vol. 22, No. 2 (October 30, 2024), that every place identified by the founding generation as a legitimate gun-free zone had one feature in common: the government substituted its own armed protection for the individual’s right to self-defense.
Legislative chambers had a sergeant-at-arms. Courthouses had bailiffs and, from the day the federal judiciary was created under the Judiciary Act of 1789, the United States Marshals Service — the oldest federal law enforcement agency — was expressly designed to protect the ongoing business of the courts. Polling places in the 18th century were monitored by sheriffs and their deputies. None of those locations simply posted a sign and hoped for the best.
Historian Angus Kirk McClellan’s hundred-page compendium, “The Second Amendment, Sensitive Places, and Comprehensive Government Security” (SSRN, 2026), documents exactly this pattern. The government’s authority to create a location-specific exception to the right to bear arms is contingent on replacing that protection with its own security apparatus — armed guards, metal detectors, limited and monitored ingress and egress. That is what TSA does. That is what every federal courthouse does.
The principle also tracks the Enlightenment philosophy the Founders embraced. Cesare Beccaria, the 18th-century Italian criminologist whose On Crimes and Punishments (1764) was praised by both Thomas Jefferson and John Adams, argued that disarming law-abiding citizens benefits only criminals. A gun-free zone without a security apparatus does exactly what Beccaria warned against.
Why the Alternative Theories Fail
At oral argument, the Third Circuit was presented with several alternative frameworks for defining sensitive places. None of them hold up.
Core government function. If any location performing a “core government function” can ban carry, there is no limiting principle. City councils, school board meetings, the DMV, the post office — all government functions. Bruen is unambiguous that sensitive-place exceptions must be narrow.
Vulnerable people. If vulnerability alone justifies a gun ban, Manhattan can be declared a gun-free zone. Bruen already rejected that. And the actual founding-era response to vulnerable locations — churches threatened by attack, for instance — was to require congregants to bring firearms, not to post “no guns” signs.
Public congregation. Bruen disposed of this directly. Large gatherings of people are not sensitive places.
Co-location with other rights. Some jurisdictions argue that wherever First Amendment activity is occurring, the government may ban firearms. That has it backwards. The Bill of Rights was ratified as a package; the Second Amendment stands on equal footing with the First. John Adams said exactly this at the Boston Massacre trial: colonists demonstrating outside the Custom House had every right to bear arms peaceably. The co-location of speech and arms does not cancel either right.
Judge Matey’s Signal
Circuit Judge Paul Brian Matey, a Trump-appointed textualist and originalist whom I know from our shared panel at the Federalist Society’s 2025 National Lawyers Convention, cut to the core issue during argument. He questioned whether “sensitive places” as used in Heller and Bruen was ever meant to create a broad doctrine at all, noting that the phrase “has never been defined” and suggesting that the most coherent meaning is “places where government provided comprehensive security.” Courthouses and military bases were his examples.
That is exactly right. The doctrine is narrow by design, and Judge Matey’s framing tracks the historical record precisely.
The Stakes for New Jersey — and the Country
New Jersey’s P.L. 2022, c.131 runs far beyond the three founding-era sensitive places Bruen identified. Libraries, zoos, hospitals, casinos, rest stops — none operate with the comprehensive security apparatus the historical record demands. If the Third Circuit applies the correct test, most of those designations fail. If it invents a broader doctrine untethered from history, it exempts urban New Jersey from the Second Amendment — exactly what Bruen forbids.
The fifteen judges in Philadelphia have what they need to get this right. The history is clear. I’ll be watching.
This article is based on analysis by Professor Mark W. Smith, constitutional attorney and Host of the Four Boxes Diner 2nd Amendment channel. Watch the original video here. This does not constitute legal advice.