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Page Number: 151

38 

DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA v. HELLER 

BREYER, J., dissenting 

thought,  we  know  what  they  did  think.  Samuel  Adams, 
who  lived  in  Boston,  advocated  a  constitutional  amend-
ment  that  would  have  precluded  the  Constitution  from 
ever being “construed” to “prevent the people of the United 
States, who are peaceable citizens, from keeping their own 
arms.”  6  Documentary  History  of  the  Ratification  of  the 
Constitution 1453 (J. Kaminski & G. Saladino eds. 2000). 
Samuel  Adams  doubtless  knew  that  the  Massachusetts 
Constitution contained somewhat similar protection.  And 
he  doubtless  knew  that  Massachusetts  law  prohibited 
Bostonians  from  keeping  loaded  guns  in  the  house.  So 
how could Samuel Adams have advocated such protection 
unless  he  thought  that  the  protection  was  consistent  with 
local  regulation  that  seriously  impeded  urban  residents
from  using  their  arms  against  intruders? 
It  seems 
unlikely that he meant to deprive the Federal Government 
of  power  (to  enact  Boston-type  weapons  regulation)  that
he  know  Boston  had  and  (as  far  as  we  know)  he  would 
have  thought  constitutional  under  the  Massachusetts
Constitution.  Indeed,  since  the  District  of  Columbia  (the 
subject  of  the  Seat  of  Government  Clause,  U. S.  Const.,
Art. I,  §8,  cl.  17)  was  the  only  urban  area  under  direct 
federal  control,  it  seems  unlikely  that  the  Framers 
thought  about  urban  gun  control  at  all.    Cf.  Palmore  v. 
United  States,  411  U. S.  389,  397–398  (1973)  (Congress
can “legislate for the District in a manner with respect to
subjects that would exceed its powers, or at least would be 
very unusual, in the context of national legislation enacted 
under other powers delegated to it”).

Of course the District’s law and the colonial Boston law 
are  not  identical.  But  the  Boston  law  disabled  an  even 
wider  class  of  weapons  (indeed,  all  firearms).    And  its 
existence  shows  at  the  least  that  local  legislatures  could 
impose  (as  here)  serious  restrictions  on  the  right  to  use 
firearms.  Moreover,  as  I  have  said,  Boston’s  law,  though
highly  analogous  to  the  District’s,  was  not  the  only  colo-