Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/07pdf/07-290.pdf
Page Number: 153

40 

DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA v. HELLER 

BREYER, J., dissenting 

be whether a modern restriction on a right to self-defense 
duplicates  a  past  one,  but  whether  that  restriction,  when
compared  with  restrictions  originally  thought  possible, 
enjoys a similarly strong justification.  At a minimum that 
similarly strong justification is what the District’s modern
law, compared with Boston’s colonial law, reveals. 

Fourth, a contrary view, as embodied in today’s decision, 
will  have  unfortunate  consequences.    The  decision  will 
encourage  legal  challenges  to  gun  regulation  throughout 
the  Nation.  Because  it  says  little  about  the  standards 
used  to  evaluate  regulatory  decisions,  it  will  leave  the
Nation  without  clear  standards  for  resolving  those  chal-
lenges.  See ante, at 54, and n. 26.  And litigation over the 
course  of  many  years,  or  the  mere  specter  of  such  litiga-
tion,  threatens  to  leave  cities  without  effective  protection
against gun violence and accidents during that time. 

As important, the majority’s decision threatens severely 
to limit the ability of more knowledgeable, democratically 
elected  officials  to  deal  with  gun-related  problems.    The 
majority says that it leaves the District “a variety of tools 
for combating” such problems.  Ante, at 64.  It fails to list 
even  one  seemingly  adequate  replacement  for  the  law  it 
strikes down.  I can understand how reasonable individu-
als can disagree about the merits of strict gun control as a 
crime-control  measure,  even  in  a  totally  urbanized  area. 
But  I  cannot  understand  how  one  can  take  from  the 
elected  branches  of  government  the  right  to  decide
whether to insist upon a handgun-free urban populace in a
city now facing a serious crime problem and which, in the 
future, could well face environmental or other emergencies
that threaten the breakdown of law and order.   

V 

The  majority  derides  my  approach  as 

“judge-
empowering.”  Ante, at 62.  I take this criticism seriously,
but  I  do  not  think  it  accurate.  As  I  have  previously  ex-