Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/23pdf/22-915_8o6b.pdf
Page Number: 56.0

Cite as:  602 U. S. ____ (2024) 

21 

KAVANAUGH, J., concurring 

Court  conclude  that  They  The  People’s  answers  to  a 
problem” are unwise, “we are free to intervene,” but if we 
“think the States may be on to something, we can loosen the 
leash.”  McDonald  v.  Chicago,  561  U. S.  742,  803  (2010) 
(concurring opinion) (quotation marks omitted). 

The  balancing  approach  can  be  antithetical  to  the 
principle that judges must act like umpires.  It turns judges 
into players.  Justice Black once protested that the Court
should not balance away bedrock free speech protections for 
the perceived policy needs of the moment.  He argued that
“the  balancing  approach”  “disregards  all  of  the  unique 
features  of  our  Constitution”  by  giving  “the  Court,  along
with Congress, a greater power, that of overriding the plain
commands  of  the  Bill  of  Rights  on  a  finding  of  weighty
public interest.”  H. Black, The Bill of Rights, 35 N. Y. U. L.
Rev. 865, 878–879 (1960).  Like Justice Black, the Court in 
Heller cautioned that a “constitutional guarantee subject to 
future 
is  no 
constitutional guarantee at all.”  554 U. S. 570, 634 (2008). 
Some respond that history can be difficult to decipher.  It 
is true that using history to interpret vague text can require 
“nuanced  judgments,”  McDonald,  561  U. S.,  at  803–804 
(Scalia,  J.,  concurring),  and  is  “sometimes  inconclusive,”
Scalia, Originalism: The Lesser Evil, 57 U. Cin. L. Rev., at 
864.  But at a minimum, history tends to narrow the range 
of  possible  meanings  that  may  be  ascribed  to  vague
constitutional  language.  A  history-based  methodology 
imposes  a  neutral  and 
supplies  direction  and 
judicial
constraint 
infused 
democratically 
decisionmaking. 

judges’  assessments  of 

its  usefulness 

on 

The historical approach is not perfect.  But “the question 
to be decided is not whether the historically focused method 
is  a  perfect  means  of  restraining  aristocratic  judicial 
Constitution-writing;  but  whether  it  is  the  best  means 
available in an imperfect world.”  McDonald, 561 U. S., at 
804 (Scalia, J., concurring) (emphasis in original).  And the