State v. Reid’s Empirical Analysis
1840
Citation profile
10 federal appellate · 1 district · 25 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 51 later decisions (5 by the Supreme Court) — most recently October 2025 · most notably District of Columbia v. Heller (2008), McDonald v. City of Chicago (2010)
10 federal appellate · 1 district · 25 state decisions — followed in 13 states
Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.
Most-quoted passages
The sentences later courts lift from this opinion, ranked by how many decisions quote each — the parts of the opinion doing the work. These counts are smaller than the citation total above because most of the 51 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“[A] law which is intended merely to promote personal security, and to put down lawless aggression and violence, and to that end inhibits the wearing of certain weapons, in such a manner as is calculated to exert an unhappy influence upon the moral feelings of the wearer, by making him less regardful of the personal security of others, does not come in collision with the constitution.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage“When, therefore, Parliament says that “subjects which are Protestants may have arms for their defence, suitable to their condition, as allowed by law,” it does not mean for private defence, but, being armed, they may as a body rise up to defend their just rights, and compel their rulers to respect the laws.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage“The evil which was intended to be remedied [by the English Bill of Rights] was a denial of the right of Protestants to have arms for their defence, and not an inhibition to wear them secretly.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage
How this case has been treated — in progress
Whether each later court followed, distinguished, criticized, or overruled this decision. The treatment classification (task #35) runs highest-cited cases first and lights up here as it reaches this one.