Wolford v. Lopez · ¶23

Because the Second Amendment protects a right that already existed when the Amendment was adopted, Heller instructed courts to ascertain the scope of the right by looking to history. And to emphasize the point, Heller emphatically rejected the ahistorical and “judge-empowering ‘interestbalancing inquiry’” suggested in the dissent. 554 U. S., at 634. Heller acknowledged that the history-based analysis it prescribed would not always be easy, but it found that mode of analysis necessary to prevent judges from balancing away the right that the Second Amendment was adopted to protect, id., at 635—which is precisely what the dissent did.

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