Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/07pdf/07-290.pdf
Page Number: 57.0

54 

DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA v. HELLER 

Opinion of the Court 

invalid under the Establishment Clause, see Illinois ex rel. 
McCollum  v.  Board  of  Ed.  of  School  Dist.  No.  71,  Cham-
paign Cty., 333 U. S. 203 (1948).  Even a question as basic 
as the scope of proscribable libel was not addressed by this 
Court until 1964, nearly two centuries after the founding.
See New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, 376 U. S. 254 (1964). 
It  is  demonstrably  not  true  that,  as  JUSTICE  STEVENS 
claims, post, at 41–42, “for most of our history, the invalid­
ity  of  Second-Amendment-based  objections  to  firearms 
regulations  has  been  well  settled  and  uncontroversial.”
For most of our history the question did not present itself. 

III 

Like  most  rights,  the  right  secured  by  the  Second 
Amendment  is  not  unlimited.  From  Blackstone  through
the  19th-century  cases,  commentators  and  courts  rou­
tinely explained that the right was not a right to keep and 
carry  any  weapon  whatsoever  in  any  manner  whatsoever 
and for whatever purpose.  See, e.g., Sheldon, in 5 Blume 
346; Rawle 123; Pomeroy 152–153; Abbott 333.  For exam­
ple, the majority of the 19th-century courts to consider the 
question  held  that  prohibitions  on  carrying  concealed 
weapons  were  lawful  under  the  Second  Amendment  or 
state  analogues.  See,  e.g.,  State  v.  Chandler,  5  La.  Ann., 
at  489–490;  Nunn  v.  State,  1  Ga.,  at  251;  see  generally  2
Kent *340, n. 2; The American Students’ Blackstone 84, n. 
11 (G. Chase ed. 1884).  Although we do not undertake an
exhaustive historical analysis today of the full scope of the
Second  Amendment,  nothing  in  our  opinion  should  be 
taken  to  cast  doubt  on  longstanding  prohibitions  on  the 
possession  of  firearms  by  felons  and  the  mentally  ill,  or 
laws forbidding the carrying of firearms in sensitive places 
such as schools and government buildings, or laws impos­
ing conditions and qualifications on the commercial sale of