Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/07pdf/07-290.pdf
Page Number: 117.0

4 

DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA v. HELLER 

BREYER, J., dissenting 

presents  evidence  in  favor  of  the  former  proposition,  does
not, because it cannot, convincingly show that the Second 
Amendment  seeks  to  maintain  the  latter  in  pristine,  un-
regulated form.

To  the  contrary,  colonial  history  itself  offers  important
examples  of  the  kinds  of  gun  regulation  that  citizens 
would  then  have  thought  compatible  with  the  “right  to
keep  and  bear  arms,”  whether  embodied  in  Federal  or 
State Constitutions, or the background common law.  And 
those  examples  include  substantial  regulation  of  firearms 
in urban areas, including regulations that imposed obsta-
cles to the use of firearms for the protection of the home. 

Boston,  Philadelphia,  and  New  York  City,  the  three 
largest cities in America during that period, all restricted
the  firing  of  guns  within  city  limits  to  at  least  some  de-
gree.  See  Churchill,  Gun  Regulation,  the  Police  Power, 
and the Right to Keep Arms in Early America, 25 Law &
Hist. Rev. 139, 162 (2007); Dept. of Commerce, Bureau of 
Census,  C.  Gibson,  Population  of  the  100  Largest  Cities
and  Other  Urban  Places  in  the  United  States:  1790  to 
1990  (1998)  (Table  2),  online  at  http://www.census.gov/
population/documentation/twps0027/tab02.txt  (all  Inter-
net  materials  as  visited  June  19,  2008,  and  available  in 
Clerk of Court’s case file).  Boston in 1746 had a law pro-
hibiting the “discharge” of “any Gun or Pistol charged with 
Shot or Ball in the Town” on penalty of 40 shillings, a law 
that was later revived in 1778.  See Act of May 28, 1746,
ch.  10;  An  Act  for  Reviving  and  Continuing  Sundry  Laws 
that are Expired, and Near Expiring, 1778 Massachusetts
Session Laws, ch. 5, pp. 193, 194.  Philadelphia prohibited,
on penalty of 5 shillings (or two days in jail if the fine were 
not paid), firing a gun or setting off fireworks in Philadel-
phia  without  a  “governor’s  special  license.”    See  Act  of 
Aug.  26,  1721,  §4,  in  3  Mitchell,  Statutes  at  Large  of 
Pennsylvania  253–254.    And  New  York  City  banned,  on
penalty  of  a  20-shilling  fine,  the  firing  of  guns  (even  in