Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/07pdf/07-290.pdf
Page Number: 150.0

Cite as:  554 U. S. ____ (2008) 

37 

BREYER, J., dissenting 

population/censusdata/table-4.pdf (of the 3,929,214 Ameri-
cans  in  1790,  only  201,655—about  5%—lived  in  urban
areas).  Insofar  as  the  Framers  focused  at  all  on  the  tiny
fraction of the population living in large cities, they would
have  been  aware  that  these  city  dwellers  were  subject  to 
firearm restrictions that their rural counterparts were not. 
See supra, at 4–7.  They are unlikely then to have thought 
of  a  right  to  keep  loaded  handguns  in  homes  to  confront 
intruders  in  urban  settings  as  central.    And  the  subse-
quent  development  of  modern  urban  police  departments,
by  diminishing  the  need  to  keep  loaded  guns  nearby  in
case  of  intruders,  would  have  moved  any  such  right  even
further  away  from  the  heart  of  the  amendment’s  more
basic  protective  ends.  See,  e.g.,  Sklansky,  The  Private
Police,  46  UCLA  L. Rev.  1165,  1206–1207  (1999)  (profes-
sional  urban  police  departments  did  not  develop  until
roughly the mid-19th century). 

Nor,  for  that  matter,  am  I  aware  of  any  evidence  that 
handguns  in  particular  were  central  to  the  Framers’  con-
ception  of  the  Second  Amendment.  The  lists  of  militia-
related  weapons  in  the  late  18th-century  state  statutes 
appear  primarily  to  refer  to  other  sorts  of  weapons,  mus-
kets  in  particular.  See  Miller,  307  U. S.,  at  180–182  (re-
producing colonial militia laws).  Respondent points out in 
his  brief  that  the  Federal  Government  and  two  States  at 
the  time  of  the  founding  had  enacted  statutes  that  listed 
handguns  as  “acceptable”  militia  weapons.    Brief  for  Re-
spondent  47.  But  these  statutes  apparently  found  them
“acceptable” only for certain special militiamen (generally, 
certain soldiers on horseback), while requiring muskets or
rifles for the general infantry.  See Act of May 8, 1792, ch. 
XXXIII,  1  Stat.  271;  Laws  of  the  State  of  North  Carolina 
592  (1791);  First  Laws  of  the  State  of  Connecticut  150
(1784);  see  also  25  Journals  of  the  Continental  Congress, 
pp. 1774–1789 741–742 (1922).

Third,  irrespective  of  what  the  Framers  could  have