I guess we should consider ourselves lucky that automobiles were not invented until the late 1800s and did not come into regular use in this country until the early 20th Century, otherwise the Supreme Court would be busy doing away with requirements for driver's licenses, auto registrations, and environmental regulations on exhaust emissions and gas mileage.
At least that would be true if the reasoning used by Justice Clarence Thomas in his decision in a landmark Second Amendment case was applied to cars, that any regulations of guns in this country must be "consistent with the Nation's historical tradition of firearm regulation." In the case, New York State Rifle & Pistol Association, Inc. v. Bruen, New York state held that a citizen must show a need to carry a firearm in order to obtain a firearms license. The Bruen decision, handed down last year, overturned the law, saying essentially that because at the time of the writing of the Second Amendment there were no laws requiring the licensing of firearms, no law could require such a license now.
