Two crucial Supreme Court rulings in June hinged on history — one on abortion and one on gun rights. The court’s conservative majority applied a nostalgic view of the past to make it harder to limit the right to carry a concealed firearm. Meanwhile, Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. argued in the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization ruling that any right not explicitly mentioned in the Constitution must be “rooted in our Nation’s history and tradition” and claimed that the right to an abortion did not meet this standard.

In both cases however, historians quickly pointed out that the court’s conservatives mangled the history. Justice Elena Kagan and other critics suggested that the conservative justices are playing the role of amateur historians, a job well outside the scope of their duties and training. ...