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18 

UNITED STATES v. RAHIMI 

KAVANAUGH, J., concurring 

v. Public  Company  Accounting  Oversight  Bd.,  537  F. 3d 
667,  698  (CADC  2008)  (Kavanaugh,  J.,  dissenting)  (“We 
should  resolve  questions  about  the  scope  of  those 
precedents  in  light  of  and  in  the  direction  of  the
constitutional text and constitutional history”). 

is 

But  the 

first  stop 

in  this  Court’s  constitutional 
decisionmaking 
precedents—the
the 
accumulated wisdom of jurists from Marshall and Story to
Harlan  and  Taft;  from  Hughes  and  Black  to  Jackson  and 
White;  from  Rehnquist  and  O’Connor  to  Kennedy  and
Scalia; and so on. 

Court’s 

III 
Some  say  that  courts  should  determine  exceptions  to
broadly  worded  individual  rights,  including  the  Second
Amendment,  by  looking  to  policy.    Uphold  a  law  if  it  is  a 
good idea; strike it down if it is not.  True, the proponents 
of  a  policy-based  approach  to  interpretation  of  broadly
worded  or  vague  constitutional  text  usually  do  not  say  so 
explicitly  (although  some  do).  Rather,  they  support  a
balancing  approach  variously  known  as  means-end 
scrutiny,  heightened  scrutiny,  tiers  of  scrutiny,  rational 
basis  with  bite,  or  strict  or  intermediate  or  intermediate-
plus or rigorous or skeptical scrutiny.  Whatever the label 
of  the  day,  that  balancing  approach  is  policy  by  another 
name.  It requires judges to weigh the benefits against the
burdens of a law and to uphold the law as constitutional if,
in  the  judge’s  view,  the  law  is  sufficiently  reasonable  or 
important.    See  M.  Barnes  &  E.  Chemerinsky,  The  Once 
and  Future  Equal  Protection  Doctrine?,  43  Conn.  L. Rev. 
1059,  1080  (2011)  (“The  levels  of  scrutiny  are  essentially 
balancing tests”).

To  begin,  as  I  have  explained,  that  kind  of  balancing
approach  to  constitutional  interpretation  departs  from
what Framers such as Madison stated, what jurists such as
Marshall  and  Scalia  did,  what  judges  as  umpires  should