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Page Number: 59.0

56 

DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA v. HELLER 

Opinion of the Court 

tanks.  But  the  fact  that  modern  developments  have  lim­
ited the degree of fit between the prefatory clause and the
protected  right  cannot  change  our  interpretation  of  the
right. 

IV 
We  turn  finally  to  the  law  at  issue  here.  As  we  have 
said, the law totally bans handgun possession in the home.
It  also  requires  that  any  lawful  firearm  in  the  home  be
disassembled or bound by a trigger lock at all times, ren­
dering it inoperable.

As  the  quotations  earlier  in  this  opinion  demonstrate,
the  inherent  right  of  self-defense  has  been  central  to  the
Second Amendment right.  The handgun ban amounts to a
prohibition of an entire class of “arms” that is overwhelm­
ingly chosen by American society for that lawful purpose. 
The prohibition extends, moreover, to the home, where the 
need for defense of self, family, and property is most acute.
Under  any  of  the  standards  of  scrutiny  that  we  have  ap­
plied  to  enumerated  constitutional  rights,27  banning  from 
—————— 

27 JUSTICE BREYER  correctly  notes  that  this  law,  like  almost  all  laws, 
would  pass  rational-basis  scrutiny.    Post,  at  8.  But  rational-basis 
scrutiny  is  a  mode  of  analysis  we  have  used  when  evaluating  laws
under  constitutional  commands  that  are  themselves  prohibitions  on
irrational laws.  See, e.g., Engquist v. Oregon Dept. of Agriculture, 553 
U. S. ___, ___ (2008) (slip op., at 9–10).  In those cases, “rational basis” 
is  not  just  the  standard  of  scrutiny,  but  the  very  substance  of  the
constitutional guarantee.  Obviously, the same test could not be used to
evaluate  the  extent  to  which  a  legislature  may  regulate  a  specific,
enumerated  right,  be  it  the  freedom  of  speech,  the  guarantee  against 
double  jeopardy,  the  right  to  counsel,  or  the  right  to  keep  and  bear 
arms.  See United States v. Carolene Products Co., 304 U. S. 144, 152, 
n. 4  (1938)  (“There  may  be  narrower  scope  for  operation  of  the  pre­
sumption  of  constitutionality  [i.e.,  narrower  than  that  provided  by
rational-basis review] when legislation appears on its face to be within
a specific prohibition of the Constitution, such as those of the first ten 
amendments. . .”).    If  all  that  was  required  to  overcome  the  right  to
keep and bear arms was a rational basis, the Second Amendment would
be  redundant  with  the  separate  constitutional  prohibitions  on  irra­