Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/07pdf/07-290.pdf
Page Number: 35

32 

DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA v. HELLER 

Opinion of the Court 

posal).  JUSTICE STEVENS’ view thus relies on the proposi­
tion, unsupported by any evidence, that different people of 
the founding period had vastly different conceptions of the 
right  to  keep  and  bear  arms.    That  simply  does  not  com­
port  with  our  longstanding  view  that  the  Bill  of  Rights
codified venerable, widely understood liberties. 

D 
We now address how the Second Amendment was inter­
preted from immediately after its ratification through the
end  of  the  19th  century.  Before  proceeding,  however,  we
take  issue  with  JUSTICE  STEVENS’  equating  of  these
sources with postenactment legislative history, a compari­
son  that  betrays  a  fundamental  misunderstanding  of  a
court’s interpretive task.  See post, at 27, n. 28.  “Legisla­
tive  history,”  of  course,  refers  to  the  pre-enactment  state­
ments of those who drafted or voted for a law; it is consid­
ered  persuasive  by  some,  not  because  they  reflect  the 
general  understanding  of  the  disputed  terms,  but  because
the  legislators  who  heard  or  read  those  statements  pre­
Ibid.    “Pos­
sumably  voted  with  that  understanding. 
tenactment  legislative  history,”  ibid.,  a  deprecatory  con­
tradiction  in  terms,  refers  to  statements  of  those  who 
drafted or voted for the law that are made after its enact­
ment  and  hence  could  have  had  no  effect  on  the  congres­
sional vote.  It most certainly does not refer to the exami­
nation of a variety of legal and other sources to determine 
the public understanding of a legal text in the period after 
its  enactment  or  ratification.    That  sort  of  inquiry  is  a
critical  tool  of  constitutional  interpretation.    As  we  will 
show, virtually all interpreters of the Second Amendment 
in the century after its enactment interpreted the amend­
ment as we do. 

1. Post-ratification Commentary 
Three important founding-era legal scholars interpreted