Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/21pdf/20-843_7j80.pdf
Page Number: 77.0

8  NEW YORK STATE RIFLE & PISTOL ASSN., INC. v. BRUEN 

ALITO, J., concurring 

§400.00(6) (West Cum. Supp. 2022); Suggestion of Mootness
in New York State Rifle & Pistol Assn., Inc. v. City of New 
York, O. T. 2019, No. 18–280, pp. 5–7. 

Exhibit  two  is  the  dissent  filed  in  Heller  by  JUSTICE 
BREYER,  the  author  of  today’s  dissent.    At  issue  in Heller 
was an ordinance that made it impossible for any District 
of  Columbia  resident  to  keep  a  handgun  in  the  home  for 
self-defense.  See 554 U. S., at 574–575.  Even the respond-
ent, who carried a gun on the job while protecting federal
facilities, did not qualify.  Id., at 575–576.  The District of 
Columbia law was an extreme outlier; only a few other ju-
risdictions in the entire country had similar laws.  Never-
theless, JUSTICE BREYER’s dissent, while accepting for the
sake of argument that the Second Amendment protects the
right to keep a handgun in the home, concluded, based on
essentially the same test that today’s dissent defends, that 
the District’s complete ban was constitutional.  See id., at 
689, 722 (under “an interest-balancing inquiry. . .” the dis-
sent would “conclude that the District’s measure is a pro-
portionate, not a disproportionate, response to the compel-
ling concerns that led the District to adopt it”). 

Like that dissent in Heller, the real thrust of today’s dis-
sent is that guns are bad and that States and local jurisdic-
tions should be free to restrict them essentially as they see 
fit.3  That argument was rejected in Heller, and while the 
dissent protests that it is not rearguing Heller, it proceeds
to do just that.  See post, at 25–28. 

Heller correctly recognized that the Second Amendment 

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3 If we put together the dissent in this case and JUSTICE BREYER’s Hel-
ler dissent, States and local governments would essentially be free to ban
the possession of all handguns, and it is unclear whether its approach 
would impose any significant restrictions on laws regulating long guns. 
The dissent would extend a very large measure of deference to legislation
implicating Second Amendment rights, but it does not claim that such 
deference is appropriate when any other constitutional right is at issue.