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Page Number: 119.0

6 

DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA v. HELLER 

BREYER, J., dissenting 

would have had to get the gunpowder and load it into the 
gun, an operation that would have taken a fair amount of
time to perform.  See Hicks, United States Military Shoul-
der Arms, 1795–1935, 1 Am. Military Hist. Foundation 23, 
30  (1937)  (experienced  soldier  could,  with  specially  pre-
pared  cartridges  as  opposed  to  plain  gunpowder  and  ball,
load and fire musket 3-to-4 times per minute); id., at 26– 
30 (describing the loading process); see also Grancsay, The
Craft  of  the  Early  American  Gunsmith,  6  Metropolitan 
Museum  of  Art  Bulletin  54,  60  (1947)  (noting  that  rifles
were slower to load and fire than muskets).

Moreover,  the  law  would,  as  a  practical  matter,  have
prohibited the carrying of loaded firearms anywhere in the 
city, unless the carrier had no plans to enter any building 
or  was  willing  to  unload  or  discard  his  weapons  before 
going  inside.  And  Massachusetts  residents  must  have 
believed this kind of law compatible with the provision in 
the  Massachusetts  Constitution  that  granted  “the  people
. . .  a  right  to  keep  and  to  bear  arms  for  the  common  de-
fence”—a provision that the majority says was interpreted
as  “secur[ing]  an  individual  right  to  bear  arms  for  defen-
sive  purposes.”  Art.  XVII  (1780),  in  3  The  Federal  and 
State Constitutions, Colonial Charters, and Other Organic 
Laws  1888,  1892  (F.  Thorpe  ed.  1909)  (hereinafter 
Thorpe); ante, at 28–29 (opinion of the Court).

The New York City law, which required that gunpowder 
in  the  home  be  stored  in  certain  sorts  of  containers,  and 
laws  in  certain  Pennsylvania  towns,  which  required  that
gunpowder  be  stored  on  the  highest  story  of  the  home, 
could well have presented similar obstacles to in-home use
of  firearms.  See  Act  of  April  13,  1784,  ch.  28,  1784  N. Y.
Laws p. 627; An Act for Erecting the Town of Carlisle, in
the  County  of  Cumberland,  into  a  Borough,  ch.  XIV,
§XLII, 1782 Pa. Laws p. 49; An Act for Erecting the Town 
of  Reading,  in  the  County  of  Berks,  into  a  Borough,  ch.
LXXVI,  §XLII,  1783  Pa.  Laws  p.  211.    Although  it  is  un-