WASHINGTON — Federal appeals courts were busy this summer trying to make sense of the Supreme Court’s recent Second Amendment decisions. It has not gone well. In 2022, Justice Clarence Thomas introduced a new test to assess the constitutionality of laws meant to address gun violence. Such laws must be struck down, he wrote, unless they are “consistent with the nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation.” Last month, Chief Judge Albert Diaz of the 4th U.S.