Stephens v. State of Georgia

Summary

The court affirmed dismissal of a constitutional challenge by a 20-year-old seeking to carry a handgun in public under Georgia’s weapons-carry licensing statute. It held that the plaintiff failed to show that the statute clearly conflicts with the Georgia Constitution because longstanding Georgia precedent permits reasonable, non-arbitrary regulation of the manner of bearing arms and the plaintiff offered no serious original-public-meaning analysis or alternative construction. The court declined to replace that state-law framework with federal constitutional tests.