Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/15pdf/15-133_7l48.pdf
Page Number: 3.0

Cite as:  577 U. S. ____ (2015) 

3 

THOMAS, J., dissenting 

were common at the time of ratification or those that have 
some  reasonable  relationship  to  the  preservation  or  effi-
ciency  of  a  well  regulated  militia, . . .  and  whether  law-
abiding  citizens  retain  adequate  means  of  self-defense.” 
Id., at 410 (internal quotation marks omitted).

Judge  Manion  dissented,  reasoning  that  “[b]oth  the
ordinance and this court’s opinion upholding it are directly 
at odds with the central holdings of Heller and McDonald.” 
Id., at 412. 

II 

The  Second  Amendment  provides:  “A  well  regulated 
Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the
right  of  the  people  to  keep  and  bear  Arms,  shall  not  be 
infringed.”  We explained in Heller and McDonald that the 
Second  Amendment  “guarantee[s]  the  individual  right  to 
possess  and  carry  weapons  in  case  of  confrontation.” 
Heller,  supra,  at  592;  see  also  McDonald,  supra,  at  767– 
769.  We excluded from protection only “those weapons not 
typically  possessed  by  law-abiding  citizens  for  lawful
purposes.”  Heller, 554 U. S., at 625.  And we stressed that 
“[t]he very enumeration of the right takes out of the hands 
of  government—even  the  Third  Branch  of  Government—
the  power  to  decide  on  a  case-by-case  basis  whether  the
right is really worth insisting upon.”  Id., at 634 (emphasis
deleted).

Instead of adhering to our reasoning in Heller, the Sev-
enth Circuit limited Heller to its facts, and read Heller to 
forbid only total bans on handguns used for self-defense in
the home.  See 784 F. 3d, at 407, 412.  All other questions 
about  the  Second  Amendment,  the  Seventh  Circuit  con-
cluded,  should  be  defined  by  “the  political  process  and 
scholarly debate.”  Id., at 412.  But Heller repudiates that
approach.  We  explained  in  Heller  that  “since  th[e]  case
represent[ed]  this  Court’s  first  in-depth  examination  of
the Second Amendment, one should not expect it to clarify