Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/07pdf/07-290.pdf
Page Number: 120

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

7 

BREYER, J., dissenting 

clear whether these laws, like the Boston law, would have 
prohibited the storage of gunpowder inside a firearm, they
would at the very least have made it difficult to reload the
gun to fire a second shot unless the homeowner happened 
to be in the portion of the house where the extra gunpow-
der was required to be kept.  See 7 United States Encyclo-
pedia of History 1297 (P. Oehser ed. 1967) (“Until 1835 all
small  arms  [were]  single-shot  weapons,  requiring  reload-
ing  by  hand  after  every  shot”).  And  Pennsylvania,  like 
Massachusetts,  had  at  the  time  one  of  the  self-defense-
guaranteeing state constitutional provisions on which the 
majority  relies.  See  ante,  at  28  (citing  Pa.  Declaration  of
Rights, Art. XIII (1776), in 5 Thorpe 3083). 

The majority criticizes my citation of these colonial laws. 
See  ante,  at  59–62.    But,  as  much  as  it  tries,  it  cannot 
ignore their existence.  I suppose it is possible that, as the 
majority  suggests,  see  ante,  at  59–61,  they  all  in  practice 
contained  self-defense  exceptions.    But  none  of  them  ex-
pressly  provided  one,  and  the  majority’s  assumption  that 
such exceptions existed relies largely on the preambles to
these acts—an interpretive methodology that it elsewhere 
roundly derides.  Compare ibid. (interpreting 18th-century
statutes in light of their preambles), with ante, at 4–5, and 
n.  3  (contending  that  the  operative  language  of  an  18th-
century enactment may extend beyond its preamble).  And 
in  any  event,  as  I  have  shown,  the  gunpowder-storage 
laws would have burdened armed self-defense, even if they 
did not completely prohibit it. 

This  historical  evidence  demonstrates  that  a  self-
defense assumption is the beginning, rather than the end, 
of  any  constitutional  inquiry.  That  the  District  law  im-
pacts  self-defense  merely  raises  questions  about  the  law’s 
constitutionality.  But  to  answer  the  questions  that  are 
raised  (that  is,  to  see  whether  the  statute  is  unconstitu-
tional)  requires  us  to  focus  on  practicalities,  the  statute’s
rationale,  the  problems  that  called  it  into  being,  its  rela-