Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/07pdf/07-290.pdf
Page Number: 113.0

46 

DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA v. HELLER 

STEVENS, J., dissenting 

knocked off the table.39 

I do not know whether today’s decision will increase the 
labor  of  federal  judges  to  the  “breaking  point”  envisioned
by  Justice  Cardozo,  but  it  will  surely  give  rise  to  a  far 
more  active  judicial  role  in  making  vitally  important 
national policy decisions than was envisioned at any time
in the 18th, 19th, or 20th centuries. 

The Court properly disclaims any interest in evaluating 
the wisdom of the specific policy choice challenged in this
case, but it fails to pay heed to a far more important policy
choice—the choice made by the Framers themselves.  The 
Court  would  have  us  believe  that over  200  years  ago,  the
Framers  made  a  choice  to  limit  the  tools  available  to 
elected  officials  wishing  to  regulate  civilian  uses  of  weap­
ons,  and  to  authorize  this  Court  to  use  the  common-law 
process  of  case-by-case  judicial  lawmaking  to  define  the 
contours of acceptable gun control policy.  Absent compel­
ling  evidence  that  is  nowhere  to  be  found  in  the  Court’s
opinion,  I  could  not  possibly  conclude  that  the  Framers
made such a choice. 

For these reasons, I respectfully dissent.  

—————— 

39 It  was  just  a  few  years  after  the  decision  in  Miller  that  Justice 
Frankfurter  (by  any  measure  a  true  judicial  conservative)  warned  of 
the  perils  that  would  attend  this  Court’s  entry  into  the  “political 
thicket” of legislative districting.  Colegrove v. Green, 328 U. S. 549, 556 
(1946)  (plurality  opinion).    The  equally  controversial  political  thicket 
that the Court has decided to enter today is qualitatively different from 
the  one  that  concerned  Justice  Frankfurter:  While  our  entry  into  that
thicket  was  justified  because  the  political  process  was  manifestly
unable to solve the problem of unequal districts, no one has suggested
that the political process is not working exactly as it should in mediat­
ing  the  debate  between  the  advocates  and  opponents  of  gun  control. 
What impact the Court’s unjustified entry into this thicket will have on 
that  ongoing  debate—or  indeed  on  the  Court  itself—is  a  matter  that 
future historians will no doubt discuss  at length.  It is, however, clear 
to me that adherence to a policy of judicial restraint would be far wiser 
than the bold decision announced today.