Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/07pdf/07-290.pdf
Page Number: 152.0

Cite as:  554 U. S. ____ (2008) 

39 

BREYER, J., dissenting 

nial law that could have impeded a homeowner’s ability to 
shoot  a  burglar.    Pennsylvania’s  and  New  York’s  laws
could  well  have  had  a  similar  effect.    See  supra,  at  6–7. 
And  the  Massachusetts  and  Pennsylvania  laws  were  not 
only  thought  consistent  with  an  unwritten  common-law 
gun-possession  right,  but  also  consistent  with  written 
state  constitutional  provisions  providing  protections  simi-
lar  to  those  provided  by  the  Federal  Second  Amendment.
See  supra,  at  6–7.    I  cannot  agree  with  the  majority  that
these  laws  are  largely  uninformative  because  the  penalty
for violating them was civil, rather than criminal.  Ante, at 
61–62.  The Court has long recognized that the exercise of 
a  constitutional  right  can  be  burdened  by  penalties  far 
short of jail time.  See, e.g., Murdock v. Pennsylvania, 319 
U. S. 105 (1943) (invalidating $7 per week solicitation fee 
as  applied  to  religious  group);  see  also  Forsyth  County  v. 
Nationalist  Movement,  505  U. S.  123,  136  (1992)  (“A  tax 
based  on  the  content  of  speech  does  not  become  more 
constitutional because it is a small tax”).   

Regardless,  why  would  the  majority  require  a  precise 
colonial  regulatory  analogue  in  order  to  save  a  modern 
gun  regulation  from  constitutional  challenge?    After  all, 
insofar as we look to history to discover how we can consti-
tutionally  regulate  a  right  to  self-defense,  we  must  look, 
not  to  what  18th-century  legislatures  actually  did  enact, 
but  to  what  they  would  have  thought  they  could  enact. 
There are innumerable policy-related reasons why a legis-
lature might not act on a particular matter, despite having 
the power to do so.  This Court has “frequently cautioned 
that  it  is  at  best  treacherous  to  find  in  congressional  si-
lence  alone  the  adoption  of  a  controlling  rule  of  law.” 
United  States  v.  Wells,  519  U. S.  482,  496  (1997).    It  is 
similarly  “treacherous”  to  reason  from  the  fact  that  colo-
nial  legislatures  did  not  enact  certain  kinds  of  legislation
an unalterable constitutional limitation on the power of a 
modern legislature cannot do so.  The question should not