After an exhaustive discussion of the arguments for and against gun control, JUSTICE BREYER arrives at his interestbalanced answer: because handgun violence is a problem, because the law is limited to an urban area, and because there were somewhat similar restrictions in the founding period (a false proposition that we have already discussed), the interest-balancing inquiry results in the constitutionality of the handgun ban. QED.
We know of no other enumerated constitutional right whose core protection has been subjected to a freestanding “interest-balancing” approach. The very enumeration of the right takes out of the hands of government—even the Third Branch of Government—the power to decide on a case-by-case basis whether the right is really worth insisting upon. A constitutional guarantee subject to future judges’ assessments of its usefulness is no constitutional guarantee at all. ..... The Second Amendment is no different. Like the First, it is the very product of an interest-balancing by the people—which JUSTICE BREYER would now conduct for them anew. ("Судья Брейер думает, что мы должны взвесить баланс интересов и на основе его вынести решение. Само упоминание права в Конституции изымает право из рук власти, не исключая и власти судебной. Конституционная гарантия, чью полезность позволено оценивать судам - и не гарантия вовсе. Вторая поправка сама является результатом подведения баланса интересов народом который судья Брейер намерен пересчитать для народа заново.")

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