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Page Number: 155.0

42 

DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA v. HELLER 

BREYER, J., dissenting 

Freedmen’s  Bureau  Act,  see  ante,  at  43,  two  quotations
from that 1866 Act’s legislative history, see ante, at 43–44, 
and  a  1980  state  court  opinion  saying  that  in  colonial
times the same were used to defend the home as to main-
tain the militia, see ante, at 52.  How can citations such as 
these support the far-reaching proposition that the Second 
Amendment’s  primary  concern  is  not  its  stated  concern
about the militia, but rather a right to keep loaded weap-
ons at one’s bedside to shoot intruders? 

Nor  is  it  at  all  clear  to  me  how  the  majority  decides 
which loaded “arms” a homeowner may keep.  The major-
ity  says  that  that  Amendment  protects  those  weapons 
“typically  possessed  by  law-abiding  citizens  for  lawful 
purposes.”  Ante,  at  53.    This  definition  conveniently  ex-
cludes  machineguns,  but  permits  handguns,  which  the
majority describes as “the most popular weapon chosen by
Americans  for  self-defense  in  the home.”    Ante,  at  57;  see 
also  ante,  at  54–55.  But  what  sense  does  this  approach 
make?  According to the majority’s reasoning, if Congress
and the States lift restrictions on the possession and use of
machineguns,  and  people  buy  machineguns  to  protect 
their homes, the Court will have to reverse course and find 
that  the  Second  Amendment  does,  in  fact,  protect  the
individual self-defense-related right to possess a machine-
gun.  On  the  majority’s  reasoning,  if  tomorrow  someone
invents  a  particularly  useful,  highly  dangerous  self-
defense weapon, Congress and the States had better ban it
immediately, for once it becomes popular Congress will no 
longer  possess  the  constitutional  authority  to  do  so.    In 
essence,  the  majority  determines  what  regulations  are
permissible  by  looking  to  see  what  existing  regulations
permit.  There  is  no  basis  for  believing  that  the  Framers
intended such circular reasoning. 

I am similarly puzzled by the majority’s list, in Part III
of its opinion, of provisions that in its view would survive 
Second  Amendment  scrutiny.    These  consist  of  (1)  “prohi-