Opinion of

the court.

At the last term on the affidavits then read and filed with the clerk, a rule was granted in this case, requiring the secretary of state to shew cause why a mandamus *154should not issue, directing him to deliver to William Marbury his commission as a justice of the peace for the county of Washington in the district of Columbia.

No cause has been shewn, and the present motion is for a mandamus. The peculiar delicacy of this case, the novelty of some of its circumstances, and the real difficulty attending the points which occur in it, require a complete exposition of the principles, on which the opinion to be given by the court, is founded.

These principles have been, on the side of the applicant, very ably argued at the bar. In rendering the opinion of the court, there will be some departure in form, though not in substance, from the points stated in that argument.

In the order in which the court has viewed this subject, the following questions have been considered and decided.

1st. Has the applicant a right to the commission he demands ?

2dly. If he has a right, and that right has been violated, do the laws of his country afford him a remedy?

3dly. If they do afford him a remedy, is it a mandamus issuing from this court?

The first object of enquiry is,

1st. Has the applicant a right to the commission he demands?

His right originates in an act of congress passed in February 1801, concerning the district of Columbia.

After dividing the district into two counties, the 11th section of this law, enacts, “ that there shall be appointed in and for each of the said counties, such number of discreet persons to be justices of the peace as the president of the United States shall, from time to time, think expedient, to continue in office for five years.

*155It appears, from the affidavits, that in compliance with this law, a commission for William Marbury as justice of peace for the country of Washington, was signed by John Adams, then president of the United States; after which the seal of the United States was affixed to it; but the commission has never reached the person for whom it was made out.

In order to determine whether he is entitled to this commission, it becomes necessary to enquire whether he has been appointed to the office. For if he has been appointed, the law continues him in office for five years, and he is entitled to the possession of those evidences of office, which, being completed, became his property.

The 2d section of the 2d article of the constitution, declares, that, “ the president shall nominate, and, by “ and with the advice and consent of the senate, shall “ appoint ambassadors, other public ministers and consuls, “ and all other officers of the United States, whose ap- “ pointments are not otherwise provided for.”

The third section declares, that “ he shall commission “ all the officers of the United States.”

An act of congress directs the secretary of state to keep the seal of the United States, “ to make out and record, and affix the said seal to all civil commissions to officers of the United States, to be appointed by the President, by and with the consent of the senate, or by the President alone; provided that the said seal shall not be affixed to any commission before the same shall have been signed by the President of the United States.”

These are the clauses of the constitution and laws of the United States, which affect this part of the case. They seem to contemplate three distinct operations:

1st, The nomination. This is the sole act of the President, and is completely voluntary.

2d. The appointment. This is also the act of the President, and is also a voluntary act, though it can only be performed by and with the advice and consent of the senate.

*1563d. The commission. To grant a commission to a person appointed, might perhaps be deemed a duty enjoined by the constitution. " He shall," says that instrument, " commission all the officers of the United States."

The acts of appointing to office, and commissioning the person appointed, can scarcely be considered as one and the same; since the power to perform them is given in two separate and distinct sections of the constitution. The distinction between the appointment and the commission will be rendered more apparent, by adverting to that provision in the second section of the second article of the constitution, which authorizes congress " to vest, by law, the appointment of such inferior officers, as they think proper, in the President alone, in the courts of law, or in the heads of departments ;" thus contemplating cases where the law may direct the President to commission an officer appointed by the courts, or by the heads of departments. In such a case, to issue a commission would be apparently a duty distinct from the appointment, the performance of which, perhaps, could not legally be refused.

Although that clause of the constitution which requires the President to commission all the officers of the United States, may never have been applied to officers appointed otherwise than by himself, yet it would be difficult to deny the legislative power to apply it to such cases. Of consequence the constitutional distinction between the appointment to an office and the commission of an officer, who has been appointed, remains the same as if in practice the President had commissioned officers appointed by an authority other than his own.

It follows too, from the existence of this distinction, that, if an appointment was to be evidenced by any public act, other than the commission, the performance of such public act would create the officer; and if he was not removeable at the will of the President, would either give him a right to his commission, or enable him to perform the duties without it.

These observations are premised solely for the purpose of rendering more intelligible those which apply more directly to the particular case under consideration.

*157This is an appointment made by the President, by and with the advice and consent of the senate, and is evidenced by no act but the commission itself. In such a case therefore the commission and the appointment seem inseparable; it being almost impossible to shew an appointment otherwise than by proving the existence of a commission; still the commission is not necessarily the appointment ; though conclusive evidence of it.

But at what stage does it amount to this conclusive evidence ?

The answer to this question seems an obvious one. The appointment being the sole act of the President, must be completely evidenced, when it is shewn that he has done every thing to be performed by him.

Should the commission, instead of being evidence of an appointment, even be considered as constituting the appointment itself; still it would be made when the last act to be done by the President was performed, or, at furthest, when the commission was complete.

The last act to be done by the President, is the signature of the commission. He has then acted on the advice and consent of the senate to his own nomination. The time for deliberation has then passed. He has decided. His judgment, on the advice and consent of the senate concurring with his nomination, has been made, and the officer is appointed. This appointment is evidenced by an open, unequivocal act; and being the last act required from the person making it, necessarily excludes the idea of its being, so far as respects the appointment, an inchoate and incomplete transaction.

Some point of time must be taken when the power of the executive over an officer, not removeable at his will, must cease. That point of time must be when the constitutional power of appointment has been exercised. And this power has been exercised when the last act, required from the person possessing the power, has been performed. This last act is the signature of the commission. This idea seems to have prevailed with the legislature, when the act passed, converting the department *158of foreign affairs into the department of state. By that act it is enacted, that the secretary of state shall keep that seal of the United States, and shall make out and re- " cord, and shall affix the said seal to all civil commissions “ to officers of the United States, to be appointed by the “ President:" "Provided that the said seal shall not be af- “ fixed to any commission, before the same shall have been “ signed by the President of the United States; nor to “ any other instrument or act, without the special war- “ rant of the President therefor.”

The signature is a warrant for affixing the great seal to the commission; and the great seal is only to be affixed to an instrument which is complete. It attests, by an act supposed to be of public notoriety, the verity of the Presidential signature.

It is never to be affixed till the commission is signed, because the signature, which gives force and effect to the commission, is conclusive evidence that the appointment is made.

The commission being signed, the subsequent duty of the secretary of state is prescribed by law, and not to be guided by the will of the President. He is to affix the seal of the United States to the commission, and is to record it.

This is not a proceeding which may be varied, if the judgment of the executive shall suggest one more eligible; but is a precise course accurately marked out by law, and is to be strictly pursued. It is the duty of the secretary of state to conform to the law, and in this he is an officer of the United States, bound to obey the laws. He acts, in this respect, as has been very properly stated at the bar, under the authority of law, and not by the instructions of the President. It is a ministerial act which the law enjoins on 3 particular officer for a particular purpose.

If it should be supposed, that the solemnity of affixing the seal, is necessary not only to the validity of the commission, but even to the completion of an appointment, still when the seal is affixed the appointment is made, and *159the commission is valid. No other solemnity is required by law ; no other act is to be performed on the part of government. All that the executive can do to invest the person with his office, is done; and unless the appointment be then made, the executive cannot make one without the co-operation of others.

After searching anxiously for the principles on which a contrary opinion may be supported, none have been found which appear of sufficient force to maintain the opposite doctrine.

Such as the imagination of the court could suggest, have been very deliberately examined, and after allowing them all the weight which it appears possible to give them, they do not shake the opinion which has been formed.

In considering this question, it has been conjectured that the commission may have been assimilated to a deed, to the validity of which, delivery is essential.

This idea is founded on the supposition that the commission is not merely evidence of an appointment, but is itself the actual appointment; a supposition by no means unquestionable. But for the purpose of examining this objection fairly, let it be conceded, that the principle, claimed for its support, is established.

The appointment being, under the constitution, to be made by the President personally, the delivery of the deed of appointment, if necessary to its completion, must be made by the President also. It is not necessary that the livery should be made personally to the grantee of the office : It never is so made. The law would seem to contemplate that it should be made to the secretary of state, since it directs the secretary to affix the seal to the commission after it shall have been signed by the President. If then the act of livery be necessary to give validity to the commission, it has been delivered when executed and given to the secretary for the purpose of being sealed, recorded, and transmitted to the party.

But in all cases of letters patent, certain solemnities are required by law, which solemnities are the evidences *160of the validity of the instrument. A formal delivery to the person is not among them. In cases of commissions, the sign manual of the President, and the seal of the United States, are those solemnities. This objection therefore does not touch the case.

It has also occurred as possible, and barely possible, that the transmission of the commission, and the acceptance thereof, might be deemed necessary to complete the right of the plaintiff.

The transmission of the commission, is a practice directed by convenience, but not by law. It cannot therefore be necessary to constitute the appointment which must precede it, and which is the mere act of the President. If the executive required that every person appointed to an office, should himself take means to procure his commission, the appointment would not be the less valid on that account. The appointment is the sole act of the President; the transmission of the commission is the sole act of the officer to whom that duty is assigned, and may be accelerated or retarded by circumstances which can have no influence on the appointment. A commission is transmitted to a person already appointed ; not to a person to be appointed or not, as the letter enclosing the commission should happen to get into the post-office and reach him in safety, or to miscarry.

It may have some tendency to elucidate this point, to enquire, whether the possession of the original commission be indispensably necessary to authorize a person, appointed to any office, to perform the duties of that office. If it was necessary, then a loss of the commission would lose the office. Not only negligence, but accident or fraud, fire or theft, might deprive an individual of his office. In such a case, I presume it could not be doubted, but that a copy from the record of the office of the secretary of state, would be, to every intent and purpose, equal to the original. The act of congress has expressly made it so. To give that copy validity, it would not be necessary to prove that the original had been transmitted and afterwards lost. The copy would be complete evidence that the original had existed, and that the appointment had been made, but, not that the original had been transmitted. If indeed it should appear that *161the original had been mislaid in the office of state, that circumstance would not affect the operation of the copy. When all the requisites have been performed which authorize a recording officer to record any instrument whatever, and the order for that purpose has been given, the instrument is, in law, considered as recorded, although the manual labour of inserting it in a book kept for that purpose may not have been performed.

In the case of commissions, the law orders the secretary of state to record them. When therefore they are signed and sealed, the order for their being recorded is given; and whether inserted in the book or not, they are in law recorded.

A copy of this record is declared equal to the original, and the fees, to be paid by a person requiring a copy, are ascertained by law. Can a keeper of a public record, erase therefrom a commission which has been recorded ? Or can he refuse a copy thereof to a person demanding it on the terms prescribed by law ?

Such a copy would, equally with the original, authorize the justice of peace to proceed in the performance of his duty, because it would, equally with the original, attest his appointment.

If the transmission of a commission be not considered as necessary to give validity to an appointment; still less is its acceptance. The appointment is the sole act of the President; the acceptance is the sole act of the officer, and is, in plain common sense, posterior to the appointment. As he may resign, so may he refuse to accept : but neither the one, nor the other, is capable of rendering the appointment a non-entity.

That this is the understanding of the government, is apparent from the whole tenor of its conduct.

A commission bears date, and the salary of the officer commences from his appointment; not from the transmission or acceptance of his commission. When a person, appointed to any office, refuses to accept that office, the successor is nominated in the place of the person who *162has declined to accept, and not in the place of the person who had been previously in office, and had created the original vacancy.

It is therefore decidedly the opinion of the court, that when a commission has been signed by the President, the appointment is made ; and that the commission is complete, when the seal of the United States has been affixed to it by the secretary of state.

Where an officer is removeable at the will of the executive, the circumstance which completes his appointment is of no concern; because the act is at any time revocable; and the commission may be arrested, if still in the office. But when the officer is not removeable at the will of the executive, the appointment is not revocable, and cannot be annulled. It has conferred legal rights which cannot be resumed.

The discretion of the executive is to be exercised until the appointment has been made. But having once made the appointment, his power over the office is terminated in all cases, where, by law, the officer is not removeable by him. The right to the office is then in the person appointed, and he has the absolute, unconditional, power of accepting or rejecting it.

Mr. Marbury, then, since his commission was signed by the President, and sealed by the secretary of state, was appointed; and as the law creating the office, gave the officer a right to hold for five years, independent of the executive, the appointment was not revocable; but vested in the officer legal rights, which are protected by the laws of his country.

To withhold his commission, therefore, is an act deemed by the court not warranted by law, but violative of a vested legal right.

This brings us to the second enquiry ; which is,

2dly. If he has a right, and that right has been violated, do the laws of his country afford him a remedy?

*163The very essence of civil liberty certainly consists in the right of every individual to claim the protection of the laws, whenever he receives an injury. One of the first duties of government is to afford that protection. In Great Britain the king himself is sued in the respectful form of a petition, and he never fails to comply with the judgment of his court.

In the 3d vol. of his commentaries, p. 23, Blackstone states two cases in which a remedy is afforded by mere operation of law.

“In all other cases,” he says, “it is a general and indis-“putable rule, that where there is a legal right, there is “ also a legal remedy by suit or action at law, whenever “that right is invaded.”

And afterwards, p. 109, of the same vol. he says, “I "am next to consider such injuries as are cognizable by “the courts of the common law. And herein I shall for "the present only remark, that all possible injuries what-"soever, that did not fall within the exclusive cognizance “of either the ecclesiastical, military, or maritime tribu-"nals, are for that very reason, within the cognizance "of the common law courts of justice; for it is a settled "and invariable principle in the laws of England, that "every right, when withheld, must have a remedy, and “every injury its proper redress.”

The government of the United States has been emphatically termed a government of laws, and not of men. It will certainly cease to deserve this high appellation, if the laws furnish no remedy for the violation of a vested legal right.

If this obloquy is to be cast on the jurisprudence of our country, it must arise from the peculiar character of the case.

It behoves us then to enquire whether there be in its composition any ingredient which shall exempt it from legal investigation, or exclude the injured party from legal redress. In pursuing this enquiry the first question which presents itself, is, whether this can be arranged *164with that class of cases which come under the description of damnum absque injuria—a loss without an injury.

This description of cases never has been considered, and it is believed never can be considered, as comprehending offices of trust, of honor or of profit. The office of justice of peace in the district of Columbia is such an office; it is therefore worthy of the attention and guardianship of the laws. It has received that attention and guardianship. It has been created by special act of congress, and has been secured, so far as the laws can give security to the person appointed to fill it, for five years. It is not then on account of the worthlessness of the thing pursued, that the injured party can be alleged to be without remedy.

Is it in the nature of the transaction ? Is the act of delivering or withholding a commission to be considered as a mere political act, belonging to the executive department alone, for the performance of which, entire confidence is placed by our constitution in the supreme executive; and for any misconduct respecting which, the injured individual has no remedy.

That there may be such cases is not to be questioned; but that every act of duty, to be performed in any of the great departments of government, constitutes such a case, is not to be admitted.

By the act concerning invalids, passed in June, 1794, vol. 3. p. 112, the secretary at war is ordered to place on the pension list, all persons whose names are contained in a report previously made by him to congress. If he should refuse to do so, would the wounded veteran be without remedy ? Is it to be contended that where the law in precise terms, directs the performance of an act, in which an individual is interested, the law is incapable of securing obedience to its mandate ? Is it on account of the character of the person against whom the complaint is made ? Is it to be contended that the heads of departments are not amenable to the laws of their country ?

Whatever the practice on particular occasions may be, the theory of this principle will certainly never be main*165tained. No act of the legislature confers so extraordinary a privilege, nor can it derive countenance from the doctrines of the common law. After stating that personal injury from the king to a subject is presumed to be impossible, Blackstone, vol. 3. p. 255, says, “but injuries “to the rights of property can scarcely be committed by “the crown without the intervention of its officers; for "whom, the law, in matters of right, entertains no re-“spect or delicacy; but furnishes various methods of de-"tecting the errors and misconduct of those agents, by "whom the king has been deceived and induced to do a “temporary injustice.”

By the act passed in 1796, authorising the sale of the lands above the mouth of Kentucky river (vol. 3d. p. 2991 the purchaser, on paying his purchase money, becomes completely entitled to the property purchased; and on producing to the secretary of state, the receipt of the treasurer upon a certificate required by the law, the president of the United States is authorised to grant him a patent. It is further enacted that all patents shall be countersigned by the secretary of state, and recorded in his office. If the secretary of state should choose to withhold this patent; or the patent being lost, should refuse a copy of it; can it be imagined that the law furnishes to the injured person no remedy?

It is not believed that any person whatever would attempt to maintain such a proposition.

It follows then that the question, whether the legality of an act of the head of a department be examinable in a court of justice or not, must always depend on the nature of that act.

If some acts be examinable, and others not, there must be some rule of law to guide the court in the exercise of its jurisdiction.

In some instances there may be difficulty in applying the rule to particular cases; but there cannot, it is believed, be much difficulty in laying down the rule.

By the constitution of the United States, the President is invested with certain important political powers, in the *166exercise of which he is to use his own discretion, and is accountable only to his country in his political character, and to his own conscience. To aid him in the performance of these duties, he is authorized to appoint certain officers, who act by his authority and in conformity with his orders.

In such cases, their acts are his acts; and whatever opinion may be entertained of the manner in which executive discretion may be used, still there exists, and can exist, no power to control that discretion. The subjects are political. They respect the nation, not individual rights, and being entrusted to the executive, the decision of the executive is conclusive. The application of this remark will be perceived by adverting to the act of congress for establishing the department of foreign affairs. This officer, as his duties were prescribed by that act, is to conform precisely to the will of the President. He is the mere organ by whom that will is communicated. The acts of such an officer, as an officer, can never be examinable by the courts.

But when the legislature proceeds to impose on that officer other duties; when he is directed peremptorily to perform certain acts; when the rights of individuals are dependent on the performance of those acts; he is so far the officer of the law; is amenable to the laws for his conduct; and cannot at his discretion sport away the vested rights of others.

The conclusion from this reasoning is, that where the heads of departments are the political or confidential agents of the executive, merely to execute the will of the President, or rather to act in cases in which the executive possesses a constitutional or legal discretion, nothing can be more perfectly clear than that their acts are only politically examinable. But where a specific duty is assigned by law, and individual rights depend upon the performance of that duty, it seems equally clear that the individual who considers himself injured, has a right to resort to the laws of his country for a remedy.

If this be the rule, let us enquire how it applies to the case under the consideration of the court.

*167The power of nominating to the senate, and the power of appointing the person nominated, are political powers, to be exercised by the President according to his own discretion. When he has made an appointment, he has exercised his whole power, and his discretion has been completely applied to the case. If, by law, the officer be removable at the will of the President, then a new appointment may be immediately made, and the rights of the officer are terminated. But as a fact which has existed cannot be made never to have existed, the appointment cannot be annihilated; and consequently if the officer is by law not removable at the will of the President; the rights he has acquired are protected by the law, and are not resumable by the President. They cannot be extinguished by executive authority, and he has the privilege of asserting them in like manner as if they had been derived from any other source.

The question whether a right has vested or not, is, in its nature, judicial, and must be tried by the judicial authority. It, for example, Mr. Marbury had taken the oaths of a magistrate, and proceeded to act as one; in consequence of which a suit had been instituted against him, in which his defence had depended on his being a magistrate; the validity of his appointment must have been determined by judicial authority.

So, if he conceives that, by virtue of his appointment, he has a legal right, either to the commission which has been made out for him, or to a copy of that commission, it is equally a question examinable in a court, and the decision of the court upon it must depend on the opinion entertained of his appointment.

That question has been discussed, and the opinion is, that the latest point of time which can be taken as that at which the appointment was complete, and evidenced, was when, after the signature of the president, the seal of the United States was affixed to the commission.

It is then the opinion of the court,

1st. That by signing the commission of Mr. Marbury, the president of the United States appointed him a justice *168of peace, for the county of Washington in the district of Columbia; and that the seal of the United States, affixed thereto by the secretary of state, is conclusive testimony of the verity of the signature, and of the completion of the appointment; and that the appointment conferred on him a legal right to the office for the space of five years.

2dly. That, having this legal title to the office, he has a consequent right to the commission; a refusal to deliver which, is a plain violation of that right, for which the laws of his country afford him a remedy.

It remains to be enquired whether,

3dly. He is entitled to the remedy for which he applies. This depends on,

1st. The nature of the writ applied for, and,

2dly. The power of this court.

1st. The nature of the writ.

Blackstone, in the 3d volume of his commentaries, page 110, defines a mandamus to be, “a command is-“suing in the king’s name from the court of king’s bench, "and directed to any person, corporation, or inferior "court of judicature within the king’s dominions, re-"quiring them to do some particular thing therein speci-"fied, which appertains to their office and duty, and “which the court of king’s bench has previously deter-“mined, or at least supposes, to be consonant to right “and justice.”

Lord Mansfield, in 3d Burrows 1266, in the case of the King v. Baker, et al. states with much precision and explicitness the cases in which this writ may be used.

“ Whenever,” says that very able judge, “there is a “right to execute an office, perform a service, or exercise “ a franchise (more especially if it be in a matter of pub-“lic concern, or attended with profit) and a person is “kept out of possession, or dispossessed of such right, and *169"has no other specific legal remedy, this court ought "to assist by mandamus, upon reasons of justice, as the “writ expresses, and upon reasons of public policy, to "preserve peace, order and good government.” In the same case he says, “this writ ought to be used upon all “occasions where the law has established no specific “remedy, and where in justice and good government “there ought to be one.”

In addition to the authorities now particularly cited, many others were relied on at the bar, which show how far the practice has conformed to the general doctrines that have been just quoted.

This writ, if awarded, would be directed to an officer of government, and its mandate to him would be, to use the words of Blackstone, “to do a particular thing “therein specified, which appertains to his office and “duty and which the court has previously determined, “or at least supposes, to be consonant to right and jus-“tice.” Or, in the words of Lord Mansfield, the applicant, in this case, has a right to execute an office of public concern, and is kept out of possession of that right.

These circumstances certainly concur in this case.

Still, to render the mandamus a proper remedy, the officer to whom it is to be directed, must be one to whom, on legal principles, such writ may be directed; and the person applying for it must be without any other specific and legal remedy.

1st. With respect to the officer to whom it would be directed. The intimate political relation, subsisting between the president of the United States and the heads of departments, necessarily renders any legal investigation of the acts of one of those high officers peculiarly irksome, as well as delicate; and excites some hesitation with respect to the propriety of entering into such investigation. Impressions are often received without much reflection or examination, and it is not wonderful that in such a case, as this, the assertion, by an individual, of his legal claims, in a court of justice; to which claims it is the duty of that court to attend; should at first view be considered *170by some, as an attempt to intrude into the cabinet, and to intermeddle with the prerogatives of the executive.

It is scarcely necessary for the court to disclaim all pretensions to such a jurisdiction. An extravagance, so absurd and excessive, could not have been entertained for a moment. The province of the court is, solely, to decide on the rights of individuals, not to enquire how the executive, or executive officers, perform duties in which they have a discretion. Questions, in their nature political, or which are, by the constitution and laws, submitted to the executive, can never be made in this court.

But, if this be not such a question; if so far from being an intrusion into the secrets of the cabinet, it respects a paper, which, according to law, is upon record, and to a copy of which the law gives a right, on the payment of ten cents; if it be no intermeddling with a subject, over which the executive can be considered as having exercised any control; what is there in the exalted station of the officer, which shall bar a citizen from asserting, in a court of justice, his legal rights, or shall forbid a court to listen to the claim; or to issue a mandamus, directing the performance of a duty, not depending on executive discretion, but on particular acts of congress and the general principles of law?

If one of the heads of departments commits any illegal act, under color of his office, by which an individual sustains an injury, it cannot be pretended that his office alone exempts him from being sued in the ordinary mode of proceeding, and being compelled to obey the judgment of the law. How then can his office exempt him from this particular mode of deciding on the legality of his conduct, if the case be such a case as would, were any other individual the party complained of, authorize the process?

It is not by the office of the person to whom the writ is directed, but the nature of the thing to be done that the propriety or impropriety of issuing a mandamus, is to be determined. Where the head of a department acts in a case, in which executive discretion is to be exercised; in which he is the mere organ of executive will; it is *171again repeated, that any application to a court to control, in any respect, his conduct, would be rejected without hesitation.

But where he is directed by law to do a certain act affecting the absolute rights of individuals, in the performance of which he is not placed under the particular direction of the President, and the performance of which, the President cannot lawfully forbid, and therefore is never presumed to have forbidden; as for example, to record a commission, or a patent for land, which has received all the legal solemnities; or to give a copy of such record; in such cases, it is not perceived on what ground the courts of the country are further excused from the duty of giving judgment, that right be done to an injured individual, than if the same services were to be performed by a person not the head of a department.

This opinion seems not now, for the first time, to be taken up in this country.

It must be well recollected that in 1792, an act passed, directing the secretary at war to place on the pension list such disabled officers and soldiers as should be reported to him, by the circuit courts, which act, so far as the duty was imposed on the courts, was deemed unconstitutional; but some of the judges, thinking that the law might be executed by them in the character of commissioners, proceeded to act and to report in that character.

This law being deemed unconstitutional at the circuits, was repealed, and a different system was established; but the question whether those persons, who had been reported by the judges, as commissioners, were entitled, in consequence of that report, to be placed on the pension list, was a legal question, properly determinable in the courts, although the act of placing such persons on the list was to be performed by the head of a department.

That this question might be properly settled, congress passed an act in February, 1793, making it the duty of the secretary of war, in conjunction with the attorney general, to take such measures, as might be necessary to obtain an adjudication of the supreme court of the United *172States on the validity of any such rights, claimed under the act aforesaid.

After the passage of this act, a mandamus was moved for, to be directed to the secretary at war, commanding him to place on the pension list, a person stating himself to be on the report of the judges.

There is, therefore, much reason to believe, that this mode of trying the legal right of the complainant, was deemed by the head of a department, and by the highest law officer of the United States, the most proper which could be selected for the purpose.

When the subject was brought before the court the decision was, not that a mandamus would not lie to the head of a department, directing him to perform an act, enjoined by law, in the performance of which an individual had a vested interest; but that a mandamus ought not to issue in that case—the decision necessarily to be made if the report of the commissioners did not confer on the applicant a legal right.

The judgment in that case, is understood to have decided the merits of all claims of that description; and the persons on the report of the commissioners found it necessary to pursue the mode prescribed by the law subsequent to that which had been deemed unconditional, in order to place themselves on the pension list.

The doctrine, therefore, now advanced, is by no means a novel one.

It is true that the mandamus, now moved for, is not for the performance of an act expressly enjoined by statute.

It is to deliver a commission; on which subject the acts of Congress are silent. This difference is not considered as affecting the case. It has already been stated that the applicant has, to that commission, a vested legal right, of which the executive cannot deprive him. He has been appointed to an office, from which he is not removable at the will of the executive; and being so *173appointed, he has a right to the commission which the secretary has received from the president for his use. The act of congress does not indeed order the secretary of state to send it to him, but it is placed in his hands for the person entitled to it; and cannot be more lawfully withheld by him, than by any other person.

It was at first doubted whether the action of detinue was not a specific legal remedy for the commission which has been withheld from Mr. Marbury; in which case a mandamus would be improper. But this doubt has yielded to the consideration that the judgment in detinue is for the thing itself, or its value. The value of a public office not to be sold, is incapable of being ascertained; and the applicant has a right to the office itself, or to nothing. He will obtain the office by obtaining the commission, or a copy of it from the record.

This, then, is a plain case for a mandamus, either to deliver the commission, or a copy of it from the record ; and it only remains to be enquired,

Whether it can issue from this court.

The act to establish the judicial courts of the United States authorizes the supreme court “to issue writs of “mandamus, in cases warranted by the principles and “usages of law, to any courts appointed, or persons hold-"ing office, under the authority of the United States.”

The secretary of state, being a person holding an office under the authority of the United States, is precisely within the letter of the description; and if this court is not authorized to issue a writ of mandamus to such an officer, it must be because the law is unconstitutional, and therefore absolutely incapable of conferring the authority, and assigning the duties which its words purport to confer and assign.

The constitution vests the whole judicial power of the United States in one supreme court, and such inferior courts as congress shall, from time to time, ordain and establish. This power is expressly extended to all cases arising under the laws of the United States; and consequently, in some form, may be exercised over the present *174case; because the right claimed is given by a law of the United States.

In the distribution of this power it is declared that “the “supreme court shall have original jurisdiction in all “cases affecting ambassadors, other public ministers and “consuls, and those in which a state shall be a party. “In all other cases, the supreme court shall have appellate “jurisdiction.”

It has been insisted, at the bar, that as the original grant of jurisdiction, to the supreme and inferior courts, is general, and the clause, assigning original jurisdiction, to the supreme court, contains no negative or restrictive words; the power remains to the legislature, to assign original jurisdiction to that court in other cases than those specified in the article which has been recited; provided those cases belong to the judicial power of the United States.

If it had been intended to leave it in the discretion of the legislature to apportion the judicial power between the supreme and inferior courts according to the will of that body, it would certainly have been useless to have proceeded further than to have defined the judicial power, and the tribunals in which it should be vested. The subsequent part of the section is mere surplussage, is entirely without meaning, if such is to be the construction. If congress remains at liberty to give this court appellate jurisdiction, where the constitution has declared their jurisdiction shall be original; and original jurisdiction where the constitution has declared it shall be appellate; the distribution of jurisdiction, made in the constitution, is form without substance.

Affirmative words are often, in their operation, negative of other objects than those affirmed; and in this case, a negative or exclusive sense must be given to them or they have no operation at all.

It cannot be presumed that any clause in the constitution is intended to be without effect; and therefore such a construction is inadmissible, unless the words require it.

*175If the solicitude of the convention, respecting our peace with foreign powers, induced a provision that the supreme court should take original jurisdiction in cases which might be supposed to affect them; yet the clause would have proceeded no further than to provide for such cases, if no further restriction on the powers of congress had been intended. That they should have appellate jurisdiction in all other cases, with such exceptions as congress might make, is no restriction; unless the words be deemed exclusive of original jurisdiction.

When an instrument organizing fundamentally a judicial system, divides it into one supreme, and so many inferior courts as the legislature may ordain and establish; then enumerates its powers, and proceeds so far to distribute them, as to define the jurisdiction of the supreme court by declaring the cases in which it shall take original jurisdiction, and that in others it shall take appellate jurisdiction; the plain import of the words seems to be, that in one class of cases its jurisdiction is original, and not appellate; in the other it is appellate, and not original. If any other construction would render the clause inoperative, that is an additional reason for rejecting such other construction, and for adhering to their obvious meaning.

To enable this court then to issue a mandamus, it must be shewn to be an exercise of appellate jurisdiction, or to be necessary to enable them to exercise appellate jurisdiction.

It has been stated at the bar that the appellate jurisdiction may be exercised in a variety of forms, and that if it be the will of the legislature that a mandamus should be used for that purpose, that will must be obeyed. This is true, yet the jurisdiction must be appellate, not original.

It is the essential criterion of appellate jurisdiction, that it revises and corrects the proceedings in a cause already instituted, and does not create that cause. Although, therefore, a mandamus may be directed to courts, yet to issue such a writ to an officer for the delivery of a paper, is in effect the same as to sustain an original action for that paper, and therefore seems not to belong to *176appellate, but to original jurisdiction. Neither is it necessary in such a case as this, to enable the court to exercise its appellate jurisdiction.

The authority, therefore, given to the supreme court, by the act establishing the judicial courts of the United States, to issue writs of mandamus to public officers, appears not to be warranted by the constitution; and it becomes necessary to enquire whether a jurisdiction, so conferred, can be exercised.

The question, whether an act, repugnant to the constitution, can become the law of the land, is a question deeply interesting to the United States; but, happily, not of an intricacy proportioned to its interest. It seems only necessary to recognise certain principles, supposed to have been long and well established, to decide it.

That the people have an original right to establish, for their future government, such principles as, in their opinion, shall most conduce to their own happiness, is the basis, on which the whole American fabric has been erected. The exercise of this original right is a very great exertion; nor can it, nor ought it to be, frequently repeated. The principles, therefore, so established, are deemed fundamental. And as the authority, from which they proceed, is supreme, and can seldom act, they are designed to be permanent.

This original and supreme will organizes the government, and assigns,to different departments, their respective powers. It may either stop here; or establish certain limits not to be transcended by those departments.

The government of the United States is of the latter description. The powers of the legislature are defined, and limited; and that those limits may not be mistaken, or forgotten, the constitution is written. To what purpose are powers limited, and to what purpose is that limitation committed to writing, if these limits may, at any time, be passed by those intended to be restrained? The distinction, between a government with limited and unlimited powers, is abolished, if those limits do not confine the persons on whom they are imposed, and if acts pro*177hibited and acts allowed, are of equal obligation. It is a proposition too plain to be contested, that the constitution controls any legislative act repugnant to it; or, that the legislature may alter the constitution by an ordinary act.

Between these alternatives there is no middle ground. The constitution is either a superior, paramount law, unchangeable by ordinary means, or it is on a level with ordinary legislative acts, and like other acts, is alterable when the legislature shall please to alter it.

If the former part of the alternative be true, then a legislative act contrary to the constitution is not law: if the latter part be true, then written constitutions are absurd attempts, on the part of the people, to limit a power, in its own nature illimitable.

Certainly all those who have framed written constitutions contemplate them as forming the fundamental and paramount law of the nation, and consequently the theory of every such government must be, that an act of the legislature, repugnant to the constitution, is void.

This theory is essentially attached to a written constitution, and is consequently to be considered, by this court, as one of the fundamental principles of our society. It is not therefore to be lost fight of in the further consideration of this subject.

If an act of the legislature, repugnant to the constitution, is void, does it, notwithstanding its invalidity, bind the courts, and oblige them to give it effect? Or, in other words, though it be not law, does it constitute a rule as operative as if it was a law ? This would be to overthrow in fact what was established in theory; and would seem, at first view, an absurdity too gross to be insisted on. It shall, however, receive a more attentive consideration.

It is emphatically the province and duty of the judicial department to say what the law is. Those who apply the use to particular cases, must of necessity expound and interpret that rule. If two laws conflict with each other, the courts must decide on the operation of each.

*178So if a law be in opposition to the constitution; if both the law and the constitution apply to a particular case, so that the court must either decide that case conformably to the law, disregarding the constitution; or conformably to the constitution, disregarding the law; the court must determime which of these conflicting rules governs the case. This is of the very essence of judicial duty.

If then the courts are to regard the constitution; and the constitution is superior to any ordinary act of the legislature; the constitution, and not such ordinary act, must govern the case to which they both apply.

Those then who controvert the principle that the constitution is to be considered, in court, as a paramount law, are reduced to the necessity of maintaining that courts must close their eyes on the constitution, and see only the law.

This doctrine would subvert the very foundation of all written constitutions. It would declare that an act, which, according to the principles and theory of our government, is entirely void; is yet, in practice, completely obligatory, It would declare, that if the legislature shall do what is expressly forbiden, such act, notwithstanding the express prohibition, is in reality effectual. It would be giving to the legislature a practical and real omnipotence, with the same breath which professes to restrict their powers within narrow limits. It is prescribing limits, and declaring that those limits may be passed at pleasure.

That it thus reduces to nothing what we have deemed the greatest improvement on political institutions—a written constitution—would of itself be sufficient, in America, where written constitutions have been viewed with so much reverence, for rejecting the construction. But the peculiar expressions of the constitution of the United States furnish additional arguments in favour of its rejection.

The judicial power of the United States is extended to all cases arising under the constitution.

*179Could it be the intention of those who gave this power, to say that, in using it, the constitution should not be looked into? That a case arising under the constitution should be decided without examining the instrument under which it arises?

This is too extravagant to be maintained.

In some cases then, the constitution must be looked into by the judges. And if they can open it at all, what part of it are they forbidden to read, or to obey?

There are many other parts of the constitution which serve to illustrate this subject.

It is declared that “ no tax or duty shall be laid on arti-“cles exported from any state.” Suppose a duty on the export of cotton, of tobacco, or of flour; and a suit instituted to recover it. Ought judgment to be rendered in such a case? ought the judges to close their eyes on the constitution, and only see the law.

The constitution declares that “no bill of attainder or "ex post facto law shall be passed.”

If, however, such a bill should be passed and a person should be prosecuted under it; must the court condemn to death those victims whom the constitution endeavours to preserve?

“No person,” says the constitution, “shall be convicted “of treason unless on the testimony of two witnesses to the same overt act, or on confession in open court.”

Here the language of the constitution is addressed especially to the courts. It prescribes, directly for them, a rule of evidence not to be departed from. If the legislature should change that rule, and declare one witness, or a confession out of court, sufficient for conviction, must the constitutional principles yield to the legislative act?

From these, and many other selections which might be made, it is apparent, that the framers of the consti*180tution contemplated that instrument, as a rule for the government of courts, as well as of the legislature.

Why otherwise does it direct the judges to take an oath to support it ? This oath certainly applies, in an especial manner, to their conduct in their official character. How immoral to impose it on them, if they were to be used as the instruments, and the knowing instruments, for violating what they swear to support!

The oath of office, too, imposed by the legislature, is completely demonstrative of the legislative opinion on this subject. It is in these words, “I do solemnly “swear that I will administer justice without respect “to persons, and do equal right to the poor and to the “rich; and that I will faithfully and impartially discharge “all the duties incumbent on me as accord-“ing to the best of my abilities and understanding, agree-“ably to the constitution, and laws of the United States.”

Why does a judge swear to discharge his duties agreably to the constitution of the United States, if that constitution forms no rule for his government? if it is closed upon him, and cannot be inspected by him?

If such be the real state of things, this is worse than solemn mockery. To prescribe, or to take this oath, becomes equally a crime.

It is also not entirely unworthy of observation, that in declaring what shall be the supreme law of the land, the constitution itself is first mentioned; and not the laws of the United States generally, but those only which shall be made in pursuance of the constitution, have that rank.

Thus, the particular phraseology of the constitution of the United States confirms and strengthens the principle, supposed to be essential to all written constitutions, that a law repugnant to the constitution is void; and that courts, as well as other departments, are bound by that instrument.

The rule must be discharged.

*551Chief Justice Rehnquist

delivered the opinion of the Court.

In the Gun-Free School Zones Act of 1990, Congress made it a federal offense “for any individual knowingly to possess a firearm at a place that the individual knows, or has reasonable cause to believe, is a school zone.” 18 U. S. C. § 922(q)(1)(A) (1988 ed., Supp. V). The Act neither regulates a commercial activity nor contains a requirement that the possession be connected in any way to interstate commerce. We hold that the Act exceeds the authority of Congress “[t]o regulate Commerce . . . among the several States . . . .” U. S. Const., Art. I, §8, cl. 3.

On March 10,1992, respondent, who was then a 12th~grade student, arrived at Edison High School in San Antonio, Texas, carrying a concealed .38-caliber handgun and five bullets. Acting upon an anonymous tip, school authorities confronted respondent, who admitted that he was carrying the weapon. He was arrested and charged under Texas law with firearm possession on school premises. See Tex. Penal Code Ann. § 46.03(a)(1) (Supp. 1994). The next day, the state charges were dismissed after federal agents charged respondent by complaint with violating the Gun-Free School Zones Act of 1990. 18 U. S. C. § 922(q)(1)(A) (1988 ed., Supp. V).1

A federal grand jury indicted respondent on one count of knowing possession of a firearm at a school zone, in violation of § 922(q). Respondent moved to dismiss his federal indictment on the ground that § 922(q) “is unconstitutional as it is beyond the power of Congress to legislate control over our public schools.” The District Court denied the motion, concluding that § 922(q) “is a constitutional exercise of Congress’ well-defined power to regulate activities in and affecting *552commerce, and the ‘business’ of elementary, middle and high schools . . . affects interstate commerce.” App. to Pet. for Cert. 55a. Respondent waived his right to a jury trial. The District Court conducted a bench trial, found him guilty of violating §922(q), and sentenced him to six months’ imprisonment and two years’ supervised release.

On appeal, respondent challenged his conviction based on his claim that § 922(q) exceeded Congress’ power to legislate under the Commerce Clause. The Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit agreed and reversed respondent’s conviction. It held that, in light of what it characterized as insufficient congressional findings and legislative history, “section 922(q), in the full reach of its terms, is invalid as beyond the power of Congress under the Commerce Clause.” 2 F. 3d 1342, 1367-1368 (1993). Because of the importance of the issue, we granted certiorari, 511 U. S. 1029 (1994), and we now affirm.

We start with first principles. The Constitution creates a Federal Government of enumerated powers. See Art. I, § 8. As James Madison wrote: “The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the State governments are numerous and indefinite.” The Federalist No. 45, pp. 292-293 (C. Rossiter ed. 1961). This constitutionally mandated division of authority “was adopted by the Framers to ensure protection of our fundamental liberties.” Gregory v. Ashcroft, 501 U. S. 452, 458 (1991) (internal quotation marks omitted). “Just as the separation and independence of the coordinate branches of the Federal Government serve to prevent the accumulation of excessive power in any one branch, a healthy balance of power between the States and the Federal Government will reduce the risk of tyranny and abuse from either front.” Ibid.

The Constitution delegates to Congress the power “[t]o regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes.” Art. I, §8, *553cl. 3. The Court, through Chief Justice Marshall, first defined the nature of Congress’ commerce power in Gibbons v. Ogden, 9 Wheat. 1, 189-190 (1824):

“Commerce, undoubtedly, is traffic, but it is something more: it is intercourse. It describes the commercial intercourse between nations, and parts of nations, in all its branches, and is regulated by prescribing rules for carrying on that intercourse.”

The commerce power “is the power to regulate; that is, to prescribe the rule by which commerce is to be governed. This power, like all others vested in congress, is complete in itself, may be exercised to its utmost extent, and acknowledges no limitations, other than are prescribed in the constitution.” Id., at 196. The Gibbons Court, however, acknowledged that limitations on the commerce power are inherent in the very language of the Commerce Clause.

“It is not intended to say that these words comprehend that commerce, which is completely internal, which is carried on between man and man in a State, or between different parts of the same State, and which does not extend to or affect other States. Such a power would be inconvenient, and is certainly unnecessary.

“Comprehensive as the word ‘among’ is, it may very properly be restricted to that commerce which concerns more States than one.... The enumeration presupposes something not enumerated; and that something, if we regard the language, or the subject of the sentence, must be the exclusively internal commerce of a State.” Id., at 194-195.

For nearly a century thereafter, the Court’s Commerce Clause decisions dealt but rarely with the extent of Congress’ power, and almost entirely with the Commerce Clause as a limit on state legislation that discriminated against interstate commerce. See, e. g., Veazie v. Moor, 14 How. 568, 573-575 (1853) (upholding a state-created steamboat monop*554oly because it involved regulation of wholly internal commerce); Kidd v. Pearson, 128 U. S. 1, 17, 20-22 (1888) (upholding a state prohibition on the manufacture of intoxicating liquor because the commerce power “does not comprehend the purely internal domestic commerce of a State which is carried on between man and man within a State or between different parts of the same State”); see also L. Tribe, American Constitutional Law 306 (2d ed. 1988). Under this line of precedent, the Court held that certain categories of activity such as “production,” “manufacturing,” and “mining” were within the province of state governments, and thus were beyond the power of Congress under the Commerce Clause. See Wickard v. Filburn, 317 U. S. 111, 121 (1942) (describing development of Commerce Clause jurisprudence).

In 1887, Congress enacted the Interstate Commerce Act, 24 Stat. 379, and in 1890, Congress enacted the Sherman Antitrust Act, 26 Stat. 209, as amended, 15 U. S. C. § 1 et seq. These laws ushered in a new era of federal regulation under the commerce power. When cases involving these laws first reached this Court, we imported from our negative Commerce Clause cases the approach that Congress could not regulate activities such as “production,” “manufacturing,” and “mining.” See, e. g., United States v. E. C. Knight Co., 156 U. S. 1, 12 (1895) (“Commerce succeeds to manufacture, and is not part of it”); Carter v. Carter Coal Co., 298 U. S. 238, 304 (1936) (“Mining brings the subject matter of commerce into existence. Commerce disposes of it”). Simultaneously, however, the Court held that, where the interstate and intrastate aspects of commerce were so mingled together that full regulation of interstate commerce required incidental regulation of intrastate commerce, the Commerce Clause authorized such regulation. See, e. g., Shreveport Rate Cases, 234 U. S. 342 (1914).

In A. L. A. Schechter Poultry Corp. v. United States, 295 U. S. 495, 550 (1935), the Court struck down regulations that *555fixed the hours and wages of individuals employed by an intrastate business because the activity being regulated related to interstate commerce only indirectly. In doing so, the Court characterized the distinction between direct and indirect effects of intrastate transactions upon interstate commerce as “a fundamental one, essential to the maintenance of our constitutional system.” Id., at 548. Activities that affected interstate commerce directly were within Congress’ power; activities that affected interstate commerce indirectly were beyond Congress’ reach. Id., at 546. The justification for this formal distinction was rooted in the fear that otherwise “there would be virtually no limit to the federal power and for all practical purposes we should have a completely centralized government.” Id., at 548.

Two years later, in the watershed case of NLRB v. Jones & Laughlin Steel Corp., 301 U. S. 1 (1937), the Court upheld the National Labor Relations Act against a Commerce Clause challenge, and in the process, departed from the distinction between “direct” and “indirect” effects on interstate commerce. Id., at 36-38 (“The question [of the scope of Congress’ power] is necessarily one of degree”). The Court held that intrastate activities that “have such a close and substantial relation to interstate commerce that their control is essential or appropriate to protect that commerce from burdens and obstructions” are within Congress’ power to regulate. Id., at 37.

In United States v. Darby, 312 U. S. 100 (1941), the Court upheld the Fair Labor Standards Act, stating:

“The power of Congress over interstate commerce is not confined to the regulation of commerce among the states. It extends to those activities intrastate which so affect interstate commerce or the exercise of the power of Congress over it as to make regulation of them appropriate means to the attainment of a legitimate end, the exercise of the granted power of Congress to regulate interstate commerce.” Id., at 118.

*556See also United States v. Wrightwood Dairy Co., 315 U. S. 110, 119 (1942) (the commerce power “extends to those intrastate activities which in a substantial way interfere with or obstruct the exercise of the granted power”).

In Wickard v. Filburn, the Court upheld the application of amendments to the Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1938 to the production and consumption of homegrown wheat. 317 U. S., at 128-129. The Wickard Court explicitly rejected earlier distinctions between direct and indirect effects on interstate commerce, stating:

“[Ejven if appellee’s activity be local and though it may not be regarded as commerce, it may still, whatever its nature, be reached by Congress if it exerts a substantial economic effect on interstate commerce, and this irrespective of whether such effect is what might at some earlier time have been defined as ‘direct’ or ‘indirect.’” Id., at 125.

The Wickard Court emphasized that although Filburn’s own contribution to the demand for wheat may have been trivial by itself, that was not “enough to remove him from the scope of federal regulation where, as here, his contribution, taken together with that of many others similarly situated, is far from trivial.” Id., at 127-128.

Jones & Laughlin Steel, Darby, and Wickard ushered in an era of Commerce Clause jurisprudence that greatly expanded the previously defined authority of Congress under that Clause. In part, this was a recognition of the great changes that had occurred in the way business was carried on in this country. Enterprises that had once been local or at most regional in nature had become national in scope. But the doctrinal change also reflected a view that earlier Commerce Clause cases artificially had constrained the authority of Congress to regulate interstate commerce.

But even these modern-era precedents which have expanded congressional power under the Commerce Clause *557confirm that this power is subject to outer limits. In Jones & Laughlin Steel, the Court warned that the scope of the interstate commerce power “must be considered in the light of our dual system of government and may not be extended so as to embrace effects upon interstate commerce so indirect and remote that to embrace them, in view of our complex society, would effectually obliterate the distinction between what is national and what is local and create a completely centralized government.” 301 U. S., at 37; see also Darby, supra, at 119-120 (Congress may regulate intrastate activity that has a “substantial effect” on interstate commerce); Wickard, supra, at 125 (Congress may regulate activity that “exerts a substantial economic effect on interstate commerce”). Since that time, the Court has heeded that warning and undertaken to decide whether a rational basis existed for concluding that a regulated activity sufficiently affected interstate commerce. See, e. g., Hodel v. Virginia Surface Mining & Reclamation Assn., Inc., 452 U. S. 264, 276-280 (1981); Perez v. United States, 402 U. S. 146, 155-156 (1971); Katzenbach v. McClung, 379 U. S. 294, 299-301 (1964); Heart of Atlanta Motel, Inc. v. United States, 379 U. S. 241, 252-253 (1964).2

Similarly, in Maryland v. Wirtz, 392 U. S. 183 (1968), the Court reaffirmed that “the power to regulate commerce, though broad indeed, has limits” that “[t]he Court has ample power” to enforce. Id., at 196, overruled on other grounds, National League of Cities v. Usery, 426 U. S. 833 (1976), overruled by Garcia v. San Antonio Metropolitan Transit *558Authority, 469 U. S. 528 (1985). In response to the dissent’s warnings that the Court was powerless to enforce the limitations on Congress’ commerce powers because “[a]ll activities affecting commerce, even in the minutest degree, [Wickard], may be regulated and controlled by Congress,” 392 U. S., at 204 (Douglas, J., dissenting), the Wirtz Court replied that the dissent had misread precedent as “[njeither here nor in Wickard has the Court declared that Congress may use a relatively trivial impact on commerce as an excuse for broad general regulation of state or private activities,” id., at 197, n. 27. Rather, “[t]he Court has said only that where a general regulatory statute bears a substantial relation to commerce, the de minimis character of individual instances arising under that statute is of no consequence.” Ibid, (first emphasis added).

Consistent with this structure, we have identified three broad categories of activity that Congress may regulate under its commerce power. Perez, supra, at 150; see also Hodel, supra, at 276-277. First, Congress may regulate the use of the channels of interstate commerce. See, e.g., Darby, 312 U. S., at 114; Heart of Atlanta Motel, supra, at 256 (“ ‘[T]he authority of Congress to keep the channels of interstate commerce free from immoral and injurious uses has been frequently sustained, and is no longer open to question’ ” (quoting Caminetti v. United States, 242 U. S. 470, 491 (1917))). Second, Congress is empowered to regulate and protect the instrumentalities of interstate commerce, or persons or things in interstate commerce, even though the threat may come only from intrastate activities. See, e. g., Shreveport Rate Cases, 234 U. S. 342 (1914); Southern R. Co. v. United States, 222 U. S. 20 (1911) (upholding amendments to Safety Appliance Act as applied to vehicles used in intrastate commerce); Perez, supra, at 150 (“[F]or example, the destruction of an aircraft (18 U. S. C. § 32), or... thefts from interstate shipments (18 U. S. C. § 659)”). Finally, Congress’ commerce authority includes the power to regulate those ac*559tivities having a substantial relation to interstate commerce, Jones & Laughlin Steel, 301 U. S., at 37, i. e., those activities that substantially affect interstate commerce, Wirtz, supra, at 196, n. 27.

Within this final category, admittedly, our case law has not been clear whether an activity must “affect” or “substantially affect” interstate commerce in order to be within Congress’ power to regulate it under the Commerce Clause. Compare Preseault v. ICC, 494 U. S. 1, 17 (1990), with Wirtz, supra, at 196, n. 27 (the Court has never declared that “Congress may use a relatively trivial impact on commerce as an excuse for broad general regulation of state or private activities”). We conclude, consistent with the great weight of our case law, that the proper test requires an analysis of whether the regulated activity “substantially affects” interstate commerce.

We now turn to consider the power of Congress, in the light of this framework, to enact § 922(q). The first two categories of authority may be quickly disposed of: § 922(q) is not a regulation of the use of the channels of interstate commerce, nor is it an attempt to prohibit the interstate transportation of a commodity through the channels of commerce; nor can § 922(q) be justified as a regulation by which Congress has sought to protect an instrumentality of interstate commerce or a thing in interstate commerce. Thus, if § 922(q) is to be sustained, it must be under the third category as a regulation of an activity that substantially affects interstate commerce.

First, we have upheld a wide variety of congressional Acts regulating intrastate economic activity where we have concluded that the activity substantially affected interstate commerce. Examples include the regulation of intrastate coal mining; Hodel, supra, intrastate extortionate credit transactions, Perez, supra, restaurants utilizing substantial interstate supplies, McClung, supra, inns and hotels catering to interstate guests, Heart of Atlanta Motel, supra, and pro*560duction and consumption of homegrown wheat, Wickard v. Filburn, 317 U. S. 111 (1942). These examples are by no means exhaustive, but the pattern is clear. Where economic activity substantially affects interstate commerce, legislation regulating that activity will be sustained.

Even Wickard, which is perhaps the most far reaching example of Commerce Clause authority over intrastate activity, involved economic activity in a way that the possession of a gun in a school zone does not. Roscoe Filburn operated a small farm in Ohio, on which, in the year involved, he raised 23 acres of wheat. It was his practice to sow winter wheat in the fall, and after harvesting it in July to sell a portion of the crop, to feed part of it to poultry and livestock on the farm, to use some in making flour for home consumption, and to keep the remainder for seeding future crops. The Secretary of Agriculture assessed a penalty against him under the Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1938 because he harvested about 12 acres more wheat than his allotment under the Act permitted. The Act was designed to regulate the volume of wheat moving in interstate and foreign commerce in order to avoid surpluses and shortages, and concomitant fluctuation in wheat prices, which had previously obtained. The Court said, in an opinion sustaining the application of the Act to Filburn’s activity:

“One of the primary purposes of the Act in question was to increase the market price of wheat and to that end to limit the volume thereof that could affect the market. It can hardly be denied that a factor of such volume and variability as home-consumed wheat would have a substantial influence on price and market conditions. This may arise because being in marketable condition such wheat overhangs the market and, if induced by rising prices, tends to flow into the market and check price increases. But if we assume that it is never marketed, it supplies a need of the man who grew it which would otherwise be reflected by purchases in the open market. *561Home-grown wheat in this sense competes with wheat in commerce.” 317 U. S., at 128.

Section 922(q) is a criminal statute that by its terms has nothing to do with “commerce” or any sort of economic enterprise, however broadly one might define those terms.3 Section 922(q) is not an essential part of a larger regulation of economic activity, in which the regulatory scheme could be undercut unless the intrastate activity were regulated. It cannot, therefore, be sustained under our cases upholding regulations of activities that arise out of or are connected with a commercial transaction, which viewed in the aggregate, substantially affects interstate commerce.

Second, § 922(q) contains no jurisdictional element which would ensure, through case-by-case inquiry, that the firearm possession in question affects interstate commerce. For example, in United States v. Bass, 404 U. S. 336 (1971), the Court interpreted former 18 U. S. C. § 1202(a), which made it *562a crime for a felon to “receiv[e], posses[s], or transport] in commerce or affecting commerce . . . any firearm.” 404 U. S., at 337. The Court interpreted the possession component of § 1202(a) to require an additional nexus to interstate commerce both because the statute was ambiguous and because “unless Congress conveys its purpose clearly, it will not be deemed to have significantly changed the federal-state balance.” Id., at 349. The Bass Court set aside the conviction because, although the Government had demonstrated that Bass had possessed a firearm, it had failed “to show the requisite nexus with interstate commerce.” Id., at 347. The Court thus interpreted the statute to reserve the constitutional question whether Congress could regulate, without more, the “mere possession” of firearms. See id., at 339, n. 4; see also United States v. Five Gambling Devices, 346 U. S. 441, 448 (1953) (plurality opinion) (“The principle is old and deeply imbedded in our jurisprudence that this Court will construe a statute in a manner that requires decision of serious constitutional questions only if the statutory language leaves no reasonable alternative”). Unlike the statute in Bass, §922(q) has no express jurisdictional element which might limit its reach to a discrete set of firearm possessions that additionally have an explicit connection with or effect on interstate commerce.

Although as part of our independent evaluation of constitutionality under the Commerce Clause we of course consider legislative findings, and indeed even congressional committee findings, regarding effect on interstate commerce, see, e. g., Preseault v. ICC, 494 U. S., at 17, the Government concedes that “[njeither the statute nor its legislative history contain[s] express congressional findings regarding the effects upon interstate commerce of gun possession in a school zone.” Brief for United States 5-6. We agree with the Government that Congress normally is not required to make formal findings as to the substantial burdens that an activity has on interstate commerce. See McClung, 379 U. S., at 304; *563see also Perez, 402 U. S., at 156 (“Congress need [not] make particularized findings in order to legislate”). But to the extent that congressional findings would enable us to evaluate the legislative judgment that the activity in question substantially affected interstate commerce, even though no such substantial effect was visible to the naked eye, they are lacking here.4

The Government argues that Congress has accumulated institutional expertise regarding the regulation of firearms through previous enactments. Cf. Fullilove v. Klutznick, 448 U. S. 448, 503 (1980) (Powell, J., concurring). We agree, however, with the Fifth Circuit that importation of previous findings to justify §922(q) is especially inappropriate here because the “prior federal enactments or Congressional findings [do not] speak to the subject matter of section 922(q) or its relationship to interstate commerce. Indeed, section 922(q) plows thoroughly new ground and represents a sharp break with the long-standing pattern of federal firearms legislation.” 2 F. 3d, at 1366.

The Government’s essential contention, in fine, is that we may determine here that § 922(q) is valid because possession of a firearm in a local school zone does indeed substantially affect interstate commerce. Brief for United States 17. The Government argues that possession of a firearm in a school zone may result in violent crime and that violent crime can be expected to affect the functioning of the national economy in two ways. First, the costs of violent *564crime are substantial, and, through the mechanism of insurance, those costs are spread throughout the population. See United States v. Evans, 928 F. 2d 858, 862 (CA9 1991). Second, violent crime reduces the willingness of individuals to travel to areas within the country that are perceived to be unsafe. Cf. Heart of Atlanta Motel, 379 U. S., at 253. The Government also argues that the presence of guns in schools poses a substantial threat to the educational process by threatening the learning environment. A handicapped educational process, in turn, will result in a less productive citizenry. That, iii turn, would have an adverse effect on the Nation’s economic well-being. As a result, the Government argues that Congress could rationally have concluded that § 922(q) substantially affects interstate commerce.

We pause to consider the implications of the Government’s arguments. The Government admits, under its “costs of crime” reasoning, that Congress could regulate not only all violent crime, but all activities that might lead to violent crime, regardless of how tenuously they relate to interstate commerce. See Tr. of Oral Arg. 8-9. Similarly, under the Government’s “national productivity” reasoning, Congress could regulate any activity that it found was related to the economic productivity of individual citizens: family law (including marriage, divorce, and child custody), for example. Under the theories that the Government presents in support of § 922(q), it is difficult to perceive any limitation on federal power, even in areas such as criminal law enforcement or education where States historically have been sovereign. Thus, if we were to accept the Government’s arguments, we are hard pressed to posit any activity by an individual that Congress is' without power to regulate.

Although Justice Breyer argues that acceptance of the Government’s rationales would not authorize a general federal police power, he is unable to identify any activity that the States may regulate but Congress may not. Justice Breyer posits that there might be some limitations on Con*565gress’ commerce power, such as family law or certain aspects of education. Post, at 624. These suggested limitations, when viewed in light of the dissent’s expansive analysis, are devoid of substance.

Justice Breyer focuses, for the most part, on the threat that firearm possession in and near schools poses to the educational process and the potential economic consequences flowing from that threat. Post, at 619-624. Specifically, the dissent reasons that (1) gun-related violence is a serious problem; (2) that problem, in turn, has an adverse effect on classroom learning; and (3) that adverse effect on classroom learning, in turn, represents a substantial threat to trade and commerce. Post, at 623. This analysis would be equally applicable, if not more so, to subjects such as family law and direct regulation of education.

For instance, if Congress can, pursuant to its Commerce Clause power, regulate activities that adversely affect the learning environment, then, a fortiori, it also can regulate the educational process directly. Congress could determine that a school’s curriculum has a “significant” effect on the extent of classroom learning. As a result, Congress could mandate a federal curriculum for local elementary and secondary schools because what is taught in local schools has a significant “effect on classroom learning,” cf. ibid., and that, in turn, has a substantial effect on interstate commerce.

Justice Breyer rejects our reading of precedent and argues that “Congress . . . could rationally conclude that schools fall on the commercial side of the line.” Post, at 629. Again, Justice Breyer’s rationale lacks any real limits because, depending on the level of generality, any activity can be looked upon as commercial. Under the dissent’s rationale, Congress could just as easily look at child rearing as “fall[ing] on the commercial side of the line” because it provides a “valuable service — namely, to equip [children] with the skills they need to survive in life and, more specifically, in the workplace.” Ibid. We do not doubt that Congress *566has authority under the Commerce Clause to regulate numerous commercial activities that substantially affect interstate commerce and also affect the educational process. That authority, though broad, does not include the authority to regulate each and every aspect of local schools.

Admittedly, a determination whether an intrastate activity is commercial or noncommercial may in some eases result in legal uncertainty. But, so long as Congress’ authority is limited to those powers enumerated in the Constitution, and so long as those enumerated powers are interpreted as having judicially enforceable outer limits, congressional legislation under the Commerce Clause always will engender “legal uncertainty.” Post, at 630. As Chief Justice Marshall stated in McCulloch v. Maryland, 4 Wheat. 316 (1819):

“Th[e] [federal] government is acknowledged by all to be one of enumerated powers. The principle, that it can exercise only the powers granted to it... is now universally admitted. But the question respecting the extent of the powers actually granted, is perpetually arising, and will probably continue to arise, as long as our system shall exist.” Id., at 405.

See also Gibbons v. Ogden, 9 Wheat., at 195 (“The enumeration presupposes something not enumerated”). The Constitution mandates this uncertainty by withholding from Congress a plenary police power that would authorize enactment of every type of legislation. See Art. I, § 8. Congress has operated within this framework of legal uncertainty ever since this Court determined that it was the Judiciary’s duty “to say what the law is.” Marbury v. Madison, 1 Cranch 137, 177 (1803) (Marshall, C. J.). Any possible benefit from eliminating this “legal uncertainty” would be at the expense of the Constitution’s system of enumerated powers.

In Jones & Laughlin Steel, 301 U. S., at 37, we held that the question of congressional power under the Commerce Clause “is necessarily one of degree.” To the same effect *567is the concurring opinion of Justice Cardozo in Schechter Poultry:

“There is a view of causation that would obliterate the distinction between what is national and what is local in the activities of commerce. Motion at the outer rim is communicated perceptibly, though minutely, to recording instruments at the center. A society such as ours ‘is an elastic medium which transmits all tremors throughout its territory; the only question is of their size.’” 295 U. S., at 554 (quoting United States v. A. L. A. Schechter Poultry Corp., 76 F. 2d 617, 624 (CA2 1935) (L. Hand, J., concurring)).

These are not precise formulations, and in the nature of things they cannot be. But we think they point the way to a correct decision of this case. The possession of a gun in a local school zone is in no sense an economic activity that might, through repetition elsewhere, substantially affect any sort of interstate commerce. Respondent was a local student at a local school; there is no indication that he had recently moved in interstate commerce, and there is no requirement that his possession of the firearm have any concrete tie to interstate commerce.

To uphold the Government’s contentions here, we would have to pile inference upon inference in a manner that would bid fair to convert congressional authority under the Commerce Clause to a general police power of the sort retained by the States. Admittedly, some of our prior cases have taken long steps down that road, giving great deference to congressional action. See supra, at 556-558. The broad language in these opinions has suggested the possibility of additional expansion, but we decline here to proceed any further. To do so would require us to conclude that the Constitution’s enumeration of powers does not presuppose something not enumerated, cf. Gibbons v. Ogden, supra, at 195, and that there never will be a distinction between what is *568truly national and what is truly local, cf. Jones & Laughlin Steel, supra, at 30. This we are unwilling to do.

For the foregoing reasons the judgment of the Court of Appeals is

Affirmed.

Justice Kennedy,

with whom Justice O’Connor joins,

concurring.

The history of the judicial struggle to interpret the Commerce Clause during the transition from the economic system the Founders knew to the single, national market still emergent in our own era counsels great restraint before the Court determines that the Clause is insufficient to support an exercise of the national power. That history gives me some pause about today’s decision, but I join the Court’s opinion with these observations on what I conceive to be its necessary though limited holding.

Chief Justice Marshall announced that the national authority reaches “that commerce which concerns more States than one” and that the commerce power “is complete in itself, may be exercised to its utmost extent, and acknowledges no limitations, other than are prescribed in the constitution.” Gibbons v. Ogden, 9 Wheat. 1, 194, 196 (1824). His statements can be understood now as an early and authoritative recognition that the Commerce Clause grants Congress extensive power and ample discretion to determine its appropriate exercise. The progression of our Commerce Clause cases from Gibbons to the present was not marked, however, by a coherent or consistent course of interpretation; for neither the course of technological advance nor the foundational principles for the jurisprudence itself were self-evident to the courts that sought to resolve contemporary disputes by enduring principles.

Furthermore, for almost a century after the adoption of the Constitution, the Court’s Commerce Clause decisions did not concern the authority of Congress to legislate. Rather, *569the Court faced the related but quite distinct question of the authority of the States to regulate matters that would be within the commerce power had Congress chosen to act. The simple fact was that in the early years of the Republic, Congress seldom perceived the necessity to exercise its power in circumstances where its authority would be called into question. The Court’s initial task, therefore, was to elaborate the theories that would permit the States to act where Congress had not done so. Not the least part of the problem was the unresolved question whether the congressional power was exclusive, a question reserved by Chief Justice Marshall in Gibbons v. Ogden, supra, at 209-210.

At the midpoint of the 19th century, the Court embraced the principle that the States and the National Government both have authority to regulate certain matters absent the congressional determination to displace local law or the necessity for the Court to invalidate local law because of the dormant national power. Cooley v. Board of Wardens of Port of Philadelphia ex rel. Soc. for Relief of Distressed Pilots, 12 How. 299, 318-321 (1852). But the utility of that solution was not at once apparent, see generally F. Frankfurter, The Commerce Clause under Marshall, Taney and Waite (1937) (hereinafter Frankfurter), and difficulties of application persisted, see Leisy v. Hardin, 135 U. S. 100, 122-125 (1890).

One approach the Court used to inquire into the lawfulness of state authority was to draw content-based or subject-matter distinctions, thus defining by semantic or formalistic categories those activities that were commerce and those that were not. For instance, in deciding that a State could prohibit the in-state manufacture of liquor intended for out-of-state shipment, it distinguished between manufacture and commerce. “No distinction is more popular to the common mind, or more clearly expressed in economic and political literature, than that between manufacture] and commerce. Manufacture is transformation — the fashioning of raw mate*570rials into a change of form for use. The functions of commerce are different.” Kidd v. Pearson, 128 U. S. 1, 20 (1888). Though that approach likely would not have survived even if confined to the question of a State’s authority to enact legislation, it was not at all propitious when applied to the quite different question of what subjects were within the reach of the national power when Congress chose to exercise it.

This became evident when the Court began to confront federal economic regulation enacted in response to the rapid industrial development in the late 19th century. Thus, it relied upon the manufacture-commerce dichotomy in United States v. E. C. Knight Co., 156 U. S. 1 (1895), where a manufacturers’ combination controlling some 98% of the Nation’s domestic sugar refining capacity was held to be outside the reach of the Sherman Act. Conspiracies to control manufacture, agriculture, mining, production, wages, or prices, the Court explained, had too “indirect” an effect on interstate commerce. Id., at 16. And in Adair v. United States, 208 U. S. 161 (1908), the Court rejected the view that the commerce power might extend to activities that, although local in the sense of having originated within a single State, nevertheless had a practical effect on interstate commercial activity. The Court concluded that there was not a “legal or logical connection . .. between an employé’s membership in a labor organization and the carrying on of interstate commerce,” id., at 178, and struck down a federal statute forbidding the discharge of an employee because of his membership in a labor organization. See also The Employers’ Liability Cases, 207 U. S. 468, 497 (1908) (invalidating statute creating negligence action against common carriers for personal injuries of employees sustained in the course of employment, because the statute “regulates the persons because they engage in interstate commerce and does not alone regulate the business of interstate commerce”).

*571Even before the Court committed itself to sustaining federal legislation on broad principles of economic practicality, it found it necessary to depart from these decisions. The Court disavowed E. C. Knight’s reliance on the manufacturing-commerce distinction in Standard Oil Co. of N. J. v. United States, 221 U. S. 1, 68-69 (1911), declaring that approach “unsound.” The Court likewise rejected the rationale of Adair when it decided, in Texas & New Orleans R. Co. v. Railway Clerks, 281 U. S. 548, 570-571 (1930), that Congress had the power to regulate matters pertaining to the organization of railroad workers.

In another line of cases, the Court addressed Congress’ efforts to impede local activities it considered undesirable by prohibiting the interstate movement of some essential element. In the Lottery Case, 188 U. S. 321 (1903), the Court rejected the argument that Congress lacked power to prohibit the interstate movement of lottery tickets because it had power only to regulate, not to prohibit. See also Hipolite Egg Co. v. United States, 220 U. S. 45 (1911); Hoke v. United States, 227 U. S. 308 (1913). In Hammer v. Dagenhart, 247 U. S. 251 (1918), however, the Court insisted that the power to regulate commerce “is directly the contrary of the assumed right to forbid commerce from moving,” id., at 269-270, and struck down a prohibition on the interstate transportation of goods manufactured in violation of child labor laws.

Even while it was experiencing difficulties in finding satisfactory principles in these cases, the Court was pursuing a more sustainable and practical approach in other lines of decisions, particularly those involving the regulation of railroad rates. In the Minnesota Rate Cases, 230 U. S. 352 (1913), the Court upheld a state rate order, but observed that Congress might be empowered to regulate in this area if “by reason of the interblending of the interstate and intrastate operations of interstate carriers” the regulation of interstate rates could not be maintained without restrictions on “intra*572state rates which substantially affect the former.” Id., at 432-433. And in the Shreveport Rate Cases, 234 U. S. 342 (1914), the Court upheld an Interstate Commerce Commission order fixing railroad rates with the explanation that congressional authority, “extending to these interstate carriers as instruments of interstate commerce, necessarily embraces the right to control their operations in all matters having such a close and substantial relation to interstate traffic that the control is essential or appropriate to the security of that traffic, to the efficiency of the interstate service, and to the maintenance of conditions under which interstate commerce may be conducted upon fair terms and without molestation or hindrance.” Id., at 351.

Even the most confined interpretation of “commerce” would embrace transportation between the States, so the rate cases posed much less difficulty for the Court than cases involving manufacture or production. Nevertheless, the Court’s recognition of the importance of a practical conception of the commerce power was not altogether confined to the rate cases. In Swift & Co. v. United States, 196 U. S. 375 (1905), the Court upheld the application of federal antitrust law to a combination of meat dealers that occurred in one State but that restrained trade in cattle “sent for sale from a place in one State, with the expectation that they will end their transit ... in another.” Id., at 398. The Court explained that “commerce among the States is not a technical legal conception, but a practical one, drawn from the course of business.” Ibid. Chief Justice Taft followed the same approach in upholding federal regulation of stockyards in Stafford v. Wallace, 258 U. S. 495 (1922). Speaking for the Court, he rejected a “nice and technical inquiry,” id., at 519, when the local transactions at issue could not “be separated from the movement to which they contribute,” id., at 516.

Reluctance of the Court to adopt that approach in all of its cases caused inconsistencies in doctrine to persist, however. In addressing New Deal legislation the Court resuscitated *573the abandoned abstract distinction between direct and indirect effects on interstate commerce. See Carter v. Carter Coal Co., 298 U. S. 238, 309 (1936) (Act regulating price of coal and wages and hours for miners held to have only “secondary and indirect” effect on interstate commerce); Railroad Retirement Bd. v. Alton R. Co., 295 U. S. 330, 368 (1935) (compulsory retirement and pension plan for railroad carrier employees too “remote from any regulation of commerce as such”); A. L. A. Schechter Poultry Corp. v. United States, 295 U. S. 495, 548 (1935) (wage and hour law provision of National Industrial Recovery Act had “no direct relation to interstate commerce”).

The case that seems to mark the Court’s definitive commitment to the practical conception of the commerce power is NLRB v. Jones & Laughlin Steel Corp., 301 U. S. 1 (1937), where the Court sustained labor laws that applied to manufacturing facilities, making no real attempt to distinguish Carter, supra, and Schechter, supra. 301 U. S., at 40-41. The deference given to Congress has since been confirmed. United States v. Darby, 312 U. S. 100, 116-117 (1941), overruled Hammer v. Dagenhart, supra. And in Wickard v. Filburn, 317 U. S. 111 (1942), the Court disapproved E. C. Knight and the entire line of direct-indirect and manufacture-production cases, explaining that “broader interpretations of the Commerce Clause [were] destined to supersede the earlier ones,” 317 U. S., at 122, and “[w]hatever terminology is used, the criterion is necessarily one of degree and must be so defined. This does not satisfy those who seek mathematical or rigid formulas. But such formulas are not provided by the great concepts of the Constitution,” id., at 123, n. 24. Later examples of the exercise of federal power where commercial transactions were the subject of regulation include Heart of Atlanta Motel, Inc. v. United States, 379 U. S. 241 (1964), Katzenbach v. McClung, 379 U. S. 294 (1964), and Perez v. United States, 402 U. S. 146 (1971). These and like authorities are within the fair ambit *574of the Court’s practical conception of commercial regulation and are not called in question by our decision today.

The history of our Commerce Clause decisions contains at least two lessons of relevance to this case. The first, as stated at the outset, is the imprecision of content-based boundaries used without more to define the limits of the Commerce Clause. The second, related to the first but of even greater consequence, is that the Court as an institution and the legal system as a whole have an immense stake in the stability of our Commerce Clause jurisprudence as it has evolved to this point. Stare decisis operates with great force in counseling us not to call in question the essential principles now in place respecting the congressional power to regulate transactions of a commercial nature. That fundamental restraint on our power forecloses us from reverting to an understanding of commerce that would serve only an 18th-century economy, dependent then upon production and trading practices that had changed but little over the preceding centuries; it also mandates against returning to the time when congressional authority to regulate undoubted commercial activities was limited by a judicial determination that those matters had an insufficient connection to an interstate system. Congress can regulate in the commercial sphere on the assumption that we have a single market and a unified purpose to build a stable national economy.

In referring to the whole subject of the federal and state balance, we said this just three Terms ago:

“This framework has been sufficiently flexible over the past two centuries to allow for enormous changes in the nature of government. The Federal Government undertakes activities today that would have been unimaginable to the Framers in two senses: first, because the Framers would not have conceived that any government would conduct such activities; and second, because the Framers would not have believed that the Federal Government, rather than the States, would assume such *575responsibilities. Yet the powers conferred upon the Federal Government by the Constitution were phrased in language broad enough to allow for the expansion of the Federal Government’s role.” New York v. United States, 505 U. S. 144, 157 (1992) (emphasis deleted).

It does not follow, however, that in every instance the Court lacks the authority and responsibility to review congressional attempts to alter the federal balance. This case requires us to consider our place in the design of the Government and to appreciate the significance of federalism in the whole structure of the Constitution.

Of the various structural elements in the Constitution, separation of powers, checks and balances, judicial review, and federalism, only concerning the last does there seem to be much uncertainty respecting the existence, and the content, of standards that allow the Judiciary to play a significant role in maintaining the design contemplated by the Framers. Although the resolution of specific cases has proved difficult, we have derived from the Constitution workable standards to assist in preserving separation of powers and checks and balances. See, e. g., Prize Cases, 2 Black 635 (1863); Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v. Sawyer, 343 U. S. 579 (1952); United States v. Nixon, 418 U. S. 683 (1974); Buckley v. Valeo, 424 U. S. 1 (1976); INS v. Chadha, 462 U. S. 919 (1983); Bowsher v. Synar, 478 U. S. 714 (1986); Plaut v. Spendthrift Farm, Inc., ante, p. 211. These standards are by now well accepted. Judicial review is also established beyond question, Marbury v. Madison, 1 Cranch 137 (1803), and though we may differ when applying its principles, see, e. g., Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pa. v. Casey, 505 U. S. 833 (1992), its legitimacy is undoubted. Our role in preserving the federal balance seems more tenuous.

There is irony in this, because of the four structural elements in the Constitution just mentioned, federalism was the unique contribution of the Framers to political science and political theory. See Friendly, Federalism: A Foreword, 86 *576Yale L. J. 1019 (1977); G. Wood, The Creation of the American Republic, 1776-1787, pp. 524-532, 564 (1969). Though on the surface the idea may seem counterintuitive, it was the insight of the Framers that freedom was enhanced by the creation of two governments, not one. “In the compound republic of America, the power surrendered by the people is first divided between two distinct governments, and then the portion allotted to each subdivided among distinct and separate departments. Hence a double security arises to the rights of the people. The different governments will control each other, at the same time that each will be controlled by itself.” The Federalist No. 51, p. 323 (C. Rossiter ed. 1961) (J. Madison). See also Gregory v. Ashcroft, 501 U. S. 452, 458-459 (1991) (“Just as the separation and independence of the coordinate branches of the Federal Government serve to prevent the accumulation of excessive power in any one branch, a healthy balance of power between the States and the Federal Government will reduce the risk of tyranny and abuse from either front. ... In the tension between federal and state power lies the promise of liberty”); New York v. United States, supra, at 181 (“[T]he Constitution divides authority between federal and state governments for the protection of individuals. State sovereignty is not just an end in itself: ‘Rather, federalism secures to citizens the liberties that derive from the diffusion of sovereign power’ ”) (quoting Coleman v. Thompson, 501 U. S. 722, 759 (1991) (Blackmun, J., dissenting)).

The theory that two governments accord more liberty than one requires for its realization two distinct and discern-able lines of political accountability: one between the citizens and the Federal Government; the second between the citizens and the States. If, as Madison expected, the Federal and State Governments are to control each other, see The Federalist No. 51, and hold each other in check by competing for the affections of the people, see The Federalist No. 46, those citizens must have some means of knowing which of *577the two governments to hold accountable for the failure to perform a given function. “Federalism serves to assign political responsibility, not to obscure it.” FTC v. Ticor Title Ins. Co., 504 U. S. 621, 636 (1992). Were the Federal Government to take over the regulation of entire areas of traditional state concern, areas having nothing to do with the regulation of commercial activities, the boundaries between the spheres of federal and state authority would blur and political responsibility would become illusory. Cf. New York v. United States, supra, at 155-169; FERC v. Mississippi, 456 U. S. 742, 787 (1982) (O’Connor, J., concurring in judgment in part and dissenting in part). The resultant inability to hold either branch of the government answerable to the citizens is more dangerous even than devolving too much authority to the remote central power.

To be sure, one conclusion that could be drawn from The Federalist Papers is that the balance between national and state power is entrusted in its entirety to the political process. Madison’s observation that “the people ought not surely to be precluded from giving most of their confidence where they may discover it to be most due,” The Federalist No. 46, p. 295 (C. Rossiter ed. 1961), can be interpreted to say that the essence of responsibility for a shift in power from the State to the Federal Government rests upon a political judgment, though he added assurance that “the State governments could have little to apprehend, because it is only within a certain sphere that the federal power can, in the nature of things, be advantageously administered,” ibid. Whatever the judicial role, it is axiomatic that Congress does have substantial discretion and control over the federal balance.

For these reasons, it would be mistaken and mischievous for the political branches to forget that the sworn obligation to preserve and protect the Constitution in maintaining the federal balance is their own in the first and primary instance. In the Webster-Hayne Debates, see The Great Speeches and *578Orations of Daniel Webster 227-272 (E. Whipple ed. 1879), and the debates over the Civil Rights Acts, see Hearings on S. 1732 before the Senate Committee on Commerce, 88th Cong., 1st Sess., pts. 1-3 (1963), some Congresses have accepted responsibility to confront the great questions of the proper federal balance in terms of lasting consequences for the constitutional design. The political branches of the Government must fulfill this grave constitutional obligation if democratic liberty and the federalism that secures it are to endure.

At the same time, the absence of structural mechanisms to require those officials to undertake this principled task, and the momentary political convenience often attendant upon their failure to do so, argue against a complete renunciation of the judicial role. Although it is the obligation of all officers of the Government to respect the constitutional design, see Public Citizen v. Department of Justice, 491 U. S. 440, 466 (1989); Rostker v. Goldberg, 453 U. S. 57, 64 (1981), the federal balance is too essential a part of our constitutional structure and plays too vital a role in securing freedom for us to admit inability to intervene when one or the other level of Government has tipped the scales too far.

In the past this Court has participated in maintaining the federal balance through judicial exposition of doctrines such as abstention, see, e. g., Younger v. Harris, 401 U. S. 37 (1971); Railroad Comm’n of Tex. v. Pullman Co., 312 U. S. 496 (1941); Burford v. Sun Oil Co., 319 U. S. 315 (1943), the rules for determining the primacy of state law, see, e. g., Erie R. Co. v. Tompkins, 304 U. S. 64 (1938), the doctrine of adequate and independent state grounds, see, e. g., Murdock v. Memphis, 20 Wall. 590 (1875); Michigan v. Long, 463 U. S. 1032 (1983), the whole jurisprudence of pre-emption, see, e. g., Rice v. Santa Fe Elevator Corp., 331 U. S. 218 (1947); Cipollone v. Liggett Group, Inc., 505 U. S. 504 (1992), and many of the rules governing our habeas jurisprudence, see, e. g., Coleman v. Thompson, 501 U. S. 722 (1991); McCleskey *579v. Zant, 499 U. S. 467 (1991); Teague v. Lane, 489 U. S. 288 (1989); Rose v. Lundy, 455 U. S. 509 (1982); Wainwright v. Sykes, 433 U. S. 72 (1977).

Our ability to preserve this principle under the Commerce Clause has presented a much greater challenge. See supra, at 568-574. “This clause has throughout the Court’s history been the chief source of its adjudications regarding federalism,” and “no other body of opinions affords a fairer or more revealing test of judicial qualities.” Frankfurter 66-67. But as the branch whose distinctive duty it is to declare “what the law is,” Marbury v. Madison, 1 Cranch, at 177, we are often called upon to resolve questions of constitutional law not susceptible to the mechanical application of bright and clear lines. The substantial element of political judgment in Commerce Clause matters leaves our institutional capacity to intervene more in doubt than when we decide cases, for instance, under the Bill of Rights even though clear and bright lines are often absent in the latter class of disputes. See County of Allegheny v. American Civil Liberties Union, Greater Pittsburgh Chapter, 492 U. S. 573, 630 (1989) (O’Connor, J., concurring in part and concurring in judgment) (“We cannot avoid the obligation to draw lines, often close and difficult lines” in adjudicating constitutional rights). But our cases do not teach that we have no role at all in determining the meaning of the Commerce Clause.

Our position in enforcing the dormant Commerce Clause is instructive. The Court’s doctrinal approach in that area has likewise “taken some turns.” Oklahoma Tax Comm’n v. Jefferson Lines, Inc., ante, at 180. Yet in contrast to the prevailing skepticism that surrounds our ability to give meaning to the explicit text of the Commerce Clause, there is widespread acceptance of our authority to enforce the dormant Commerce Clause, which we have but inferred from the constitutional structure as a limitation on the power of the States. One element of our dormant Commerce Clause jurisprudence has been the principle that the States may not *580impose regulations that place an undue burden on interstate commerce, even where those regulations do not discriminate between in-state and out-of-state businesses. See Brown-Forman Distillers Corp. v. New York State Liquor Authority, 476 U. S. 578, 579 (1986) (citing Pike v. Bruce Church, Inc., 397 U. S. 137, 142 (1970)). Distinguishing between regulations that do place an undue burden on interstate commerce and regulations that do not depends upon delicate judgments. True, if we invalidate a state law, Congress can in effect overturn our judgment, whereas in a case announcing that Congress has transgressed its authority, the decision is more consequential, for it stands unless Congress can revise its law to demonstrate its commercial character. This difference no doubt informs the circumspection with which we invalidate an Act of Congress, but it does not mitigate our duty to recognize meaningful limits on the commerce power of Congress.

The statute before us upsets the federal balance to a degree that renders it an unconstitutional assertion of the commerce power, and our intervention is required. As The Chief Justice explains, unlike the earlier cases to come before the Court here neither the actors nor their conduct has a commercial character, and neither the purposes nor the design of the statute has an evident commercial nexus. See ante, at 559-561. The statute makes the simple possession of a gun within 1,000 feet of the grounds of the school a criminal offense. In a sense any conduct in this interdependent world of ours has an ultimate commercial origin or consequence, but we have not yet said the commerce power may reach so far. If Congress attempts that extension, then at the least we must inquire whether the exercise of national power seeks to intrude upon an area of traditional state concern.

An interference of these dimensions occurs here, for it is well established that education is a traditional concern of the States. Milliken v. Bradley, 418 U. S. 717, 741-742 (1974); *581Epperson v. Arkansas, 393 U. S. 97, 104 (1968). The proximity to schools, including of course schools owned and operated by the States or their subdivisions, is the very premise for making the conduct criminal. In these circumstances, we have a particular duty to ensure that the federal-state balance is not destroyed. Cf. Rice, supra, at 230 (“[W]e start with the assumption that the historic police powers of the States” are not displaced by a federal statute “unless that was the clear and manifest purpose of Congress”); Florida Lime & Avocado Growers, Inc. v. Paul, 373 U. S. 132, 146 (1963).

While it is doubtful that any State, or indeed any reasonable person, would argue that it is wise policy to allow students to carry guns on school premises, considerable disagreement exists about how best to accomplish that goal. In this circumstance, the theory and utility of our federalism are revealed, for the States may perform their role as laboratories for experimentation to devise various solutions where the best solution is far from clear. See San Antonio Independent School Dist. v. Rodriguez, 411 U. S. 1, 49-50 (1973); New State Ice Co. v. Liebmann, 285 U. S. 262, 311 (1932) (Brandéis, J., dissenting).

If a State or municipality determines that harsh criminal sanctions are necessary and wise to deter students from carrying guns on school premises, the reserved powers of the States are sufficient to enact those measures. Indeed, over 40 States already have criminal laws outlawing the possession of firearms on or near school grounds. See, e. g., Alaska Stat. Ann. §§ 11.61.195(a)(2)(A), 11.61.220(a)(4)(A) (Supp. 1994); Cal. Penal Code Ann. § 626.9 (West Supp. 1994); Mass. Gen. Laws § 269:10(j) (1992); N. J. Stat. Ann. § 2C:39-5(e) (West Supp. 1994); Va. Code Ann. § 18.2-308.1 (1988); Wis. Stat. § 948.605 (1991-1992).

Other, more practicable means to rid the schools of guns may be thought by the citizens of some States to be preferable for the safety and welfare of the schools those States are *582charged with maintaining. See Brief for National Conference of State Legislatures et al. as Amici Curiae 26-30 (injection of federal officials into local problems causes friction and diminishes political accountability of state and local governments). These might include inducements to inform on violators where the information leads to arrests or confiscation of the guns, see Lima, Schools May Launch Weapons Hot Line, Los Angeles Times, Ventura Cty. East ed., Jan. 13, 1995, p. Bl, col. 5; Reward for Tips on Guns in Tucson Schools, The Arizona Republic, Jan. 7, 1995, p. B2; programs to encourage the voluntary surrender of guns with some provision for amnesty, see Zaidan, Akron Rallies to Save Youths, The Plain Dealer, Mar. 2, 1995, p. IB; Swift, Legislators Consider Plan to Get Guns Off Streets, Hartford Courant, Apr. 29, 1992, p. A4; penalties imposed on parents or guardians for failure to supervise the child, see, e. g., Okla. Stat., Tit. 21, § 858 (Supp. 1995) (fining parents who allow students to possess firearm at school); Tenn. Code Ann. § 39-17-1312 (Supp. 1992) (misdemeanor for parents to allow student to possess firearm at school); Straight Shooter: Gov. Casey’s Reasonable Plan to Control Assault Weapons, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Mar. 14,1994, p. B2 (proposed bill); Bailey, Anti-Crime Measures Top Legislators’ Agenda, Los Angeles Times, Orange Cty. ed., Mar. 7, 1994, p. Bl, col. 2 (same); Krupa, New Gun-Control Plans Could Tighten Local Law, The Boston Globe, June 20,1993, p. 29; laws providing for suspension or expulsion of gun-toting students, see, e. g., Ala. Code § 16-1-24.1 (Supp. 1994); Ind. Code § 20-8.1-5-4(b)(1)(D) (1993); Ky. Rev. Stat. Ann. § 158.150(1)(a) (Michie 1992); Wash. Rev. Code § 9.41.280 (1994), or programs for expulsion with assignment to special facilities, see Martin, Legislators Poised to Take Harsher Stand on Guns in Schools, The Seattle Times, Feb. 1, 1995, p. Bl (automatic year-long expulsion for students with guns and intense semester-long reentry program).

*583The statute now before us forecloses the States from experimenting and exercising their own judgment in an area to which States lay claim by right of history and expertise, and it does so by regulating an activity beyond the realm of commerce in the ordinary and usual sense of that term. The tendency of this statute to displace state regulation in areas of traditional state concern is evident from its territorial operation. There are over 100,000 elementary and secondary schools in the United States. See U. S. Dept. of Education, National Center for Education Statistics, Digest of Education Statistics 73, 104 (NCES 94-115, 1994) (Tables 63, 94). Each of these now has an invisible federal zone extending 1,000 feet beyond the (often irregular) boundaries of the school property. In some communities no doubt it would be difficult to navigate without infringing on those zones. Yet throughout these areas, school officials would find their own programs for the prohibition of guns in danger of displacement by the federal authority unless the State chooses to enact a parallel rule.

This is not a case where the etiquette of federalism has been violated by a formal command from the National Government directing the State to enact a certain policy, cf. New York v. United States, 505 U. S. 144 (1992), or to organize its governmental functions in a certain way, cf. FERC v. Mississippi, 456 U. S., at 781 (O’Connor, J., concurring in judgment in part and dissenting in part). While the intrusion on state sovereignty may not be as severe in this instance as in some of our recent Tenth Amendment cases, the intrusion is nonetheless significant. Absent a stronger connection or identification with commercial concerns that are central to the Commerce Clause, that interference contradicts the federal balance the Framers designed and that this Court is obliged to enforce.

For these reasons, I join in the opinion and judgment of the Court.

*584Justice Thomas,

concurring.

The Court today properly concludes that the Commerce Clause does not grant Congress the authority to prohibit gun possession within 1,000 feet of a school, as it attempted to do in the Gun-Free School Zones Act of 1990, Pub. L. 101-647, 104 Stat. 4844. Although I join the majority, I write separately to observe that our case law has drifted far from the original understanding of the Commerce Clause. In a future case, we ought to temper our Commerce Clause jurisprudence in a manner that both makes sense of our more recent case law and is more faithful to the original understanding of that Clause.

We have said that Congress may regulate not only “Commerce . . . among the several States,” U. S. Const., Art. I, § 8, cl. 3, but also anything that has a “substantial effect” on such commerce. This test, if taken to its logical extreme, would give Congress a “police power” over all aspects of American life. Unfortunately, we have never come to grips with this implication of our substantial effects formula. Although we have supposedly applied the substantial effects test for the past 60 years, we always have rejected readings of the Commerce Clause and the scope of federal power that would permit Congress to exercise a police power; our cases are quite clear that there are real limits to federal power. See New York v. United States, 505 U. S. 144, 155 (1992) (“[N]o one disputes the proposition that ‘[t]he Constitution created a Federal Government of limited powers’ ”) (quoting Gregory v. Ashcroft, 501 U. S. 452, 457 (1991); Maryland v. Wirtz, 392 U. S. 183, 196 (1968); NLRB v. Jones & Laughlin Steel Corp., 301 U. S. 1, 37 (1937). Cf. Chisholm v. Georgia, 2 Dall. 419, 435 (1793) (Iredell, J.) (“Each State in the Union is sovereign as to all the powers reserved. It must necessarily be so, because the United States have no claim to any authority but such as the States have surrendered to them”) (emphasis deleted). Indeed, on this crucial point, the majority and Justice Breyer agree in principle: The Federal *585Government has nothing approaching a police power. Compare ante, at 556-558, with post, at 624.

While the principal dissent concedes that there are limits to federal power, the sweeping nature of our current test enables the dissent to argue that Congress can regulate gun possession. But it seems to me that the power to regulate “commerce” can by no means encompass authority over mere gun possession, any more than it empowers the Federal Government to regulate marriage, littering, or cruelty to animals, throughout the 50 States. Our Constitution quite properly leaves such matters to the individual States, notwithstanding these activities’ effects on interstate commerce. Any interpretation of the Commerce Clause that even suggests that Congress could regulate such matters is in need of reexamination.

In an appropriate case, I believe that we must further reconsider our “substantial effects” test with an eye toward constructing a standard that reflects the text and history of the Commerce Clause without totally rejecting our more recent Commerce Clause jurisprudence.

Today, however, I merely support the Court’s conclusion with a discussion of the text, structure, and history of the Commerce Clause and an analysis of our early case law. My goal is simply to show how far we have departed from the original understanding and to demonstrate that the result we reach today is by no means “radical,” see post, at 602 (Stevens, J., dissenting). I also want to point out the necessity of refashioning a coherent test that does not tend to “obliterate the distinction between what is national and what is local and create a completely centralized government.” Jones & Laughlin Steel Corp., supra, at 37.

I

At the time the original Constitution was ratified, “commerce” consisted of selling, buying, and bartering, as well as transporting for these purposes. See 1 S. Johnson, A Die*586tionary of the English Language 361 (4th ed. 1773) (defining commerce as “Intercourse; exchange of one thing for another; interchange of any thing; trade; traffick”); N. Bailey, An Universal Etymological English Dictionary (26th ed. 1789) (“trade or traffic”); T. Sheridan, A Complete Dictionary of the English Language (6th ed. 1796) (“Exchange of one thing for another; trade, traffick”). This understanding finds support in the etymology of the word, which literally means “with merchandise.” See 3 Oxford English Dictionary 552 (2d ed. 1989) (com — “with”; merci — “merchandise”). In fact, when Federalists and Anti-Federalists discussed the Commerce Clause during the ratification period, they often used trade (in its selling/bartering sense) and commerce interchangeably. See The Federalist No. 4, p. 22 (J. Jay) (asserting that countries will cultivate our friendship when our “trade” is prudently regulated by Federal Government);1 id., No. 7, at 39-40 (A. Hamilton) (discussing “competitions of commerce” between States resulting from state “regulations of trade”); id., No. 40, at 262 (J. Madison) (asserting that it was an “acknowledged object of the Convention .. . that the regulation of trade should be submitted to the general government”); Lee, Letters of a Federal Farmer No. 5, in Pamphlets on the Constitution of the United States 319 (P. Ford ed. 1888); Smith, An Address to the People of the State of New-York, in id., at 107.

As one would expect, the term “commerce” was used in contradistinction to productive activities such as manufacturing and agriculture. Alexander Hamilton, for example, repeatedly treated commerce, agriculture, and manufacturing as three separate endeavors. See, e. g., The Federalist No. 36, at 224 (referring to “agriculture, commerce, manufactures”); id., No. 21, at 133 (distinguishing commerce, arts, and industry); id., No. 12, at 74 (asserting that commerce and agriculture have shared interests). The same distinctions *587were made in the state ratification conventions. See, e. g., 2 Debates in the Several State Conventions on the Adoption of the Federal Constitution 57 (J. Elliot ed. 1836) (hereinafter Debates) (T. Dawes at Massachusetts convention); id., at 336 (M. Smith at New York convention).

Moreover, interjecting a modern sense of commerce into the Constitution generates significant textual and structural problems. For example, one cannot replace “commerce” with a different type of enterprise, such as manufacturing. When a manufacturer produces a car, assembly cannot take place “with a foreign nation” or “with the Indian Tribes.” Parts may come from different States or other nations and hence may have been in the flow of commerce at one time, but manufacturing takes place at a discrete site. Agriculture and manufacturing involve the production of goods; commerce encompasses traffic in such articles.

The Port Preference Clause also suggests that the term “commerce” denoted sale and/or transport rather than business generally. According to that Clause, “[n]o Preference shall be given by any Regulation of Commerce or Revenue to the Ports of one State over those of another.” U. S. Const., Art. I, § 9, cl. 6. Although it is possible to conceive of regulations of manufacturing or farming that prefer one port over another, the more natural reading is that the Clause prohibits Congress from using its commerce power to channel commerce through certain favored ports.

The Constitution not only uses the word “commerce” in a narrower sense than our case law might suggest, it also does not support the proposition that Congress has authority over all activities that “substantially affect” interstate commerce. The Commerce Clause2 does not state that Congress may *588“regulate matters that substantially affect commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes.” In contrast, the Constitution itself temporarily prohibited amendments that would “affect” Congress’ lack of authority to prohibit or restrict the slave trade or to enact unproportioned direct taxation. Art. V. Clearly, the Framers could have drafted a Constitution that contained a “substantially affects interstate commerce” Clause had that been their objective.

In addition to its powers under the Commerce Clause,' Congress has the authority to enact such laws as are “necessary and proper” to carry into execution its power to regulate commerce among the several States. U. S. Const., Art. I, § 8, cl. 18. But on this Court’s understanding of congressional power under these two Clauses, many of Congress’ other enumerated powers under Art. I, § 8, are wholly superfluous. After all, if Congress may regulate all matters that substantially affect commerce, there is no need for the Constitution to specify that Congress may enact bankruptcy laws, cl. 4, or coin money and fix the standard of weights and measures, cl. 5, or punish counterfeiters of United States coin and securities, cl. 6. Likewise, Congress would not need the separate authority to establish post offices and post roads, cl. 7, or to grant patents and copyrights, cl. 8, or to “punish Piracies and Felonies committed on the high Seas,” cl. 10. It might not even need the power to raise and support an Army and Navy, els. 12 and 13, for fewer people would engage in commercial shipping if they thought that a foreign power could expropriate their property with ease. Indeed, if Congress could regulate matters that substantially affect interstate commerce, there would have been no need to spec*589ify that Congress can regulate international trade and commerce with the Indians. As the Framers surely understood, these other branches of trade substantially affect interstate commerce.

Put simply, much if not all of Art. I, § 8 (including portions of the Commerce Clause itself), would be surplusage if Congress had been given authority over matters that substantially affect interstate commerce. An interpretation of cl. 3 that makes the rest of § 8 superfluous simply cannot be correct. Yet this Court’s Commerce Clause jurisprudence has endorsed just such an interpretation: The power we have accorded Congress has swallowed Art. I, § 8.3

Indeed, if a “substantial effects” test can be appended to the Commerce Clause, why not to every other power of the Federal Government? There is no reason for singling out the Commerce Clause for special treatment. Accordingly, Congress could regulate all matters that “substantially affect” the Army and Navy, bankruptcies, tax collection, expenditures, and so on. In that case, the Clauses of §8 all mutually overlap, something we can assume the Founding Fathers never intended.

Our construction of the scope of congressional authority has the additional problem of coming close to turning the Tenth Amendment on its head. Our case law could be read to reserve to the United States all powers not expressly prohibited by the Constitution. Taken together, these fundamental textual problems should, at the very least, convince us that the “substantial effects” test should be reexamined.

*590II

The exchanges during the ratification campaign reveal the relatively limited reach of the Commerce Clause and of federal power generally. The Founding Fathers confirmed that most areas of life (even many matters that would have substantial effects on commerce) would remain outside the reach of the Federal Government. Such affairs would continue to be under the exclusive control of the States.

Early Americans understood that commerce, manufacturing, and agriculture, while distinct activities, were intimately related and dependent on each other — that each “substantially affected” the others. After all, items produced by farmers and manufacturers were the primary articles of commerce at the time. If commerce was more robust as a result of federal superintendence, farmers and manufacturers could benefit. Thus, Oliver Ellsworth of Connecticut attempted to convince farmers of the benefits of regulating commerce. “Your property and riches depend on a ready demand and generous price for the produce you can annually spare,” he wrote, and these conditions exist “where trade flourishes and when the merchant can freely export the produce of the country” to nations that will pay the highest price. A Landholder No. 1, Connecticut Courant, Nov. 5, 1787, in 3 Documentary History of the Ratification of the Constitution 399 (M. Jensen ed. 1978) (hereinafter Documentary History). See also The Federalist No. 35, at 219 (A. Hamilton) (“[Discerning citizens are well aware that the mechanic and manufacturing arts furnish the materials of mercantile enterprise and industry. Many of them indeed are immediately connected with the operations of commerce. They know that the merchant is their natural patron and friend”); id., at 221 (“Will not the merchant... be disposed to cultivate ... the interests of the mechanic and manufacturing arts to which his commerce is so nearly allied?”); A Jerseyman: To the Citizens of New Jersey, Trenton Mercury, Nov. 6,1787, in 3 Documentary History 147 (noting that agriculture will serve as *591a “source of commerce”); Marcus, The New Jersey Journal, Nov. 14, 1787, id., at 152 (both the mechanic and the farmer benefit from the prosperity of commerce). William Davie, a delegate to the North Carolina Convention, illustrated the close link best: “Commerce, sir, is the nurse of [agriculture and manufacturing]. The merchant furnishes the planter with such articles as he cannot manufacture himself, and finds him a market for his produce. Agriculture cannot flourish if commerce languishes; they are mutually dependent on each other.” 4 Debates 20.

Yet, despite being well aware that agriculture, manufacturing, and other matters substantially affected commerce, the founding generation did not cede authority over all these activities to Congress. Hamilton, for instance, acknowledged that the Federal Government could not regulate agriculture and like concerns:

“The administration of private justice between the citizens of the same State, the supervision of agriculture and of other concerns of a similar nature, all those things in short which are proper to be provided for by local legislation, can never be desirable cares of a general jurisdiction.” The Federalist No. 17, at 106.

In the unlikely event that the Federal Government would attempt to exercise authority over such matters, its effort “would be as troublesome as it would be nugatory.” Ibid4

*592The comments of Hamilton and others about federal power reflected the well-known truth that the new Government would have only the limited and enumerated powers found in the Constitution. See, e. g., 2 Debates 267-268 (A. Hamilton at New York Convention) (noting that there would be just cause for rejecting the Constitution if it would enable the Federal Government to “alter, or abrogate ... [a State’s] civil and criminal institutions [or] penetrate the recesses of domestic life, and control, in all respects, the private conduct of individuals”); The Federalist No. 45, at 313 (J. Madison); 3 Debates 259 (J. Madison) (Virginia Convention); R. Sherman & O. Ellsworth, Letter to Governor Huntington, Sept. 26, 1787, in 3 Documentary History 352; J. Wilson, Speech in the State House Yard, Oct. 6, 1787, in 2 id., at 167-168. Agriculture and manufacture, since they were not surrendered to the Federal Government, were state concerns. See The Federalist No. 34, at 212-213 (A. Hamilton) (observing that the “internal encouragement of agriculture and manufactures” was an object of state expenditure). Even before the passage of the Tenth Amendment, it was apparent that Congress would possess only those powers “herein granted” by the rest of the Constitution. Art. I, § 1.

. Where the Constitution was meant to grant federal authority over an activity substantially affecting interstate commerce, the Constitution contains an enumerated power over that particular activity. Indeed, the Framers knew that many of the other enumerated powers in § 8 dealt with matters that substantially affected interstate commerce. Madison, for instance, spoke of the bankruptcy power as being “intimately connected with the regulation of commerce.” The Federalist No. 42, at 287. Likewise, Hamilton urged that “[i]f we mean to be a commercial people or even to be secure on our Atlantic side, we must endeavour as soon as possible to have a navy.” Id., No. 24, at 157.

In short, the Founding Fathers were well aware of what the principal dissent calls “‘economic . . . realities.’” See *593post, at 625 (Breyer, J.) (quoting North American Co. v. SEC, 327 U. S. 686, 705 (1946)). Even though the boundary between commerce and other matters may ignore “economic reality” and thus seem arbitrary or artificial to some, we must nevertheless respect a constitutional line that does not grant Congress power over all that substantially affects interstate commerce.

Ill

If the principal dissent’s understanding of our early case law were correct, there might be some reason to doubt this view of the original understanding of the Constitution. According to that dissent, Chief Justice Marshall’s opinion in Gibbons v. Ogden, 9 Wheat. 1 (1824), established that Congress may control all local activities that “significantly affect interstate commerce,” post, at 615. And, “with the exception of one wrong turn subsequently corrected,” this has been the “traditiona[l]” method of interpreting the Commerce Clause. Post, at 631 (citing Gibbons and United States v. Darby, 312 U. S. 100, 116-117 (1941)).

In my view, the dissent is wrong about the holding and reasoning of Gibbons. Because this error leads the dissent to characterize the first 150 years of this Court’s case law as a “wrong turn,” I feel compelled to put the last 50 years in proper perspective.

A

In Gibbons, the Court examined whether a federal law that licensed ships to engage in the “coasting trade” preempted a New York law granting a 30-year monopoly to Robert Livingston and Robert Fulton to navigate the State’s waterways by steamship. In concluding that it did, the Court noted that Congress could regulate “navigation” because “[a]ll America ... has uniformly understood, the word ‘commerce,’ to comprehend navigation. It was so understood, and must have been so understood, when the constitution was framed.” 9 Wheat., at 190. The Court also ob*594served that federal power over commerce “among the several States” meant that Congress could regulate commerce conducted partly within a State. Because a portion of interstate commerce and foreign commerce would almost always take place within one or more States, federal power over interstate and foreign commerce necessarily would extend into the States. Id., at 194-196.

At the same time, the Court took great pains to make clear that Congress could not regulate commerce “which is completely internal, which is carried on between man and man in a State, or between different parts of the same State, and which does not extend to or affect other States.” Id., at 194. Moreover, while suggesting that the Constitution might not permit States to regulate interstate or foreign commerce, the Court observed that “[inspection laws, quarantine laws, health laws of every description, as well as laws for regulating the internal commerce of a State” were but a small part “of that immense mass of legislation . . . not surrendered to a general government.” Id., at 203. From an early moment, the Court rejected the notion that Congress can regulate everything that affects interstate commerce. That the internal commerce of the States and the numerous state inspection, quarantine, and health laws had substantial effects on interstate commerce cannot be doubted. Nevertheless, they were not “surrendered to the general government.”

Of course, the principal dissent is not the first to misconstrue Gibbons. For instance, the Court has stated that Gibbons “described the federal commerce power with a breadth never yet exceeded.” Wickard v. Filburn, 317 U. S. 111, 120 (1942). See also Perez v. United States, 402 U. S. 146, 151 (1971) (claiming that with Darby and Wickard, “the broader view of the Commerce Clause announced by Chief Justice Marshall had been restored”). I believe that this misreading stems from two statements in Gibbons.

First, the Court made the uncontroversial claim that federal power does not encompass “commerce” that “does *595not extend to or affect other States.” 9 Wheat., at 194 (emphasis added). From this statement, the principal dissent infers that whenever an activity affects interstate commerce, it necessarily follows that Congress can regulate such activities. Of course, Chief Justice Marshall said no such thing and the inference the dissent makes cannot be drawn.

There is a much better interpretation of the “affect[s]” language: Because the Court had earlier noted that the commerce power did not extend to wholly intrastate commerce, the Court was acknowledging that although the line between intrastate and interstate/foreign commerce would be difficult to draw, federal authority could not be construed to cover purely intrastate commerce. Commerce that did not affect another State could never be said to be commerce “among the several States.”

But even if one were to adopt the dissent’s reading, the “affect[s]” language, at most, permits Congress to regulate only intrastate commerce that substantially affects interstate and foreign commerce. There is no reason to believe that Chief Justice Marshall was asserting that Congress could regulate all activities that affect interstate commerce. See ibid.

The second source of confusion stems from the Court’s praise for the Constitution’s division of power between the States and the Federal Government:

“The genius and character of the whole government seem to be, that its action is to be applied to all the external concerns of the nation, and to those internal concerns which affect the States generally; but not to those which are completely within a particular State, which do not affect other States, and with which it is not necessary to interfere, for the purpose of executing some of the general powers of the government.” Id., at 195.

*596In this passage, the Court merely was making the well understood point that the Constitution commits matters of “national” concern to Congress and leaves “local” matters to the States. The Court was not saying that whatever Congress believes is a national matter becomes an object of federal control. The matters of national concern are enumerated in the Constitution: war, taxes, patents, and copyrights, uniform rules of naturalization and bankruptcy, types of commerce, and so on. See generally Art. I, § 8. Gibbons’ emphatic statements that Congress could not regulate many matters that affect commerce confirm that the Court did not read the Commerce Clause as granting Congress control over matters that “affect the States generally.”5 Gibbons simply cannot be construed as the principal dissent would have it.

B

I am aware of no cases prior to the New Deal that characterized the power flowing from the Commerce Clause as sweepingly as does our substantial effects test. My review of the case law indicates that the substantial effects test is but an innovation of the 20th century.

Even before Gibbons, Chief Justice Marshall, writing for the Court in Cohens v. Virginia, 6 Wheat. 264 (1821), noted that Congress had “no general right to punish murder committed within any of the States,” id., at 426, and that it was “clear that congress cannot punish felonies generally,” id., at 428. The Court’s only qualification was that Congress could enact such laws for places where it enjoyed plenary powers — for instance, over the District of Columbia. Id., at 426. Thus, whatever effect ordinary murders, or robbery, or gun possession might have on interstate commerce (or on any *597other subject of federal concern) was irrelevant to the question of congressional power.6

United States v. Dewitt, 9 Wall. 41 (1870), marked the first time the Court struck down a federal law as exceeding the power conveyed by the Commerce Clause. In a two-page opinion, the Court invalidated a nationwide law prohibiting all sales of naphtha and illuminating oils. In so doing, the Court remarked that the Commerce Clause “has always been understood as limited by its terms; and as a virtual denial of any power to interfere with the internal trade and business of the separate States.” Id., at 44. The law in question was “plainly a regulation of police,” which could have constitutional application-only where Congress had exclusive authority, such as the territories. Id., at 44-45. See also License Tax Cases, 5 Wall. 462, 470-471 (1867) (Congress cannot interfere with the internal commerce and business of a State); Trade-Mark Cases, 100 U. S. 82 (1879) (Congress *598cannot regulate internal commerce and thus may not establish national trademark registration).

In United States v. E. C. Knight Co., 156 U. S. 1 (1895), this Court held that mere attempts to monopolize the manufacture of sugar could not be regulated pursuant to the Commerce Clause. Raising echoes of the discussions of the Framers regarding the intimate relationship between commerce and manufacturing, the Court declared that “Commerce succeeds to manufacture, and is not a part of it.” Id., at 12. The Court also approvingly quoted from Kidd v. Pearson, 128 U. S. 1, 20 (1888):

‘“No distinction is more popular to the common mind, or more clearly expressed in economic and political literature, than that between manufacture and commerce .... If it be held that the term [commerce] includes the regulation of all such manufactures as are intended to be the subject of commercial transactions in the future, it is impossible to deny that it would also include all productive industries that contemplate the same thing. The result would be that Congress would be invested ... with the power to regulate, not only manufactures, but also agriculture, horticulture, stock raising, domestic fisheries, mining — in short, every branch of human industry.’” E. C. Knight, supra, at 14.,

If federal power extended to these types of production “comparatively little of business operations and affairs would be left for state control.” Id., at 16. See also Newberry v. United States, 256 U. S. 232, 257 (1921) (“It is settled ... that the power to regulate interstate and foreign commerce does not reach whatever is essential thereto. Without agriculture, manufacturing, mining, etc., commerce could not exist, but this fact does not suffice to subject them to the control of Congress”). Whether or not manufacturing, agriculture, or other matters substantially affected interstate commerce was irrelevant.

*599As recently as 1936, the Court continued to insist that the Commerce Clause did not reach the wholly internal business of the States. See Carter v. Carter Coal Co., 298 U. S. 238, 308 (1936) (Congress may not regulate mine labor because “[t]he relation of employer and employee is a local relation”); see also A. L. A. Schechter Poultry Corp. v. United States, 295 U. S. 495, 543-550 (1935) (holding that Congress may not regulate intrastate sales of sick chickens or the labor of employees involved in intrastate poultry sales). The Federal Government simply could not reach such subjects regardless of their effects on interstate commerce.

These cases all establish a simple point: From the time of the ratification of the Constitution to the mid-1930’s, it was widely understood that the Constitution granted Congress only limited powers, notwithstanding the Commerce Clause.7 Moreover, there was no question that activities wholly separated from business, such as gun possession, were beyond the reach of the commerce power. If anything, the “wrong turn” was the Court’s dramatic departure in the 1930’s from a century and a half of precedent.

IV

Apart from its recent vintage and its corresponding lack of any grounding in the original understanding of the Constitution, the substantial effects test suffers from the further *600flaw that it appears to grant Congress a police power over the Nation. When asked at oral argument if there were any limits to the Commerce Clause, the Government was at a loss for words. Tr. of Oral Arg. 5. Likewise, the principal dissent insists that there are limits, but it cannot muster even one example. Post, at 624. Indeed, the dissent implicitly concedes that its reading has no limits when it criticizes the Court for “threatening] legal uncertainty in an area of law that. . . seemed reasonably well settled.” Post, at 630. The one advantage of the dissent’s standard is certainty: It is certain that under its analysis everything may be regulated under the guise of the Commerce Clause.

The substantial effects test suffers from this flaw, in part, because of its “aggregation principle.” Under so-called “class of activities” statutes, Congress can regulate whole categories of activities that are not themselves either “interstate” or “commerce.” In applying the effects test, we ask whether the class of activities as a whole substantially affects interstate commerce, not whether any specific activity within the class has such effects when considered in isolation. See Maryland v. Wirtz, 392 U. S., at 192-193 (if class of activities is “ ‘within the reach of federal power,’ ” courts may not excise individual applications as trivial) (quoting Darby, 312 U. S., at 120-121).

The aggregation principle is clever, but has no stopping point. Suppose all would agree that gun possession within 1,000 feet of a school does not substantially affect commerce, but that possession of weapons generally (knives, brass knuckles, nunchakus, etc.) does. Under our substantial effects doctrine, even though Congress cannot single out gun possession, it can prohibit weapon possession generally. But one always can draw the circle broadly enough to cover an activity that, when taken in isolation, would not have substantial effects on commerce. Under our jurisprudence, if Congress passed an omnibus “substantially affects interstate commerce” statute, purporting to regulate every aspect of human existence, the Act apparently would be constitutional. *601Even though particular sections may govern only trivial activities, the statute in the aggregate regulates matters that substantially affect commerce.

V

This extended discussion of the original understanding and our first century and a half of case law does not necessarily require a wholesale abandonment of our more recent opinions.8 It simply reveals that our substantial effects test is far removed from both the Constitution and from our early case law and that the Court’s opinion should not be viewed as “radical” or another “wrong turn” that must be corrected in the future.9 The analysis also suggests that we ought to temper our Commerce Clause jurisprudence.

*602Unless the dissenting Justices are willing to repudiate our long-held understanding of the limited nature of federal power, I would think that they, too, must be willing to reconsider the substantial effects test in a future case. If we wish to be true to a Constitution that does not cede a police power to the Federal Government, our Commerce Clause’s boundaries simply cannot be “defined” as being “ ‘commensurate with the national needs’ ” or self-consciously intended to let the Federal Government “‘defend itself against economic forces that Congress decrees inimical or destructive of the national economy.’ ” See post, at 625 (Breyer, J., dissenting) (quoting North American Co. v. SEC, 327 U. S., at 705). Such a formulation of federal power is no test at all: It is a blank check.

At an appropriate juncture, I think we must modify our Commerce Clause jurisprudence. Today, it is easy enough to say that the Clause certainly does not empower Congress to ban gun possession within 1,000 feet of a school.

Justice Stevens,

dissenting.

The welfare of our future “Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States,” U. S. Const., Art. I, § 8, cl. 3, is vitally dependent on the character of the education of our children. I therefore agree entirely with Justice Breyer’s explanation of why Congress has ample power to prohibit the possession of firearms in or near schools — just as it may protect the school environment from harms posed by controlled substances such as asbestos or alcohol. I also agree with Justice Souter’s exposition of the radical character of the Court’s holding and its kinship with the discredited, pre-Depression version of substantive due process. Cf. Dolan v. City of Tigard, 512 U. S. 374, 4 05-411 (1994) (Stevens, J., dissenting). I believe, however, that the Court’s extraordinary decision merits this additional comment.

Guns are both articles of commerce and articles that can be used to restrain commerce. Their possession is the con*603sequence, either directly or indirectly, of commercial activity. In my judgment, Congress’ power to regulate commerce in firearms includes the power to prohibit possession of guns at any location because of their potentially harmful use; it necessarily follows that Congress may also prohibit their possession in particular markets. The market for the possession of handguns by school-age children is, distressingly, substantial.* Whether or not the national interest in eliminating that market would have justified federal legislation in 1789, it surely does today.

Justice Souter,

dissenting.

In reviewing congressional legislation under the Commerce Clause, we defer to what is often a merely implicit congressional judgment that its regulation addresses a subject substantially affecting interstate commerce “if there is any rational basis for such a finding.” Hodel v. Virginia Surface Mining & Reclamation Assn., Inc., 452 U. S. 264, 276 (1981); Preseault v. ICC, 494 U. S. 1, 17 (1990); see Maryland v. Wirtz, 392 U. S. 183, 190 (1968), quoting Katzenbach v. McClung, 379 U. S. 294, 303-304 (1964). If that congressional determination is within the realm of reason, “the only remaining question for judicial inquiry is whether ‘the means chosen by Congress [are] reasonably adapted to the end permitted by the Constitution.’” Hodel v. Virginia Surface Mining & Reclamation Assn., Inc., supra, at 276, quoting Heart of Atlanta Motel, Inc. v. United States, 379 U. S. 241, 262 (1964); see also Preseault v. ICC, supra, at 17.1

*604The practice of deferring to rationally based legislative judgments “is a paradigm of judicial restraint.” FCC v. Beach Communications, Inc., 508 U. S. 307, 314 (1993). In judicial review under the Commerce Clause, it reflects our respect for the institutional competence of the Congress on a subject expressly assigned to it by the Constitution and our appreciation of the legitimacy that comes from Congress’s political accountability in dealing with matters open to a wide range of possible choices. See id., at 313-316; Hodel v. Virginia Surface Mining & Reclamation Assn., Inc., supra, at 276; United States v. Carotene Products Co., 304 U. S. 144, 147, 151-154 (1938); cf. Williamson v. Lee Optical of Okla., Inc., 348 U. S. 483, 488 (1955).

It was not ever thus, however, as even a brief overview of Commerce Clause history during the past century reminds us. The modern respect for the competence and primacy of Congress in matters affecting commerce developed only after one of this Court’s most chastening experiences, when it perforce repudiated an earlier and untenably expansive conception of judicial review in derogation of congressional commerce power. A look at history’s sequence will serve to show how today’s decision tugs the Court off course, leading it to suggest opportunities for further developments that would be at odds with the rule of restraint to which the Court still wisely states adherence.

I

Notwithstanding the Court’s recognition of a broad commerce power in Gibbons v. Ogden, 9 Wheat. 1, 196-197 (1824) (Marshall, C. J.), Congress saw few occasions to exercise that power prior to Reconstruction, see generally 2 C. Warren, The Supreme Court in United States History 729-739 (rev. ed. 1935), and it was really the passage of the Interstate Commerce Act of 1887 that opened a new age of congressional reliance on the Commerce Clause for authority to exercise general police powers at the national level, see id., at *605729-730. Although the Court upheld a fair amount of the ensuing legislation as being within the commerce power, see, e. g., Stafford v. Wallace, 258 U. S. 495 (1922) (upholding an Act regulating trade practices in the meat packing industry); Shreveport Rate Cases, 234 U. S. 342 (1914) (upholding Interstate Commerce Commission order to equalize interstate and intrastate rail rates); see generally Warren, supra, at 729-739, the period from the turn of the century to 1937 is better noted for a series of cases applying highly formalistic notions of “commerce” to invalidate federal social and economic legislation, see, e. g., Carter v. Carter Coal Co., 298 U. S. 238, 303-304 (1936) (striking Act prohibiting unfair labor practices in coal industry as regulation of “mining” and “production,” not “commerce”); A. L. A. Schechter Poultry Corp. v. United States, 295 U. S. 495, 545-548 (1935) (striking congressional regulation of activities affecting interstate commerce only “indirectly”); Hammer v. Dagenhart, 247 U. S. 251 (1918) (striking Act prohibiting shipment in interstate commerce of goods manufactured at factories using child labor because the Act regulated “manufacturing,” not “commerce”); Adair v. United States, 208 U. S. 161 (1908) (striking protection of labor union membership as outside “commerce”).

These restrictive views of commerce subject to congressional power complemented the Court’s activism in limiting the enforceable scope of state economic regulation. It is most familiar history that during this same period the Court routinely invalidated state social and economic legislation under an expansive conception of Fourteenth Amendment substantive due process. See, e. g., Louis K. Liggett Co. v. Baldridge, 278 U. S. 105 (1928) (striking state law requiring pharmacy owners to be licensed as pharmacists); Coppage v. Kansas, 236 U. S. 1 (1915) (striking state law prohibiting employers from requiring their employees to agree not to join labor organizations); Lochner v. New York, 198 U. S. 45 (1905) (striking state law establishing maximum working hours for bakers). See generally L. Tribe, American Consti*606tutional Law 568-574 (2d ed. 1988). The fulcrums of judicial review in these cases were the notions of liberty and property characteristic of laissez-faire economics, whereas the Commerce Clause cases turned on what was ostensibly a structural limit of federal power, but under each conception of judicial review the Court’s character for the first third of the century showed itself in exacting judicial scrutiny of a legislature’s choice of economic ends and of the legislative means selected to reach them.

It was not merely coincidental, then, that sea changes in the Court’s conceptions of its authority under the Due Process and Commerce Clauses occurred virtually together, in 1937, with West Coast Hotel Co. v. Parrish, 300 U. S. 379, and NLRB v. Jones & Laughlin Steel Corp., 301 U. S. 1. See Stern, The Commerce Clause and the National Economy, 1933-1946, 59 Harv. L. Rev. 645, 674-682 (1946). In West Coast Hotel, the Court’s rejection of a due process challenge to a state law fixing minimum wages for women and children marked the abandonment of its expansive protection of contractual freedom. Two weeks later, Jones & Laughlin affirmed congressional commerce power to authorize NLRB injunctions against unfair labor practices. The Court’s finding that the regulated activity had a direct enough effect on commerce has since been seen as beginning the abandonment, for practical purposes, of the formalistic distinction between direct and indirect effects.

In the years following these decisions, deference to legislative policy judgments on commercial regulation became the powerful theme under both the Due Process and Commerce Clauses, see United States v. Carolene Products Co., 304 U. S., at 147-148, 152; United States v. Darby, 312 U. S. 100, 119-121 (1941); United States v. Wrightwood Dairy Co., 315 U. S. 110, 118-119 (1942), and in due course that deference became articulate in the standard of rationality review. In due process litigation, the Court’s statement of a rational *607basis test came quickly. See United States v. Carolene Products Co., supra, at 152; see also Williamson v. Lee Optical Co., supra, at 489-490. The parallel formulation of the Commerce Clause test came later, only because complete elimination of the direct/indirect effects dichotomy and acceptance of the cumulative effects doctrine, Wickard v. Filburn, 317 U. S. 111, 125, 127-129 (1942); United States v. Wrightwood Dairy Co., supra, at 124-126, so far settled the pressing issues of congressional power over commerce as to leave the Court for years without any need to phrase a test explicitly deferring to rational legislative judgments. The moment came, however, with the challenge to congressional Commerce Clause authority to prohibit racial discrimination in places of public accommodation, when the Court simply made explicit what the earlier cases had implied: “where we find that the legislators, in light of the facts and testimony before them, have a rational basis for finding a chosen regulatory scheme necessary to the protection of commerce, our investigation is at an end.” Katzenbach v. McClung, 379 U. S., at 303-304, discussing United States v. Darby, supra; see Heart of Atlanta Motel, Inc. v. United States, 379 U. S., at 258-259. Thus, under commerce, as under due process, adoption of rational basis review expressed the recognition that the Court had no sustainable basis for subjecting economic regulation as such to judicial policy judgments, and for the past half century the Court has no more turned back in the direction of formalistic Commerce Clause review (as in deciding whether regulation of commerce was sufficiently direct) than it has inclined toward reasserting the substantive authority of Lochner due process (as in the inflated protection of contractual autonomy). See, e. g., Maryland v. Wirtz, 392 U. S., at 190, 198; Perez v. United States, 402 U. S. 146, 151-157 (1971); Hodel v. Virginia Surface Mining & Reclamation Assn., Inc., 452 U. S., at 276, 277.

*608II

There is today, however, a backward glance at both the old pitfalls, as the Court treats deference under the rationality rule as subject to gradation according to the commercial or noncommercial nature of the immediate subject of the challenged regulation. See ante, at 558-561. The distinction between what is patently commercial and what is not looks much like the old distinction between what directly affects commerce and what touches it only indirectly. And the act of calibrating the level of deference by drawing a line between what is patently commercial and what is less purely so will probably resemble the process of deciding how much interference with contractual freedom was fatal. Thus, it seems fair to ask whether the step taken by the Court today does anything but portend a return to the untenable jurisprudence from which the Court extricated itself almost 60 years ago. The answer is not reassuring. To be sure, the occasion for today’s decision reflects the century’s end, not its beginning. But if it seems anomalous that the Congress of the United States has taken to regulating school yards, the Act in question is still probably no more remarkable than state regulation of bake shops 90 years ago. In any event, there is no reason to hope that the Court’s qualification of rational basis review will be any more successful than the efforts at substantive economic review made by our predecessors as the century began. Taking the Court’s opinion on its own terms, Justice Breyer has explained both the hopeless porosity of “commercial” character as a ground of Commerce Clause distinction in America’s highly connected economy, and the inconsistency of this categorization with our rational basis precedents from the last 50 years.

Further glosses on rationality review, moreover, may be in the offing. Although this case turns on commercial character, the Court gestures toward two other considerations that it might sometime entertain in applying rational basis *609scrutiny (apart from a statutory obligation to supply independent proof of a jurisdictional element): does the congressional statute deal with subjects of traditional state regulation, and does the statute contain explicit factual findings supporting the otherwise implicit determination that the regulated activity substantially affects interstate commerce? Once again, any appeal these considerations may have depends on ignoring the painful lesson learned in 1937, for neither of the Court’s suggestions would square with rational basis scrutiny.

A

The Court observes that the Gun-Free School Zones Act operates in two areas traditionally subject to legislation by the States, education and enforcement of criminal law. The suggestion is either that a connection between commerce and these subjects is remote, or that the commerce power is simply weaker when it touches subjects on which the States have historically been the primary legislators. Neither suggestion is tenable. As for remoteness, it may or may not be wise for the National Government to deal with education, but Justice Breyer has surely demonstrated that the commercial prospects of an illiterate State or Nation are not rosy, and no argument should be needed to show that hijacking interstate shipments of cigarettes can affect commerce substantially, even though the States have traditionally prosecuted robbery. And as for the notion that the commerce power diminishes the closer it gets to customary state concerns, that idea has been flatly rejected, and not long ago. The commerce power, we have often observed, is plenary. Hodel v. Virginia Surface Mining & Reclamation Assn., Inc., supra, at 276; United States v. Darby, 312 U. S., at 114; see Garcia v. San Antonio Metropolitan Transit Authority, 469 U. S. 528, 549-550 (1985); Gibbons v. Ogden, 9 Wheat., at 196-197. Justice Harlan put it this way in speaking for the Court in Maryland v. Wirtz:

*610“There is no general doctrine implied in the Federal Constitution that the two governments, national and state, are each to exercise its powers so as not to interfere with the free and full exercise of the powers of the other. . . . [I]t is clear that the Federal Government, when acting within a delegated power, may override countervailing state interests .... As long ago as [1925], the Court put to rest the contention that state concerns might constitutionally ‘outweigh’ the importance of an otherwise valid federal statute regulating commerce.” 392 U. S., at 195-196 (citations and internal quotation marks omitted).

See also United States v. Darby, supra, at 114; Gregory v. Ashcroft, 501 U. S. 452, 460 (1991); United States v. Carolene Products Co., 304 U. S., at 147.

Nor is there any contrary authority in the reasoning of our cases imposing clear statement rules in some instances of legislation that would significantly alter the state-national balance. In the absence of a clear statement of congressional design, for example, we have refused to interpret ambiguous federal statutes to limit fundamental state legislative prerogatives, Gregory v. Ashcroft, supra, at 460-464, our understanding being that such prerogatives, through which “a State defines itself as a sovereign,” are “powers with which Congress does not readily interfere,” 501 U. S., at 460, 461. Likewise, when faced with two plausible interpretations of a federal criminal statute, we generally will take the alternative that does not force us to impute an intention to Congress to use its full commerce power to regulate conduct traditionally and ably regulated by the States. See United States v. Enmons, 410 U. S. 396, 411-412 (1973); United States v. Bass, 404 U. S. 336, 349-350 (1971); Rewis v. United States, 401 U. S. 808, 812 (1971).

These clear statement rules, however, are merely rules of statutory interpretation, to be relied upon only when the *611terms of a statute allow, United States v. Culbert, 435 U. S. 371, 379-380 (1978); see Gregory v. Ashcroft, supra, at 470; United States v. Bass, supra, at 346-347, and in cases implicating Congress’s historical reluctance to trench on state legislative prerogatives or to enter into spheres already occupied by the States, Gregory v. Ashcroft, supra, at 461; United States v. Bass, supra, at 349; see Rewis v. United States, supra, at 811-812. They are rules for determining intent when legislation leaves intent subject to question. But our hesitance to presume that Congress has acted to alter the state-federal status quo (when presented with a plausible alternative) has no relevance whatever to the enquiry whether it has the commerce power to do so or to the standard of judicial review when Congress has definitely meant to exercise that power. Indeed, to allow our hesitance to affect the standard of review would inevitably degenerate into the sort of substantive policy review that the Court found indefensible 60 years ago. The Court does not assert (and could not plausibly maintain) that the commerce power is wholly devoid of congressional authority to speak on any subject of traditional state concern; but if congressional action is not forbidden absolutely when it touches such a subject, it will stand or fall depending on the Court’s view of the strength of the legislation’s commercial justification. And here once again history raises its objections that the Court’s previous essays in overriding congressional policy choices under the Commerce Clause were ultimately seen to suffer two fatal weaknesses: when dealing with Acts of Congress (as distinct from state legislation subject to review under the theory of dormant commerce power) nothing in the Clause compelled the judicial activism, and nothing about the judiciary as an institution made it a superior source of policy on the subject Congress dealt with. There is no reason to expect the lesson would be different another time.

*612B

There remain questions about legislative findings. The Court of Appeals expressed the view, 2 F. 8d 1342, 1363-1368 (CA5 1993), that the result in this case might well have been different if Congress had made explicit findings that guns in schools have a substantial effect on interstate commerce, and the Court today does not repudiate that position, see ante, at 562-563. Might a court aided by such findings have subjected this legislation to less exacting scrutiny (or, put another way, should a court have deferred to such findings if Congress had made them)?2 The answer to either question must be no, although as a general matter findings are important and to be hoped for in the difficult cases.

It is only natural to look for help with a hard job, and reviewing a claim that Congress has exceeded the commerce power is much harder in some cases than in others. A challenge to congressional regulation of interstate garbage hauling would be easy to resolve; review of congressional regulation of gun possession in school yards is more difficult, both because the link to interstate commerce is less obvious and because of our initial ignorance of the relevant facts. In a *613case comparable to this one, we may have to dig hard to make a responsible judgment about what Congress could reasonably find, because the case may be close, and because judges tend not to be familiar with the facts that may or may not make it close. But while the ease of review may vary from case to case, it does not follow that the standard of review should vary, much less that explicit findings of fact would even directly address the standard.

The question for the courts, as all agree, is not whether as a predicate to legislation Congress in fact found that a particular activity substantially affects interstate commerce. The legislation implies such a finding, and there is no reason to entertain claims that Congress acted ultra vires intentionally. Nor is the question whether Congress was correct in so finding. The only question is whether the legislative judgment is within the realm of reason. See Hodel v. Virginia Surface Mining & Reclamation Assn., Inc., 452 U. S., at 276-277; Katzenbach v. McClung, 379 U. S., at 303-304; Railroad Retirement Bd. v. Alton R. Co., 295 U. S. 330, 391-392 (1935) (Hughes, C. J., dissenting); cf. FCC v. Beach Communications, Inc., 508 U. S., at 315 (in the equal protection context, “those attacking the rationality of the legislative classification have the burden to negate every conceivable basis which might support it[;] ... it is entirely irrelevant for constitutional purposes whether the conceived reason for the challenged distinction actually motivated the legislature”) (citations and internal quotation marks omitted); Ferguson v. Skrupa, 372 U. S. 726, 731-733 (1963); Williamson v. Lee Optical Co., 348 U. S., at 487. Congressional findings do not, however, directly address the question of reasonableness; they tell us what Congress actually has found, not what it could rationally find. If, indeed, the Court were to make the existence of explicit congressional findings dispositive in some close or difficult cases something other than rationality review would be afoot. The resulting congressional obligation to justify its policy choices on the merits would imply *614either a judicial authority to review the justification (and, hence, the wisdom) of those choices, or authority to require Congress to act with some high degree of deliberateness, of which express findings would be evidence. But review for congressional wisdom would just be the old judicial pretension discredited and abandoned in 1987, and review for deliberateness would be as patently unconstitutional as an Act of Congress mandating long opinions from this Court. Such a legislative process requirement would function merely as an excuse for covert review of the merits of legislation under standards never expressed and more or less arbitrarily applied. Under such a regime, in any case, the rationality standard of review would be a thing of the past.

On the other hand, to say that courts applying the rationality standard may not defer to findings is not, of course, to say that findings are pointless. They may, in fact, have great value in telling courts what to look for, in establishing at least one frame of reference for review, and in citing to factual authority. The research underlying Justice Breyer’s dissent was necessarily a major undertaking; help is welcome, and it not incidentally shrinks the risk that judicial research will miss material scattered across the public domain or buried under pounds of legislative record. Congressional findings on a more particular plane than this record illustrates would accordingly have earned judicial thanks. But thanks do not carry the day as long as rational possibility is the touchstone, and I would not allow for the possibility, as the Court’s opinion may, ante, at 563, that the addition of congressional findings could in principle have affected the fate of the statute here.

Ill

Because Justice Breyer’s opinion demonstrates beyond any doubt that the Act in question passes the rationality review that the Court continues to espouse, today’s decision may be seen as only a misstep, its reasoning and its sugges*615tions not quite in gear with the prevailing standard, but hardly an epochal case. I would not argue otherwise, but I would raise a caveat. Not every epochal case has come in epochal trappings. Jones & Laughlin did not reject the direct-indirect standard in so many words; it just said the relation of the regulated subject matter to commerce was direct enough. 301 U. S., at 41-43. But we know what happened.

I respectfully dissent.

Justice Breyer,

with whom Justice Stevens, Justice Souter, and Justice Ginsburg join,

dissenting.

The issue in this case is whether the Commerce Clause authorizes Congress to enact a statute that makes it a crime to possess a gun in, or near, a school. 18 U. S. C. § 922(q)(1)(A) (1988 ed., Supp. V). In my view, the statute falls well within the scope of the commerce power as this Court has understood that power over the last half century.

I

In reaching this conclusion, I apply three basic principles of Commerce Clause interpretation. First, the power to “regulate Commerce . . . among the several States,” U. S. Const., Art. I, § 8, cl. 3, encompasses the power to regulate local activities insofar as they significantly affect interstate commerce. See, e. g., Gibbons v. Ogden, 9 Wheat. 1, 194-195 (1824) (Marshall, C. J.); Wickard v. Filburn, 317 U. S. 111, 125 (1942). As the majority points out, ante, at 559, the Court, in describing how much of an effect the Clause requires, sometimes has used the word “substantial” and sometimes has not. Compare, e. g., Wickard, supra, at 125 (“substantial economic effect”), with Hodel v. Virginia Surface Mining & Reclamation Assn., Inc., 452 U. S. 264, 276 (1981) (“affects interstate commerce”); see also Maryland v. Wirtz, 392 U. S. 183, 196, n. 27 (1968) (cumulative effect must not be “trivial”); NLRB v. Jones & Laughlin Steel Corp., 301 U. S. 1, 37 (1937) *616(speaking of “close and substantial relation” between activity and commerce, not of “substantial effect”) (emphasis added); Gibbons, supra, at 194 (words of Commerce Clause do not “comprehend ... commerce, which is completely internal .. . and which does not. . . affect other States”). And, as the majority also recognizes in quoting Justice Cardozo, the question of degree (how much effect) requires an estimate of the “size” of the effect that no verbal formulation can capture with precision. See ante, at 567. I use the word “significant” because the word “substantial” implies a somewhat narrower power than recent precedent suggests. See, e. g., Perez v. United States, 402 U. S. 146, 154 (1971); Daniel v. Paul, 395 U. S. 298, 308 (1969). But to speak of “substantial effect” rather than “significant effect” would make no difference in this case.

Second, in determining whether a local activity will likely have a significant effect upon interstate commerce, a court must consider, not the effect of an individual act (a single instance of gun possession), but rather the cumulative effect of all similar instances (i. e., the effect of all guns possessed in or near schools). See, e. g., Wickard, supra, at 127-128. As this Court put the matter almost 50 years ago:

“[I]t is enough that the individual activity when multiplied into a general practice ... contains a threat to the interstate economy that requires preventative regulation.” Mandeville Island Farms, Inc. v. American Crystal Sugar Co., 334 U. S. 219, 236 (1948) (citations omitted).

Third, the Constitution requires us to judge the connection between a regulated activity and interstate commerce, not directly, but at one remove. Courts must give Congress a degree of leeway in determining the existence of a significant factual connection between the regulated activity and interstate commerce — both because the Constitution delegates the commerce power directly to Congress and because the *617determination requires an empirical judgment of a kind that a legislature is more likely than a court to make with accuracy. The traditional words “rational basis” capture this leeway. See Hodel, supra, at 276-277. Thus, the specific question before us, as the Court recognizes, is not whether the “regulated activity sufficiently affected interstate commerce,” but, rather, whether Congress could have had “a rational basis” for so concluding. Ante, at 557 (emphasis added).

I recognize that we must judge this matter independently. “[SJimply because Congress may conclude that a particular activity substantially affects interstate commerce does not necessarily make it so.” Hodel, supra, at 311 (Rehnquist, J., concurring in judgment). And, I also recognize that Congress did not write specific “interstate commerce” findings into the law under which Lopez was convicted. Nonetheless, as I have already noted, the matter that we review independently (i. e., whether there is a “rational basis”) already has considerable leeway built into it. And, the absence of findings, at most, deprives a statute of the benefit of some extra leeway. This extra deference, in principle, might change the result in a close case, though, in practice, it has not made a critical legal difference. See, e. g., Katzenbach v. McClung, 379 U. S. 294, 299 (1964) (noting that “no formal findings were made, which of course are not necessary”); Perez, supra, at 156-157; cf. Turner Broadcasting System, Inc. v. FCC, 512 U. S. 622, 666 (1994) (opinion of Kennedy, J.) (“Congress is not obligated, when enacting its statutes, to make a record of the type that an administrative agency or court does to accommodate judicial review”); Fullilove v. Klutznick, 448 U. S. 448, 503 (1980) (Powell, J., concurring) (“After Congress has legislated repeatedly in an area of national concern, its Members gain experience that may reduce the need for fresh hearings or prolonged debate . . .”). It would seem particularly unfortunate to make the validity of *618the statute at hand turn on the presence or absence of findings. Because Congress did make findings (though not until after Lopez was prosecuted), doing so would appear to elevate form over substance. See Pub. L. 103-322, §§ 320904 (2)(F), (G), 108 Stat. 2125, 18 U. S. C. §§ 922(q)(1)(F), (G).

In addition, despite the Court of Appeals’ suggestion to the contrary, see 2 F. 3d 1342, 1365 (CA5 1993), there is no special need here for a clear indication of Congress’ rationale. The statute does not interfere with the exercise of state or local authority. Cf., e. g., Dellmuth v. Muth, 491 U. S. 223, 227-228 (1989) (requiring clear statement for abrogation of Eleventh Amendment immunity). Moreover, any clear statement rule would apply only to determine Congress’ intended result, not to clarify the source of its authority or measure the level of consideration that went into its decision, and here there is no doubt as to which activities Congress intended to regulate. See ibid.; id., at 233 (Scalia, J., concurring) (to subject States to suits for money damages, Congress need only make that intent clear, and need not refer explicitly to the Eleventh Amendment); EEOC v. Wyoming, 460 U. S. 226, 243, n. 18 (1983) (Congress need not recite the constitutional provision that authorizes its action).

II

Applying these principles to the case at hand, we must ask whether Congress could have had a rational basis for finding a significant (or substantial) connection between gun-related school violence and interstate commerce. Or, to put the question in the language of the explicit finding that Congress made when it amended this law in 1994: Could Congress rationally have found that “violent crime in school zones,” through its effect on the “quality of education,” significantly (or substantially) affects “interstate” or “foreign commerce”? 18 U. S. C. §§ 922(q)(1)(F), (G). As long as one views the commerce connection, not as a “technical legal conception,” but as “a practical one,” Swift & Co. v. United States, 196 *619U. S. 375, 398 (1905) (Holmes, J.), the answer to this question must be yes. Numerous reports and studies — generated both inside and outside government — make clear that Congress could reasonably have found the empirical connection that its law, implicitly or explicitly, asserts. (See Appendix, infra, at 631, for a sample of the documentation, as well as for complete citations to the sources referenced below.)

For one thing, reports, hearings, and other readily available literature make clear that the problem of guns in and around schools is widespread and extremely serious. These materials report, for example, that four percent of American high school students (and six percent of inner-city high school students) carry a gun to school at least occasionally, Centers for Disease Control 2342; Sheley, McGee, & Wright 679; that 12 percent of urban high school students have had guns fired at them, ibid.; that 20 percent of those students have been threatened with guns, ibid.; and that, in any 6-month period, several hundred thousand schoolchildren are victims of violent crimes in or near their schools, U. S. Dept. of Justice 1 (1989); House Select Committee Hearing 15 (1989). And, they report that this widespread violence in schools throughout the Nation significantly interferes with the quality of education in those schools. See, e. g., House Judiciary Committee Hearing 44 (1990) (linking school violence to dropout rate); U. S. Dept. of Health 118-119 (1978) (school-violence victims suffer academically); compare U. S. Dept, of Justice 1 (1991) (gun violence worst in. inner-city schools), with National Center 47 (dropout rates highest in inner cities). Based on reports such as these, Congress obviously could have thought that guns and learning are mutually exclusive. Senate Labor and Human Resources Committee Hearing 39 (1993); U. S. Dept. of Health 118, 123-124 (1978). Congress could therefore have found a substantial educational problem — teachers unable to teach, students unable to learn — and concluded that guns near schools contribute substantially to the size and scope of that problem.

*620Having found that guns in schools significantly undermine the quality of education in our Nation’s classrooms, Congress could also have found, given the effect of education upon interstate and foreign commerce, that gun-related violence in and around schools is a commercial, as well as a human, problem. Education, although far more than a matter of economics, has long been inextricably intertwined with the Nation’s economy. When this Nation began, most workers received their education in the workplace, typically (like Benjamin Franklin) as apprentices. See generally Seybolt; Rorabaugh; U. S. Dept. of Labor (1950). As late as the 1920’s, many workers still received general education directly from their employers — from large corporations, such as General Electric, Ford, and Goodyear, which created schools within their firms to help both the worker and the firm. See Bolino 15-25. (Throughout most of the 19th century fewer than one percent of all Americans received secondary education through attending a high school. See id., at 11.) As public school enrollment grew in the early 20th century, see Becker 218 (1993), the need for industry to teach basic educational skills diminished. But, the direct economic link between basic education and industrial productivity remained. Scholars estimate that nearly a quarter of America’s economic growth in the early years of this century is traceable directly to increased schooling, see Denison 243; that investment in “human capital” (through spending on education) exceeded investment in “physical capital” by a ratio of almost two to one, see Schultz 26 (1961); and that the economic returns to this investment in education exceeded the returns to conventional capital investment, see, e. g., Davis & Morrall 48-49.

In recent years the link between secondary education and business has strengthened, becoming both more direct and more important. Scholars on the subject report that technological changes and innovations in management techniques have altered the nature of the workplace so that more jobs now demand greater educational skills. See, e. g., MIT 32 *621(only about one-third of handtool company’s 1,000 workers were qualified to work with a new process that requires high-school-level reading and mathematical skills); Cyert & Mowery 68 (gap between wages of high school dropouts and better trained workers increasing); U. S. Dept. of Labor 41 (1981) (job openings for dropouts declining over time). There is evidence that “service, manufacturing or construction jobs are being displaced by technology that requires a better-educated worker or, more likely, are being exported overseas,” Gordon, Ponticell, & Morgan 26; that “workers with truly few skills by the year 2000 will find that only one job out of ten will remain,” ibid,.; and that

“[o]ver the long haul the best way to encourage the growth of high-wage jobs is to upgrade the skills of the work force. . . . [Bjetter-trained workers become more productive workers, enabling a company to become more competitive and expand.” Henkoff 60.

Increasing global competition also has made primary and secondary education economically more important. The portion of the American economy attributable to international trade nearly tripled between 1950 and 1980, and more than 70 percent of American-made goods now compete with imports. Marshall 205; Marshall & Tucker 33. Yet, lagging worker productivity has contributed to negative trade balances and to real hourly compensation that has fallen below wages in 10 other industrialized nations. See National Center 57; Handbook of Labor Statistics 561, 576 (1989); Neef & Kask 28, 31. At least some significant part of this serious productivity problem is attributable to students who emerge from classrooms without the reading or mathematical skills necessary to compete with their European or Asian counterparts, see, e. g., MIT 28, and, presumably, to high school dropout rates of 20 to 25 percent (up to 50 percent in inner cities), see, e. g., National Center 47; Chubb & Hanushek 215. Indeed, Congress has said, when writing other statutes, that *622“functionally or technologically illiterate” Americans in the work force “erod[e]” our economic “standing in the international marketplace,” Pub. L. 100-418, § 6002(a)(3), 102 Stat. 1469, and that “[o]ur Nation is ... paying the price of scientific and technological illiteracy, with our productivity declining, our industrial base ailing, and our global competitiveness dwindling,” H. R. Rep. No. 98-6, pt. 1, p. 19 (1983).

Finally, there is evidence that, today more than ever, many firms base their location decisions upon the presence, or absence, of a work force with a basic education. See Mac-Cormack, Newman, & Rosenfield 73; Coffee 296. Scholars on the subject report, for example, that today, “[h]igh speed communication and transportation make it possible to produce most products and services anywhere in the world,” National Center 38; that “[mjodern machinery and production methods can therefore be combined with low wage workers to drive costs down,” ibid.; that managers can perform “‘back office functions anywhere in the world now,’” and say that if they “ ‘can’t get enough skilled workers here’ ” they will “‘move the skilled jobs out of the country,’” id., at 41; with the consequence that “rich countries need better education and retraining, to reduce the supply of unskilled workers and to equip them with the skills they require for tomorrow’s jobs,” Survey of Global Economy 37. In light of this increased importance of education to individual firms, it is no surprise that half of the Nation’s manufacturers have become involved with setting standards and shaping curricula for local schools, Maturi 65-68, that 88 percent think this kind of involvement is important, id., at 68, that more than 20 States have recently passed educational reforms to attract new business, Overman 61-62, and that business magazines have begun to rank cities according to the quality of their schools, see Boyle 24.

The economic links I have just sketched seem fairly obvious. Why then is it not equally obvious, in light of those links, that a widespread, serious, and substantial physical *623threat to teaching and learning also substantially threatens the commerce to which that teaching and learning is inextricably tied? That is to say, guns in the hands of six percent of inner-city high school students and gun-related violence throughout a city’s schools must threaten the trade and commerce that those schools support. The only question, then, is whether the latter threat is (to use the majority’s terminology) “substantial.” The evidence of (1) the extent of the gun-related violence problem, see supra, at 619, (2) the extent of the resulting negative effect on classroom learning, see ibid., and (3) the extent of the consequent negative commercial effects, see supra, at 620-622, when taken together, indicate a threat to trade and commerce that is “substantial.” At the very least, Congress could rationally have concluded that the links are “substantial.”

Specifically, Congress could have found that gun-related violence near the classroom poses a serious economic threat (1) to consequently inadequately educated workers who must endure low paying jobs, see, e. g., National Center 29, and (2) to communities and businesses that might (in today’s “information society”) otherwise gain, from a well-educated work force, an important commercial advantage, see, e. g., Becker 10 (1992), of a kind that location near a railhead or harbor provided in the past. Congress might also have found these threats to be no different in kind from other threats that this Court has found within the commerce power, such as the threat that loan sharking poses to the “funds” of “numerous localities,” Perez v. United States, 402 U. S., at 157, and that unfair labor practices pose to instrumentalities of commerce, see Consolidated Edison Co. v. NLRB, 305 U. S. 197, 221-222 (1938). As I have pointed out, supra, at 618, Congress has written that “the occurrence of violent crime in school zones” has brought about a “decline in the quality of education” that “has an adverse impact on interstate commerce and the foreign commerce of the United States.” 18 U. S. C. §§ 922(q)(1)(F), (G). The violence-related facts, the educa*624tional facts, and the economic facts, taken together, make this conclusion rational. And, because under our case law, see supra, at 615-617; infra, at 627-628, the sufficiency of the constitutionally necessary Commerce Clause link between a crime of violence and interstate commerce turns simply upon size or degree, those same facts make the statute constitutional.

To hold this statute constitutional is not to “obliterate” the “distinction between what is national and what is local,” ante, at 567 (citation omitted; internal quotation marks omitted); nor is it to hold that the Commerce Clause permits the Federal Government to “regulate any activity that it found was related to the economic productivity of individual citizens,” to regulate “marriage, divorce, and child custody,” or to regulate any and all aspects of education. Ante, at 564. First, this statute is aimed at curbing a particularly acute threat to the educational process — the possession (and use) of life-threatening firearms in, or near, the classroom. The empirical evidence that I have discussed above unmistakably documents the special way in which guns and education are incompatible. See supra, at 619. This Court has previously recognized the singularly disruptive potential on interstate commerce that acts of violence may have. See Perez, supra, at 156-157. Second, the immediacy of the connection between education and the national economic well-being is documented by scholars and accepted by society at large in a way and to a degree that may not hold true for other social institutions. It must surely be the rare case, then, that a statute strikes at conduct that (when considered in the abstract) seems so removed from commerce, but which (practically speaking) has so significant an impact upon commerce.

In sum, a holding that the particular statute before us falls within the commerce power would not expand the scope of that Clause. Rather, it simply would apply pre-existing law to changing economic circumstances. See Heart of Atlanta *625Motel, Inc. v. United States, 379 U. S. 241, 251 (1964). It would recognize that, in today’s economic world, gun-related violence near the classroom makes a significant difference to our economic, as well as our social, well-being. In accordance with well-accepted precedent, such a holding would permit Congress “to act in terms of economic . . . realities,” would interpret the commerce power as “an affirmative power commensurate with the national needs,” and would acknowledge that the “commerce clause does not operate so as to render the nation powerless to defend itself against economic forces that Congress decrees inimical or destructive of the national economy.” North American Co. v. SEC, 327 U. S. 686, 705 (1946) (citing Swift & Co. v. United States, 196 U. S., at 398 (Holmes, J.)).

Ill

The majority’s holding — that §922 falls outside the scope of the Commerce Clause — creates three serious legal problems. First, the majority’s holding runs contrary to modern Supreme Court cases that have upheld congressional actions despite connections to interstate or foreign commerce that are less significant than the effect of school violence. In Perez v. United States, supra, the Court held that the Commerce Clause authorized a federal statute that makes it a crime to engage in loan sharking (“[e]xtortionate credit transactions”) at a local level. The Court said that Congress may judge that such transactions, “though purely mirastate, . . . affect interstate commerce.” 402 U. S., at 154 (emphasis added). Presumably, Congress reasoned that threatening or using force, say with a gun on a street corner, to collect a debt occurs sufficiently often so that the activity (by helping organized crime) affects commerce among the States. But, why then cannot Congress also reason that the threat or use of force — the frequent consequence of possessing a gun — in or near a school occurs sufficiently often so that such activity (by inhibiting basic education) affects *626commerce among the States? The negative impact upon the national economy of an inability to teach basic skills seems no smaller (nor less significant) than that of organized crime.

In Katzenbach v. McClung, 379 U. S. 294 (1964), this Court upheld, as within the commerce power, a statute prohibiting racial discrimination at local restaurants, in part because that discrimination discouraged travel by African Americans and in part because that discrimination affected purchases of food and restaurant supplies from other States. See id., at 300; Heart of Atlanta Motel, supra, at 274 (Black, J., concurring in McClung and in Heart of Atlanta). In Daniel v. Paul, 395 U. S. 298 (1969), this Court found an effect on commerce caused by an amusement park located several miles down a country road in the middle of Alabama — because some customers (the Court assumed), some food, 15 paddle-boats, and a juke box had come from out of state. See id., at 304-305, 308. In both of these cases, the Court understood that the specific instance of discrimination (at a local place of accommodation) was part of a general practice that, considered as a whole, caused not only the most serious human and social harm, but had nationally significant economic dimensions as well. See McClung, supra, at 301; Daniel, supra, at 307, n. 10. It is difficult to distinguish the case before us, for the same critical elements are present. Businesses are less likely to locate in communities where violence plagues the classroom. Families will hesitate to move to neighborhoods where students carry guns instead of books. (Congress expressly found in 1994 that “parents may decline to send their children to school” in certain areas “due to concern about violent crime and gun violence.” 18 U. S. C. § 922(q)(1)(E).) And (to look at the matter in the most narrowly commercial manner), interstate publishers therefore will sell fewer books and other firms will sell fewer school supplies where the threat of violence disrupts learning. Most importantly, like the local racial discrimination at issue in McClung and Daniel, the local instances here, taken *627together and considered as a whole, create a problem that causes serious human and social harm, but also has nationally significant economic dimensions.

In Wickard v. Filburn, 317 U. S. 111 (1942), this Court sustained the application of the Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1938 to wheat that Filburn grew and consumed on his own local farm because, considered in its totality, (1) homegrown wheat may be “induced by rising prices” to “flow into the market and check price increases,” and (2) even if it never actually enters the market, homegrown wheat nonetheless “supplies a need of the man who grew it which would otherwise be reflected by purchases in the open market” and, in that sense, “competes with wheat in commerce.” Id., at 128. To find both of these effects on commerce significant in amount, the Court had to give Congress the benefit of the doubt. Why would the Court, to find a significant (or “substantial”) effect here, have to give Congress any greater leeway? See also United States v. Women’s Sportswear Mfrs. Assn., 336 U. S. 460, 464 (1949) (“If it is interstate commerce that feels the pinch, it does not matter how local the operation which applies the squeeze”); Mandeville Island Farms, Inc. v. American Crystal Sugar Co., 334 U. S., at 236 (“[I]t is enough that the individual activity when multiplied into a general practice . . . contains a threat to the interstate economy that requires preventive regulation”).

The second legal problem the Court creates comes from its apparent belief that it can reconcile its holding with earlier cases by making a critical distinction between “commercial” and noncommercial “transaction[s].” Ante, at 561. That is to say, the Court believes the Constitution would distinguish between two local activities, each of which has an identical effect upon interstate commerce, if one, but not the other, is “commercial” in nature. As a general matter, this approach fails to heed this Court’s earlier warning not to turn “questions of the power of Congress” upon “formula[s]” that would give

*628“controlling force to nomenclature such as ‘production’ and ‘indirect’ and foreclose consideration of the actual effects of the activity in question upon interstate commerce.” Wickard, supra, at 120.

See also United States v. Darby, 312 U. S. 100, 116-117 (1941) (overturning the Court’s distinction between “production” and “commerce” in the child labor case, Hammer v. Dagenhart, 247 U. S. 251, 271-272 (1918)); Swift & Co. v. United States, 196 U. S., at 398 (Holmes, J.) (“[Cjommerce among the States is not a technical legal conception, but a practical one, drawn from the course of business”). Moreover, the majority’s test is not consistent with what the Court saw as the point of the cases that the majority now characterizes. Although the majority today attempts to categorize Perez, McClung, and Wickard as involving intrastate “economic activity,” ante, at 559, the Courts that decided each of those cases did not focus upon the economic nature of the activity regulated. Rather, they focused upon whether that activity affected interstate or foreign commerce. In fact, the Wickard Court expressly held that Filburn’s consumption of homegrown wheat, “though it may not be regarded as commerce,” could nevertheless be regulated — “whatever its nature” — so long as “it exerts a substantial economic effect on interstate commerce.” Wickard, supra, at 125 (emphasis added).

More importantly, if a distinction between commercial and noncommercial activities is to be made, this is not the ease in which to make it. The majority clearly cannot intend such a distinction to focus narrowly on an act of gun possession standing by itself, for such a reading could not be reconciled with either the civil rights cases (McClung and Daniel) or Perez — in each of those cases the specific transaction (the race-based exclusion, the use of force) was not itself “commercial.” And, if the majority instead means to distinguish generally among broad categories of activities, differentiating what is educational from what is commercial, then, as a *629practical matter, the line becomes almost impossible to draw. Schools that teach reading, writing, mathematics, and related basic skills serve both social and commercial purposes, and one cannot easily separate the one from the other. American industry itself has been, and is again, involved in teaching. See supra, at 620, 622. When, and to what extent, does its involvement make education commercial? Does the number of vocational classes that train students directly for jobs make a difference? Does it matter if the school is public or private, nonprofit or profit seeking? Does it matter if a city or State adopts a voucher plan that pays private firms to run a school? Even if one were to ignore these practical questions, why should there be a theoretical distinction between education, when it significantly benefits commerce, and environmental pollution, when it causes economic harm? See Hodel v. Virginia Surface Mining & Reclamation Assn., Inc., 452 U. S. 264 (1981).

Regardless, if there is a principled distinction that could work both here and in future cases, Congress (even in the absence of vocational classes, industry involvement, and private management) could rationally conclude that schools fall on the commercial side of the line. In 1990, the year Congress enacted the statute before us, primary and secondary schools spent $230 billion — that is, nearly a quarter of a trillion dollars — which accounts for a significant portion of our $5.5 trillion gross domestic product for that year. See Statistical Abstract 147, 442 (1993). The business of schooling requires expenditure of these funds on student transportation, food and custodial services, books, and teachers’ salaries. See U. S. Dept. of Education 4, 7 (1993). These expenditures enable schools to provide a valuable service— namely, to equip students with the skills they need to survive in life and, more specifically, in the workplace. Certainly, Congress has often analyzed school expenditure as if it were a commercial investment, closely analyzing whether schools are efficient, whether they justify the significant resources *630they spend, and whether they can be restructured to achieve greater returns. See, e. g., S. Rep. No. 100-222, p. 2 (1987) (federal school assistance is “a prudent investment”); Senate Appropriations Committee Hearing (1994) (private sector management of public schools); cf. Chubb & Moe 185-229 (school choice); Hanushek 85-122 (performance based incentives for educators); Gibbs (decision in Hartford, Conn., to contract out public school system). Why could Congress, for Commerce Clause purposes, not consider schools as roughly analogous to commercial investments from which the Nation derives the benefit of an educated work force?

The third legal problem created by the Court’s holding is that it threatens legal uncertainty in an area of law that, until this case, seemed reasonably well settled. Congress has enacted many statutes (more than 100 sections of the United States Code), including criminal statutes (at least 25 sections), that use the words “affecting commerce” to define their scope, see, e. g., 18 U. S. C. § 844(i) (destruction of buildings used in activity affecting interstate commerce), and other statutes that contain no jurisdictional language at all, see, e. g., 18 U. S. C. § 922(o)(l) (possession of machineguns). Do these, or similar, statutes regulate noncommercial activities? If so, would that alter the meaning of “affecting commerce” in a jurisdictional element? Cf. United States v. Staszcuk, 517 F. 2d 53, 57-58 (CA7 1975) (en banc) (Stevens, J.) (evaluation of Congress’ intent “requires more than a consideration of the consequences of the particular transaction”). More importantly, in the absence of a jurisdictional element, are the courts nevertheless to take Wickard, 317 U. S., at 127-128, (and later similar cases) as inapplicable, and to judge the effect of a single noncommercial activity on interstate commerce without considering similar instances of the forbidden conduct? However these questions are eventually resolved, the legal uncertainty now created will restrict Congress’ ability to enact criminal laws aimed at criminal behavior that, considered problem by problem rather *631than instance by instance, seriously threatens the economic, as well as social, well-being of Americans.

IV

In sum, to find this legislation within the scope of the Commerce Clause would permit “Congress ... to act in terms of economic . . . realities.” North American Co. v. SEC, 327 U. S., at 705 (citing Swift & Co. v. United States, 196 U. S., at 398 (Holmes, J.)). It would interpret the Clause as this Court has traditionally interpreted it, with the exception of one wrong turn subsequently corrected. See Gibbons v. Ogden, 9 Wheat., at 195 (holding that the commerce power extends “to all the external concerns of the nation, and to those internal concerns which affect the States generally”); United States v. Darby, 312 U. S., at 116-117 (“The conclusion is inescapable that Hammer v. Dagenhart [the child labor case] was a departure from the principles which have prevailed in the interpretation of the Commerce Clause both before and since the decision .... It should be and now is overruled”). Upholding this legislation would do no more than simply recognize that Congress had a “rational basis” for finding a significant connection between guns in or near schools and (through their effect on education) the interstate and foreign commerce they threaten. For these reasons, I would reverse the judgment of the Court of Appeals. Respectfully, I dissent.

APPENDIX TO OPINION OF BREYER, J.

Congressional Materials

(in reverse chronological order)

Private Sector Management of Public Schools, Hearing before the Subcommittee on Labor, Héalth and Human Services, and Education and Related Agencies of the Senate Committee on Appropriations, 103d Cong., 2d Sess. (1994) (Senate Appropriations Committee Hearing (1994)). *632Children and Gun Violence, Hearings before the Subcommittee on Juvenile Justice of the Senate Committee on the Judiciary, 103d Cong., 1st Sess. (1993) (Senate Judiciary Committee Hearing (1993)).

Keeping Every Child Safe: Curbing the Epidemic of Violence, Joint Hearing before the Subcommittee on Children, Family, Drugs and Alcoholism of the Senate Committee on Labor and Human Resources and the House Select Committee on Children, Youth, and Families, 103d Cong., 1st Sess. (1993).

Recess from Violence: Making our Schools Safe, Hearing before the Subcommittee on Education, Arts and Humanities of the Senate Committee on Labor and Human Resources, 103d Cong., 1st Sess. (1993) (Senate Labor and Human Resources Committee Hearing (1993)).

Preparing for the Economy of the 21st Century, Hearings before the Subcommittee on Children, Family, Drugs and Alcoholism of the Senate Committee on Labor and Human Resources, 102d Cong., 2d Sess. (1992).

Children Carrying Weapons: Why the Recent Increase, Hearing before the Senate Committee on the Judiciary, 102d Cong., 2d Sess. (1992).

Youth Violence Prevention, Hearing before the Senate Committee on Governmental Affairs, 102d Cong., 2d Sess. (1992).

School Dropout Prevention and Basic Skills Improvement Act of 1990, Pub. L. 101-600, § 2(a)(2), 104 Stat. 3042.

Excellence in Mathematics, Science and Engineering Education Act of 1990, 104 Stat. 2883, 20 U. S. C. § 5301(a)(5) (1988 ed., Supp. V).

Oversight Hearing on Education Reform and American Business and the Implementation of the Hawkins-Stafford Amendments of 1988, Hearing before the Subcommittee on Elementary, Secondary, and Vocational Training of the *633House Committee on Education and Labor, 101st Cong., 2d Sess. (1990).

U. S. Power in a Changing World, Report Prepared for the Subcommittee on International Economic Policy and Trade of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, 101st Cong., 2d Sess., 43-66 (1990).

Gun Free School Zones Act of 1990, Hearing before the Subcommittee on Crime of the House Committee on the Judiciary, 101st Cong., 2d Sess. (1990) (House Judiciary Committee Hearing (1990)).

Restoring American Productivity: The Role of Education and Human Resources, Hearing before the Senate Committee on Labor and Human Resources, 101st Cong., 1st Sess. (1989).

Children and Guns, Hearing before the House Select Committee on Children, Youth, and Families, 101st Cong., 1st Sess. (1989) (House Select Committee Hearing (1989)).

Education and Training for a Competitive America Act of 1988, Pub. L. 100-418, Title VI, 102 Stat. 1469.

S. Rep. No. 100-222 (1987).

Education and Training for American Competitiveness, Hearings before the House Committee on Education and Labor, 100th Cong., 1st Sess. (1987).

Competitiveness and the Quality of the American Work Force, Hearings before the Subcommittee on Education and Health of the Joint Economic Committee, 100th Cong., 1st Sess., pts. 1 and 2 (1987).

Oversight Hearing on Illiteracy, Joint Hearing before the Subcommittee on Elementary, Secondary, and Vocational Education of the House Committee on Education and Labor and the Subcommittee on Education, Arts and Humanities of the Senate Committee on Labor and Human Resources, 99th Cong., 2d Sess. (1986).

*634Oversight on Illiteracy in the United States, Hearings before the Subcommittee on Elementary, Secondary, and Vocational Education of the House Committee on Education and Labor, 99th Cong., 2d Sess. (1986).

Crime and Violence in the Schools, Hearing before the Subcommittee on Juvenile Justice of the Senate Committee on the Judiciary, 98th Cong., 2d Sess. (1984).

H. R. Rep. No. 98-6, pts. 1 and 2 (1983).

S. Rep. No. 98-151 (1983).

Education for Economic Security Act, Hearings before the Subcommittee on Education, Arts and Humanities of the Senate Committee on Labor and Human Resources, 98th Cong., 1st Sess. (1983).

Pub. L. 93-380, §825, 88 Stat. 602 (1974).

I. Clarke, Art and Industry: Instruction in Drawing Applied to the Industrial and Fine Arts, S. Exec. Doc. No. 209, 46th Cong., 2d Sess., pt. 2 (1891).

Other Federal Government Materials

(in reverse chronological order)

U. S. Dept, of Education, Office of Educational Research and Improvement, First Findings: The Educational Quality of the Workforce Employer Survey (Feb. 1995).

Economic Report of the President 108 (Feb. 1994).

U. S. Dept, of Commerce, Statistical Abstract of the United States (1993) (Statistical Abstract (1993)).

U. S. Dept, of Education, Office of Educational Research and Improvement, Public School Education Financing for School Year 1989-90 (June 1993) (U. S. Dept, of Education (1993)).

Economic Report of the President 101 (Feb. 1992).

U. S. Dept, of Labor, Secretary’s Commission on Achieving Necessary Skills, Skills and Tasks For Jobs: A SCANS- Report for America 2000 (1992).

*635U. S. Dept, of Labor, Employment and Training Administration, Beyond the School Doors: The Literacy Needs of Job Seekers Served by the U. S. Department of Labor (Sept. 1992).

U. S. Dept, of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics, School Crime: A National Crime Victimization Survey Report (Sept. 1991) (U. S. Dept, of Justice (1991)).

U. S. Dept, of Commerce, Bureau of Census, 1990 Census of Population: Education in the United States 474 (Jan. 1994).

U. S. Dept, of Justice, Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, Weapons in Schools, OJJDP Bulletin 1 (Oct. 1989) (U. S. Dept, of Justice (1989)).

U. S. Dept, of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics, Handbook of Labor Statistics 281, 561, 576 (Aug. 1989) (Handbook of Labor Statistics (1989)).

Bishop, Incentives for Learning: Why American High School Students Compare So Poorly to their Counterparts Overseas, in 1 U. S. Dept, of Labor, Commission on Workforce Quality & Labor Market Efficiency, Investing in People 1 (Sept. 1989).

Rumberger & Levin, Schooling for the Modern Workplace, in 1 U. S. Dept, of Labor, Commission on Workforce Quality & Labor Market Efficiency, Investing in People 85 (Sept. 1989).

U. S. Dept, of Education and U. S. Department of Labor, The Bottom Line: Basic Skills in the Workplace 12 (1988).

U. S. Dept, of Labor, Employment and Training Administration, Estimating Educational Attainment of Future Employment Demand for States (Oct. 1981) (U. S. Dept, of Labor (1981)).

U. S. Dept, of Health, Education, and Welfare, National Institute of Education, Violent Schools — Safe Schools: The Safe School Study Report to Congress (1978) (U. S. Dept, of Health (1978)).

*636U. S. Dept, of Labor, Bureau of Apprenticeship, Apprenticeship Past and Present (1950) (U. S. Dept, of Labor (1950)).

Other Readily Available Materials

(in alphabetical order)

Akin & Garfinkel, School Expenditures and the Economic Returns to Schooling, 12 J. Human Resources 462 (1977).

American Council on Education, Business-Higher Education Forum, America’s Competitive Challenge: A Report to the President of the United States (Apr. 1983).

Applebome, Employers Wary of School System, N. Y. Times, Feb. 20, 1995, p. Al, col. 1.

Are Real Estate Firms Ready to Ride on the Infobahn?: Information Highway of Technology, 36 National Real Estate Investor, Oct. 1994, p. 6.

Aring, What the ‘V’ Word is Costing America’s Economy: Vocational Education, 74 Phi Delta Kappan 396 (1993).

G. Atkinson, The Economics of Education (1983).

Becker, The Adam Smith Address: Education, Labor Force Quality, and the Economy, Business Economics, Jan. 1992, p. 7 (Becker (1992)).

G. Becker, Human Capital (3d ed. 1993) (Becker (1993)).

I. Berg, Education and Jobs: The Great Training Robbery (1970).

Berryman, The Economy, Literacy Requirements, and At-Risk Adults, in Literacy and the Marketplace: Improving the Literacy of Low-Income Single Mothers 22 (June 1989).

Bishop, Is the Test Score Decline Responsible for the Productivity Growth Decline?, 79 Am. Econ. Rev. 178 (Mar. 1989).

Bishop, High School Performance and Employee Recruitment, 13 J. Labor Research 41 (1992).

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Me. Chief Justice Stone

delivered the opinion of the Court.

Appellant, an American citizen of Japanese ancestry, was convicted in the district court of violating the Act of Congress of March 21, 1942, 56 Stat. 173, which makes it a misdemeanor knowingly to disregard restrictions made applicable by a military commander to persons in a military area prescribed by him as such, all as authorized by an Executive Order of the President.

The questions for our decision are whether the particular restriction violated, namely that all persons of Japanese ancestry residing in such an area be within their place of residence daily between the hours of 8:00 p. m. and 6:00 a. m., was adopted by the military commander in the exercise of an unconstitutional delegation by Congress of its legislative power, and whether the restriction unconstitutionally discriminated between citizens of Japanese ancestry and those of other ancestries in violation of the Fifth Amendment.

The indictment is in two counts. The second charges that appellant, being a person of Japanese ancestry, had on a specified date, contrary to a restriction promulgated by the military commander of the Western Defense Command, Fourth Army, failed to remain in his place of resi*84dence in the designated military, area- between the hours of .8:00 o’clock p. m. and 6:00 a. m. The .first count charges that appellant, on May 11 and 12,1942, had, com trary to a Civilian Exclusion Order issued by the military commander, failed to report to the Civil Control Station within the designated area, it appearing that appellant’s required presence there was a preliminary step to -the- exclusion-from that area of persons of Japanese ancestry.

By demurrer- and. plea in abatement, which the-court overruled (46 F: Supp." 657)-, appellant- asserted that the indictment should be dismissed because-he was .an-American citizen who had never been a subject of and had never borne allegiance'to the Empire'óf japan, and'also because the Act of March 21, 1942, was an unconstitutional delegation of Congressional power. On the trial-.to.a-jury it appeared that appellant was born in Seattle in 1918,.of Japanese parents who had come from Japan to the United States, and who had never afterward, returned to Japan; that he was educated in the Washington-public, schools and at the time of his arrest.was a senior in the University of Washington; that he had never been -in. Japan or had .any association with Japanese residing there. • .

The-evidence showed, that appellant had failed to report to the Civil Control Station on May IT or May 12, -1942, as directed, to register-for evacuation from the military ■area. He -admitted- failure to dp so, and stated it had at all times been his belief that he would be waiving-his rights as an-American citizen by so doing. The-, evidence also showed that for like, reason .-he was.-away from-his place of residence after 8:00 p. m.- on May 9, 1942. • The jury returned a verdict of guilty on both counts and appellant was sentenced to imprisonment fpr a term of three months on each, the sentences to run concurrently., . . • ■ :■

• On appeal the Court of. Appeals for the Ninth Circuit certified to us questions of law.upon: which it desired in*85structions for the decision of the case. See § 239 of the Judicial Code as amended, 28 U. S. C. § 346. Acting under the authority conferred upon us by that section we ordered that the entire record be certified to this Court so that wé might proceed to a decision of the matter in controversy in the same manner as if it had been brought here by appeal. Since the sentences of three months each imposed by the district court on the two counts were ordered to-run concurrently, it will be unnecessary to consider questions raised with respect to the first count if we find that the conviction on the second count, for violation of the curfew order, must be sustained. Brooks v. United States, 267 U. S. 432, 441; Gorin v. United States, 312 U. S. 19, 33.

The curfew order which appellant violated, and to which the sanction prescribed by the Act of Congress has, been deemed to attach, purported to be issued-pursuant to an Executive Order of the President. In passing upon the authority of the military commander to make and execute the order, it becomes necessary -to consider in some detail the official action which preceded or accompanied the order and from which it derives its purported authority..-

. On December 8, T941, one day after the bombing of Pearl Harbor by a Japanese air force, Congress declared war against Japan..' 55 Stat. 795. On February 19, 1942, the President promulgated Executive Order No. 9066. 7 Federal Register' 1407. ■ The Order recited that “the successful prosecution of the war requires every possible protection against espionage and against sabotage to national-defense material, national-defense premises, and national-defense utilities as defined in Section 4, Act of April 20, 1918, 40 Stat. 533, :a's amended by the Act of November 30, 1940/54 Stat:. 1220, and the Act of August 21,1941, 55 Stat. 655.” By .virtue of the authority Vested *86in him as President and as Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy, the President purported to “authorize and direct the Secretary of War, and the Military Commanders whom he may from time to time designate, whenever he or any designated Commander deems such action necessary or desirable, to prescribe military areas in such places and of such extent as he or the appropriate Military Commander may determine, from which any or all persons may be excluded, and with respect to which, the right of any person to enter, remain in, or leave shall be subject to whatever restrictions the Secretary of War or the appropriate Military Commander may impose in his discretion.”

On February 20, 1942, the Secretary of War designated Lt. General J. L. DeWitt as Military Commander of the Western Defense Command, comprising the Pacific Coast states and some others, to carry out there the duties prescribed by Executive Order No. 9066. On March 2,1942, General DeWitt promulgated Public Proclamation No. 1. 7 Federal Register 2320. The proclamation recited that the entire Pacific Coast “by its geographical location is particularly subject to attack, to attempted invasion by the armed forces of nations with which the United States is now at war, and, in connection therewith, is subject to espionage and acts of sabotage, thereby requiring the adoption of military measures necessary to establish safeguards against such enemy operations.” It stated that “the present situation requires as a matter of military necessity the establishment in the territory embraced by the Western Defense Command of Military Areas and Zones thereof”; it specified and designated as military areas certain areas within the Western Defense Command; and it declared that “such persons or classes of persons as the situation may require” would, by subsequent proclamation, be excluded from certain of these *87areas, but might be permitted to enter or remain in certain others, under regulations and restrictions to be later prescribed. Among the military areas so designated by Public Proclamation No. 1 was Military Area No. 1, which embraced, besides the southern part of Arizona, all the coastal region of the three Pacific Coast states, including the City of Seattle, Washington, where appellant resided. Military Area No. 2, designated by the same proclamation, included those parts of the coastal states and of Arizona not placed within Military Area No. 1.

Public Proclamation No. 2 of March 16, 1942, issued by General DeWitt, made like recitals and designated further military areas and zones. It contained like provisions concerning the exclusion, by subsequent proclamation, of certain persons or classes of persons from these areas, and the future promulgation of regulations and restrictions applicable to persons remaining within them. 7 Federal Register 2405.

An Executive Order of the President, No. 9102, of March 18, 1942, established the War Relocation Authority, in the Office for Emergency Management of the Executive Office of the President; it authorized the Director of War Relocation Authority to formulate and effectuate a program for the removal, relocation, maintenance and supervision of persons designated under Executive Order No. 9066, already referred to; and it conferred on the Director authority to prescribe regulations necessary or desirable to promote the effective execution of the program. 7 Federal Register 2165.

Congress, by the Act of March 21,1942, provided: “That whoever shall enter, remain in, leave, or commit any act in any military area or military zone prescribed, under the authority of an Executive order of the President, by the Secretary of War, or by any military commander designated by the Secretary of War, contrary to the restrictions applicable to any such area or zone or contrary *88to the order, of the Secretary of War or any such military commander, shall, if.it appears that he knew or should have known of the existence and extent of the restrictions or order and that his act was in violation thereof, be guilty of a misdemeanor and upon conviction shall be.liable”,.to fine or imprisonment, or both.

Three days later, on March 24, 1942, General DeWitt issued Public Proclamation No. 3. 7 Federal Register 2543. After referring to the previous designation of military areas by Public Proclamations Nos. 1 and 2, it recited ■that “. . . the present situation within these Military Areas and Zones requires as a matter of military necessity the establishment of certain regulations pertaining to all enemy aliens and all persons of Japanese ancestry within .said Military Areas and Zones ... It accordingly declared, and established that from and after March 27,. .1942, “all alien Japanese, all alien Germans, all alien Italians, and all persons of Japanese ancestry residing or being within the geographical limits of Military Area No. 1 . .. . shall be within their place of residence between the hours of 8:00 P. M. and 6:00 A. M., which period is hereinafter referred to as the hours of curfew.” It also imposed certain other restrictions on persons of Japanese ancestry, and provided that any person violating the regulations would be subject to the criminal penalties .provided by the Act of,Congress of March 21, 1942. ■

. Beginning on March 24, 1942, the military commander issued a series of Civilian Exclusion Orders pursuant to the provisions of Public Proclamation No. 1. Each such order related to a specified area within the territory of his command. The order applicable to appellant was Civilian Exclusion Order No. 57 of May 10,1942. 7 Federal Register 3725. It directed that from and after 12:00 noon, May. 16, 194:2, all persons of Japanese ancestry, both alien and non-alien, be excluded from a specified portion of Military Aréa No, 1 in Seattle, including appellant’s place of residence, *89and it required a member of each family, and each individual living alone, affected by the order to report on May 11 or May 12 to a designated Civil Control Station in Seattle. Meanwhile the military commander had issued Public Proclamation No. 4 of March 27, 1942, which recited the necessity of providing for the orderly evacuation and resettlement of Japanese within the area, and prohibited all alien Japanese and all persons of Japanese ancestry from leaving the military area until future orders should permit. 7 Federal Register 2601.

Appellant does not deny that'he knowingly failed to obey the curfew order as charged in the second count of the indictment, or that the order was authorized by the terms of Executive Order No. 9066, or that the challénged Act of Congress purports to punish with criminal penalties disobedience of such an order. His contentions are only that' Congress unconstitutionally delegated its legislative power to the military commander by authorizing him to imposé the challénged regulation, .and that, even if the regulation were in other respects lawfully authorized, the Fifth Amendment prohibits the discrimination made between citizens of Japanese descent and those of other ancestry.

It will be evident from the legislative history that the-Act of March 21, 1942, contemplated and authorized the curfew order which we have before us. The bill which became the Act of March 21, 1942, was introduced in the Senate oh March 9th and in the House on March 10th at the request of the Secretary of War who, in letters to the Chairman of the Senate Committee on Military Affairs and to the Speaker of the House, stated explicitly that its purpose was to provide means for the enforcement of orders issued under Executive Order No. 9066. -This appears in the committee reports on the bill, which set out in full the Executive Order and the Secretary’s letter. 88 Cong. Rec. 2722, 2725; H. R. Rep.- No. 1906, 77th Cong., *902d Sess.; S. Rep. No. 1171,77th Cong., 2d Sess. And each of the committee reports expressly mentions curfew orders as one of the types of restrictions which it was deemed desirable to enforce by criminal sanctions.

When the bill was under consideration, General DeWitt had published his Proclamation No. 1 of March 2, 1942, establishing Military Areas Nos. 1 and 2, and that Proclamation was before Congress. S. Rep. No. 1171, 77th Cong., 2d Sess., p. 2; see also 88 Cong. Rec. 2724. A letter of the Secretary to the Chairman of the House Military Affairs Committee, of March 14,1942, informed Congress that “General DeWitt is strongly of the opinion that the bill, when enacted, should be broad enough to enable the Secretary of War or the appropriate military commander to enforce curfews and other restrictions within military areas and zones”; and that General DeWitt had “indicated that he was prepared to enforce certain restrictions at once for the purpose of protecting certain vital national defense interests but did not desire to proceed until enforcement machinery had been set up.” H. R. Rep. No. 1906, 77th Cong., 2d Sess., p. 3. See also letter of the Acting Secretary of War to the Chairman of the Senate Military Affairs Committee, March 13, 1942, 88 Cong. Rec. 2725.

The Chairman of the Senate Military Affairs Committee explained on the floor of the Senate that the purpose of the proposed legislation was to provide means of enforcement of curfew orders and other military orders made pursuant to Executive Order No. 9066. He read General DeWitt’s Public Proclamation No. 1, and statements from newspaper reports that “evacuation of the first Japanese aliens and American-born Japanese” was about to begin. He also stated to the Senate that “reasons for suspected widespread fifth-column activity among Japanese” were to be found in the system of dual citizenship which Japan deemed applicable to American-*91born Japanese, and in the propaganda disseminated by Japanese consuls, Buddhist priests and other leaders, among American-born children of Japanese. Such was stated to be the explanation of the contemplated evacuation from the Pacific Coast area of persons of Japanese ancestry, citizens as well as aliens. 88 Cong. Rec. 2722-26; see also pp. 2729-30. Congress also had before it the Preliminary Report of a House Committee investigating national defense migration, of March 19, 1942, which approved the provisions of Executive Order No. 9066, and which recommended the evacuation, from military areas established under the Order, of all persons of Japanese ancestry, including citizens. H. R. Rep. No. 1911, 77th Cong., 2d Sess. The proposed legislation provided criminal sanctions for violation of orders, in terms broad enough to include the curfew order now before us, and the legislative history demonstrates that Congress was advised that curfew orders were among those intended, and was advised also that regulation of citizen and alien Japanese‘alike was contemplated.

The conclusion is inescapable that Congress, by the Act of March 21, 1942, ratified and confirmed Executive Order No. 9066. Prize Cases, 2 Black 635, 671; Hamilton v. Dillin, 21 Wall. 73, 96-97; United States v. Heinszen & Co., 206 U. S. 370, 382-84; Tiaco v. Forbes, 228 U. S. 549, 556; Isbrandtsen-Moller Co. v. United States, 300 U. S. 139, 146-48; Swayne & Hoyt, Ltd. v. United States, 300 U. S. 297, 300-03; Mason Co. v. Tax Comm’n, 302 U. S. 186, 208. And so far as it lawfully could, Congress authorized and implemented such curfew orders as the commanding officer should promulgate pursuant to the Executive Order of the President. The question then is not one of Congressional power to delegate to the President the promulgation of the Executive Order, but whether, acting in cooperation, Congress and the Executive have constitutional authority to impose the cur*92few restriction,.here complained of. We must consider also whether, acting together, Congress and the Executive could leave it to the designated military commander to appraise the relevant conditions and on-the basis of that appraisal to say whether, under .the circumstances, the time and place were appropriate'for the-promulgation of the curfew order and whether the order itself was an ap'r propriate means of carrying out the Executive Order for the “protection against espionage and against sabotage” to national defense materials, premises and utilities. For reasons presently to be stated, we conclude that.it was within the constitutional power of Congress and-the executive arm of the Government to prescribe this curfew order for the period under consideration and that its promulgation by the military commander involved no unlawful delegation of .legislative power.

Executive Order No. 9066, promulgated in time of war for the declared purpose of prosecuting the war by protecting national; defense resources from sabotage and espionage, and the Act of March 21,1942, ratifying and confirming the Executive Order, were each an exercise of the power to wage war conferred on the Congress and on the President, as Commander in Chief of the armed forces, by Articles I and II of-the Constitution. See Ex -parte Quirin, 317 U. S. 1> 25-26. We have no occasion to. consider whether the President, acting alone, could lawfully have made the curfew order in question, or have authorized others to make it. For the President’s action has the support of the Act of Congress, and we are immediately concerned with the question whether it.is within- the constitutional power of the national government, through the joint action of Congress and the Executive, to impose this restriction as an emergency war measure. .The ex*' ercise -of that power here involves no question of martial law or trial by military tribunal. Cf. Ex parte Milligan, 4 Wall. 2:; Ex parte Quirin,-. supra. Appellant-. has. been *93tried and convicted in the civil courts and has been subjected to penalties prescribed by Congress for the acts committed.

The war power of the national government is “the power to wage war successfully.” See Charles Evans Hughes, War Powers Under the Constitution, 42 A. B. A. Rep. 232, 238. It extends to every matter and adtivity so related to war as substantially to affect its conduct and progress.' The power is not restricted to the winning of victories'in the field and the repulse of enemy fofcés. It embraces every phase of the national defense, including the protection of war materials and the members of thé armed forces from injury and from the dangers which attend the rise, prosecution and progress of war. Prize Cases, supra; Miller v. United States, 11 Wall. 268, 303-14; Stewart v. Kahn, 11 Wall. 493, 506-07; Selective Draft Law Cases, 245 U. S. 366; McKinley v. United States, 249 U. S. 397; United States v. Macintosh, 283 U. S. 605, 622-23. Since the Constitution commits to the Executive and to Congress the exercise of' the war power in all the vicissitudes and conditions of warfare, it has necessarily given them wide scope for the exercise of judgment and discretion in determining the nature and extent of the threatened injury or danger and in the selection of the means for resisting it. Ex parte Quirin, supra, 28-29; cf. Prize Cases, supra, 670; Martin v. Mott, 12 Wheat. 19, 29. Where, as they did here, the conditions” call for the exercise of judgment and discretion and for the choice of means by those branches of the Government' on which the Constitution has ’ placed the responsibility 6f war-making, it is not for any court to sit in review of the wisdom of their action or substitute its judgment for theirs.

The actions taken must be appraised in the light of the conditions- with which the President and Congress were confronted "in the early months of 1942, many of which, *94since disclosed, were then peculiarly within the knowledge of the military authorities. On December 7, 1941, the Japanese air forces had attacked the United States Naval Base at Pearl Harbor without warning, at the very hour when Japanese diplomatic representatives were conducting negotiations with our State Department ostensibly for the peaceful settlement of differences between the two countries. Simultaneously or nearly so, the Japanese attacked Malaysia, Hong Kong, the Philippines, and Wake and Midway Islands. On the following day their army invaded Thailand. Shortly afterwards they sank two British battleships. On December 13th, Guam was taken. On December 24th and 25th they captured Wake Island and occupied Hong Kong. On January 2, 1942, Manila fell, and on February 10th Singapore, Britain’s great naval base in the East, was taken. On February 27th the battle of the Java Sea resulted in a disastrous naval defeat to the United Nations. By the 9th of March Japanese forces had established control over the Netherlands East Indies; Rangoon and Burma were occupied; Bataan and Corregidor were under attack.

Although the results of the attack on Pearl Harbor were not fully disclosed until much later, it was known that the damage was extensive, and that the Japanese by their successes had gained a naval superiority over our forces in the Pacific which might enable them to seize Pearl Harbor, our largest naval base and the last stronghold of defense lying between Japan and the west coast. That reasonably prudent men charged with the responsibility of our national defense had ample ground for concluding that they must face the danger of invasion, take measures against it, and in making the choice, of measures consider our internal situation, cannot be doubted.

The challenged orders were defense measures for the avowed purpose of safeguarding the military area in question, at a time of threatened air raids and invasion *95by the Japanese forces, from the danger of sabotage and espionage. As the curfew was made applicable to citizens residing in the area only if they were of Japanese ancestry, our inquiry must be whether in the light of all the facts and circumstances there was any substantial basis for the conclusion, in which Congress and the military commander united, that the curfew as applied was a protective measure necessary to meet the threat of sabotage and espionage which would substantially affect the war effort and which might reasonably be expected to aid a threatened enemy invasion. The alternative which appellant insists must be accepted is for the military authorities to impose the curfew on all citizens within the military area, or on none. In a case of threatened danger requiring prompt action, it is a choice between inflicting obviously needless hardship on the many, or sitting passive and unresisting in the presence of the threat. We think that constitutional government, in time of war, is not so powerless and does not compel so hard a choice if those charged with the responsibility of our national defense have reasonable ground for believing that the threat is real.

When the orders were promulgated there was a vast concentration, within Military Areas Nos. 1 and 2, of installations and facilities for the production of military equipment, especially ships and airplanes. Important Army and Navy bases were located in California and Washington. Approximately one-fourth of the total value of the major aircraft contracts then let by Government procurement officers were to be performed in the State of California. California ranked second, and Washington fifth, of all the states of the Union with respect to the value of shipbuilding contracts to be performed.1

*96In the critical days of March 1942, the danger to our war production by sabotage and espionage in this area seems obvious. The German invasion of the Western European countries had given ample warning to the world of the menace of the “fifth column.” Espionage by persons in sympathy with the Japanese Government had been found to have been particularly effective in the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor.2 At a time of threatened Japanese attack upon this country, the nature of our inhabitants’ attachments to the Japanese enemy was consequently a matter of grave concern. Of the 126,000 persons of Japanese descent in the United States, citizens and non-citizens, approximately 112,000 resided in California, Oregon and Washington at the time of the adoption of the military regulations. Of these approximately two-thirds are citizens because born in the United States. Not only did the great majority of such persons reside within the Pacific Coast states but they were concentrated in or near three of the large cities, Seattle, Portland and Los Angeles, all in Military Area No. I.3

There is support for the view that social, economic and political conditions which have prevailed since the close of the last century, when the Japanese began to come to this country in substantial numbers, have intensified their solidarity and have in large measure prevented.„their_ assimilation as an integral part of the white... population.4 In addition, large numbers of children of Japanese par*97entage are sent to Japanese language schools outside the regular hours of public schools in the locality. Some of these schools are generally believed to be sources of Japanese nationalistic propaganda, cultivating allegiance to Japan.5 Considerable numbers, estimated to be approximately 10,000, of American-born children of Japanese parentage have been sent to Japan for all or a part of their education.6

Congress and the Executive, including the military commander, could have attributed special significance, in its bearing on the loyalties of persons of Japanese descent, to the maintenance by Japan of its system of dual citizenship. Children bom in the United States of Japanese alien parents, and especially those children born before December 1, 1924, are under many circumstances deemed, by Japanese law, to be citizens of Japan.7 No *98official census of those whom Japan regards as having thus retained Japanese citizenship is available, but there is ground for the belief that the number is large.8

The large number of resident alien Japanese, approximately one-third of all Japanese inhabitants of the country, are of mature years and occupy positions of influence in Japanese communities. The association of influential Japanese residents with Japanese Consulates has been /deemed a ready means for the dissemination of propa-I ganda and for the maintenance of the influence of the ' Japanese Government with the Japanese population in this country.9

As a result of all these conditions affecting the life of the Japanese, both aliens and citizens, in the Pacific Coast area, there has been relatively little social intercourse between them and the white population. The restrictions, both practical and legal, affecting the privileges and opportunities afforded to persons of Japanese extraction residing in the United States, have been sources of irritation and may well have tended to increase their isolation, and in many instances their attachments to Japan and its institutions.

Viewing these data in all their aspects, Congress and the Executive could reasonably have concluded that these conditions have encouraged the continued attachment of members of this group to Japan and Japanese institutions. *99These are only some of the many considerations which those charged with the responsibility for the national defense could take into account in determining the nature and extent of the danger of espionage and sabotage, in the event of invasion or air raid attack. The extent of that danger could be definitely known only after the event and after it was too late to meet it. Whatever views we may entertain regarding the loyalty to this country of the citizens of Japanese ancestry, we cannot reject as unfounded the judgment of the military authorities and of Congress that there were disloyal members of that population, whose number and strength could not be precisely and quickly ascertained. We cannot say that the war-making branches of the Government did not have ground for believing that in a critical hour such persons could not readily be isolated and separately dealt with, and constituted a menace to the national defense and safety, which demanded that prompt and adequate measures be taken to guard against it.

Appellant does not deny that, given the danger, a curfew was an appropriate measure against sabotage. It is an obvious protection against the perpetration of sabotage most readily committed during the hours of darkness. If it was an appropriate exercise of the war power its validity is not impaired because it has restricted the citizen’s liberty. Like every military control of the population of a dangerous zone in war time, it necessarily involves some infringement of individual liberty, just as does the police establishment of fire lines during a fire, or the confinement of people to their houses during an air raid alarm — neither of which could be thought to be an infringement of constitutional right. Like them, the validity of the restraints of the curfew order depends on all the conditions which obtain at the time the curfew is imposed and which support the order imposing it.

*100But appellant insists that the exercise of the power is inappropriate and unconstitutional because it discriminates against citizens of Japanese ancestry, in violation of the Fifth Amendment. The Fifth Amendment contains no equal protection clause and it restrains only such discriminatory legislation by Congress as amounts to a denial of due process. Detroit Bank v. United States, 317 U. S. 329, 337-38, and cases cited. Congress may hit at a particular danger where it is seen, without providing for others which are not so evident or so urgent. Keokee Coke Co. v. Taylor, 234 U. S. 224, 227.

Distinctions between citizens solely because of their ancestry are by their very nature odious to a free people whose institutions are founded upon the doctrine of equality. For that reason, legislative classification or discrimination based on race alone has often been held to be a denial of equal protection. Yick Wo v. Hopkins, 118 U. S. 356; Yu Cong Eng v. Trinidad, 271 U. S. 500; Hill v. Texas, 316 U. S. 400. We may assume that these considerations would be controlling here were it not for the fact that the danger of espionage and sabotage, in time of war and of threatened invasion, calls upon the military authorities to scrutinize every relevant fact bearing on the loyalty of populations in the danger areas. Because racial discriminations are in most circumstances irrelevant and therefore prohibited, it by no means follows that, in dealing with the perils of war, Congress and the Executive are wholly precluded from taking into account those facts and circumstances which are relevant to measures for our national defense and for the successful prosecution of the war, and which may in fact place citizens of one ancestry in a different category from others. “We must never forget, that it is a constitution we are expounding,” “a constitution intended to endure for ages to come, and, consequently, to be adapted to the various crises of human *101affairs.” McCulloch v. Maryland, 4 Wheat. 316, 407, 415. The adoption by Government, in the crisis of war and of threatened invasion, of measures for the public safety, based upon the recognition of facts and circumstances which indicate that a group of one national extraction may menace that safety more than others, is not wholly beyond the limits of the Constitution and is not to be condemned merely because in other and in most circumstances racial distinctions are irrelevant. Cf. Clarke v. Deckebach, 274 U. S. 392, and cases cited.

Here the aim of Congress and the Executive was the protection against sabotage of war materials and utilities in areas thought to be in danger of Japanase invasion and air attack. We have stated in detail facts and circumstances with respect to the American citizens of Japanese ancestry residing on the Pacific Coast which support the judgment of the war-waging branches of the Government that some restrictive measure was urgent. We cannot say that these facts and circumstances, considered in the particular war setting, could afford no ground for differentiating citizens of Japanese ancestry from other groups in the United States. The fact alone that attack on our shores was threatened by Japan rather than another enemy power set these citizens apart from others who have no particular associations with Japan.

Our investigation here does not go beyond the inquiry whether, in the light of all the relevant circumstances pre- j ceding and attending their promulgation, the challenged! orders and statute afforded a reasonable basis for the action taken in imposing the curfew. We cannot close our eyes to the fact, demonstrated by experience, that in, time of war residents having ethnic affiliations with an invading enemy may be a greater source of danger than those of a different ancestry. Nor can we deny that Congress, and the military authorities acting with its *102authorization, have constitutional power to appraise the danger in the light of facts of public notoriety. We need not now attempt to define the ultimate boundaries of the war power. We decide only the issue as we have defined it — we decide only that the curfew order as applied, and at the time it was applied, was within the boundaries of the war power. In this case it is enough that circumstances within the knowledge of those charged with the responsibility for maintaining the national defense afforded a rational basis for the decision which they made. Whether we would have made it is irrelevant.

What we have said also disposes of the contention that the curfew order involved an unlawful delegation by Congress of its legislative power. The mandate of the Constitution that all legislative power granted “shall be vested in Congress” has never been thought, even in the administration of civil affairs, to preclude Congress from resorting to the aid of executive or administrative officers in determining by findings whether the facts are such as to call for the application of previously adopted legislative standards or definitions of Congressional policy.

The purpose of Executive Order No. 9066, and the standard which the President approved for the orders authorized to be promulgated by the military commander— as disclosed by the preamble of the Executive Order — was the protection of our war resources against espionage and sabotage. Public Proclamations Nos. 1 and 2 by General DeWitt, contain findings that the military areas created and the measures to be prescribed for them were required to establish safeguards against espionage and sabotage. Both the Executive Order and the Proclamations were before Congress when the Act of March 21, 1942, was under consideration. To the extent that the Executive Order authorized orders to be promulgated by the military commander to accomplish the declared purpose of the *103Order, and to the extent that the findings in the Proclamations establish that such was their purpose, both have been approved by Congress.

It is true that the Act does not in terms establish a particular standard to which orders of the military commander are to conform, or require findings to be made as a prerequisite to any order. But the Executive Order, the Proclamations and the statute are not to be read in isolation from each other. They were parts of a single program and must be judged as such. The Act of March 21, 1942, was an adoption by Congress of the Executive Order and of the Proclamations. The Proclamations themselves followed a standard authorized by the Executive Order — the necessity of protecting military resources in the designated areas against espionage and sabotage. And by the Act, Congress gave its approval to that standard. We have no need to consider now the. validity of action if taken by the military commander without conforming to this standard approved by Congress, or the validity of orders made without the support of findings showing that they do so conform. Here the findings of danger from espionage and sabotage, and of the necessity of the curfew order to protect against them, have been duly made. General DeWitt’s Public Proclamation No. 3, which established the curfew, merely prescribed regulations of the type and in the manner which Public Proclamations Nos. 1 and 2 had announced would be prescribed at a future date, and was thus founded on the findings of Proclamations Nos. 1 and 2.

The military commander’s appraisal of facts in the light of the authorized standard, and the inferences which he drew from those facts, involved the exercise of his informed judgment. But as we have seen, those facts, and the inferences which could be rationally drawn from them, support the judgment of the military commander, that *104the danger of espionage and sabotage to our military resources was imminent, and that the curfew order was an appropriate measure to meet it.

Where, as in the present case, the standard set up for the guidance of the military commander, and the action taken and the reasons for it, are in fact recorded in the military orders, so that Congress, the courts and the public are assured that the orders, in the judgment of the commander, conform to the standards approved by the President and Congress, there is no failure in the performance of the legislative function. Opp Cotton Mills v. Administrator, 312 U. S. 126, 142-46, and cases cited. The essentials of that function are the determination by Congress of the legislative policy and its approval of a rule of conduct to carry that policy into execution. The very necessities which attend the conduct of military operations in time of war in this instance as in many others preclude Congress from holding committee meetings to determine whether there is danger, before it enacts legislation to combat the danger.

The Constitution as a continuously operating charter of government does not demand the impossible or the impractical. The essentials of the legislative function are preserved when Congress authorizes a statutory command to become operative, upon ascertainment of a basic conclusion of fact by a designated representative of the Government. Cf. The Aurora, 7 Cranch 382; United States v. Chemical Foundation, 272 U. S. 1, 12. The present statute, which authorized curfew orders to be made pursuant to Executive Order No. 9066 for the protection of war resources from espionage and sabotage, satisfies those requirements. Under the Executive Order the basic facts, determined by the military commander in the light of knowledge then available, were whether that danger existed and whether a curfew order was an appropriate means of minimizing the danger. Since his findings to *105that effect were, as we have said, not without adequate support, the legislative function was performed and the sanction of the statute attached to violations of the curfew order. It is unnecessary to consider whether or to what extent such findings would support orders differing from the curfew order.

The conviction under the second count is without constitutional infirmity. Hence we have no occasion to review the conviction on the first count since, as already stated, the sentences on the two counts are to run concurrently and conviction on the second is sufficient to sustain the sentence. For this reason also it is unnecessary to consider the Government’s argument that compliance with the order to report at the Civilian Control Station did not necessarily entail confinement in a relocation center.

Affirmed.

Me. Justice Douglas,

concurring:

While I concur in the result and agree substantially with the opinion of the Court, I wish to add a few words to indicate what for me is the narrow ground of decision.

After the disastrous bombing of Pearl Harbor the military had a grave problem on its hands. The threat of Japanese invasion of the west coast was not fanciful but real. The presence of many thousands of aliens and citizens of Japanese ancestry in or near to the key points along that coast line aroused special concern in those charged with the defense of the country. They believed that not only among aliens but also among citizens of Japanese ancestry there were those who would give aid and comfort to the Japanese invader and act as a fifth column before and during an invasion.1 If the military *106were right in their belief that among citizens of Japanese ancestry there was an actual or incipient fifth column, we were indeed faced with the imminent threat of a dire emergency. We must credit the military with as much good faith in that belief as we would any other public official acting pursuant to his duties. We cannot possibly know all the facts which lay behind that decision. Some of them may have been as intangible and as imponderable as the factors which influence personal or business decisions in daily life. The point is that we cannot sit in judgment on the military requirements of that hour. Where the orders under the present Act have some relation to “protection against espionage and against sabotage,” our task is at an end.

Much of the argument assumes that as a matter of policy it might have been wiser for the military to have dealt with these people on an individual basis and through the process of investigation and hearings separated those who were loyal from those who were not. But the wisdom or expediency of the decision which was made is not for us to review. Nor are we warranted where national survival is at stake in insisting that those orders should not have been applied to anyone without some evidence of his disloyalty. The orders as applied to the petitioner are not to be tested by the substantial evidence rule. Peacetime procedures do not necessarily fit wartime needs. It is said that if citizens of Japanese ancestry were generally disloyal, treatment on a group basis might be justified. But there is no difference in power when the num*107ber of those who are finally shown to be disloyal or suspect is reduced to a small per cent. The sorting process might indeed be as time-consuming whether those who were disloyal or suspect constituted nine or ninety-nine per cent. And the pinch of the order on the loyal citizens would be as great in any ease. But where the peril is great and the time is short, temporary treatment on a group basis may be the only practicable expedient whatever the ultimate percentage of those who are detained for cause. Nor should the military be required to wait until espionage or sabotage becomes effective before it moves.

It is true that we might now say that there was ample time to handle the problem on the individual rather than the group basis. But military decisions must be made without the benefit of hindsight. The orders must be judged as of the date when the decision to issue them was made. To say that the military in such cases should take the time to weed out the loyal from the others would be to assume that the nation could afford to have them take the time to do it. But as the opinion of the Court makes clear, speed and dispatch may be of the essence. Certainly we cannot say that those charged with the defense of the nation should have procrastinated until investigations and hearings wrere completed. At that time further delay might indeed have seemed to be wholly incompatible with military responsibilities.

Since we cannot override the military judgment which lay behind these orders, it seems to me necessary to concede that the army had the power to deal temporarily with these people on a group basis. Petitioner therefore was not justified in disobeying the orders.

But I think it important to emphasize that we are dealing here with a problem of loyalty not assimilation. Loyalty is a matter of mind and of heart not of race. That indeed is the history of America. Moreover, guilt is per*108sonal under our constitutional system. Detention for reasonable cause is one thing. Detention on account of ancestry is another.

In this case the petitioner tendered by a plea in abatement the question of his loyalty to the United States. I think that plea was properly stricken; military measures of defense might be paralyzed if it were necessary to try out that issue preliminarily. But a denial of that opportunity in this case does not necessarily mean that petitioner could not have had a hearing on that issue in some appropriate proceeding. Obedience to the military orders is one thing. Whether an individual member of a group must be afforded at some stage an opportunity to show that, being loyal, he should be reclassified is a wholly different question.

There are other instances in the law where one must obey an order before he can attack as erroneous the classification in which he has been placed. Thus it is commonly held that one who is a conscientious objector has no privilege to defy the Selective Service Act and to refuse or fail to be inducted. He must submit to the law. But that line of authority holds that after induction he may obtain through habeas corpus a hearing on the legality of his classification by the draft board.2 Whether in the present situation that remedy would be available is one *109of the large and important issues reserved by the present decision. It has been suggested that an administrative procedure has been established to relieve against unwarranted applications of these orders. Whether in that event the administrative remedy would be the only one available or would have to be first exhausted is also reserved. The scope of any relief which might be afforded — whether the liberties of an applicant could be restored only outside the areas in question — is likewise a distinct issue. But if it were plain that no machinery was available whereby the individual could demonstrate his loyalty as a citizen in order to be reclassified, questions of a more serious character would be presented. The United States, however, takes no such position. We need go no further here than to deny the individual the right to defy the law. It is sufficient to say that he cannot test in that way the validity of the orders as applied to him.

Me. Justice Murphy,

concurring:

It is not to be doubted that the action taken by the military commander in pursuance of the authority conferred upon him was taken in complete good faith and in the firm conviction that it was required by considerations of public safety and military security. Neither is it doubted that the Congress and the Executive working together may generally employ such measures as are necessary and appropriate to provide for the common defense and to wage war “with all the force necessary to make it effective.” United States v. Macintosh, 283 U. S. 605, 622. This includes authority to exercise measures of control over persons and property which would not in all cases be permissible in normal times.1

*110It does not follow, however, that the broad guaranties of the Bill of Rights and other provisions of the Constitution protecting essential liberties are suspended by the mere existence of a state of war. It has been frequently stated and recognized by this Court that the war power, like the other great substantive powers of government, is subject to the limitations of the Constitution. See Ex parte Milligan, 4 Wall. 2; Hamilton v. Kentucky Distilleries Co., 251 U. S. 146, 156; Home Building & Loan Assn. v. Blaisdell, 290 U. S. 393, 426. We give great deference to the judgment of the Congress and of the military authorities as to what is necessary in the effective prosecution of the war, but we can never forget that there are constitutional boundaries which it is our duty to uphold. It would not be supposed, for instance, that public elections could be suspended or that the prerogatives of the courts could be set aside, or that persons not charged with offenses against the law of war (see Ex parte Quirin, 317 U. S. 1) could be deprived of due process of law and the benefits of trial by jury, in the absence of a valid declaration of martial law. Cf. Ex parte Milligan, supra.

Distinctions based on color and ancestry are utterly inconsistent with our traditions and ideals. They are at variance with the principles for which we are now waging war. We cannot close our eyes to the fact that for centuries the Old World has been torn by racial and religious conflicts and has suffered the worst kind of anguish because of inequality of treatment for different groups. There was one law for one and a different law for another. Nothing is written more firmly into our law than the compact of the Plymouth voyagers to have just *111and equal laws. To say that any group cannot be assimilated is to admit that the great American experiment has failed, that our way of life has failed when confronted with the normal attachment of certain groups to the lands of their forefathers. As a nation we embrace many groups, some of them among the oldest settlements in our midst, which have isolated themselves for religious and cultural reasons.

Today is the first time, so far as I am aware, that we have sustained a substantial restriction of the personal liberty of citizens of the United States based upon the accident of race or ancestry. Under the curfew order here challenged no less than 70,000 American citizens have been placed under a special ban and deprived of their liberty because of their particular racial inheritance. In this sense it bears a melancholy resemblance to the treatment accorded to members of the Jewish race in Germany and in other parts of Europe. The result is the creation in this country of two classes of citizens for the purposes of a critical and perilous hour — to sanction discrimination between groups of United States citizens on the basis of ancestry. In my opinion this goes to 'the very brink of constitutional power.

Except under conditions of great emergency a regulation of this kind applicable solely to citizens of a particular racial extraction would not be regarded as in accord with the requirement of due process of law contained in the Fifth Amendment. We have consistently held that attempts to apply regulatory action to particular groups solely on the basis of racial distinction or classification is not in accordance with due process of law as prescribed by the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments. Cf. Yick Wo v. Hopkins, 118 U. S. 356, 369; Yu Cong Eng v. Trinidad, 271 U. S. 500, 524-28. See also Boyd v. Frankfort, 117 Ky. 199, 77 S. W. 669; Opinion of the Justices, 207 Mass. *112601, 94 N. E. 558. It is true that the Fifth Amendment, unlike the Fourteenth, contains no guarantee of equal protection of the laws. Cf. Currin v. Wallace, 306 U. S. 1, 14. It is also true that even the guaranty of equal protection of the laws allows a measure of reasonable classification. It by no means follows, however, that there may not be discrimination of such an injurious character in the application of laws as to amount to a denial of due process of law as that term is used in the Fifth Amendment.2 I think that point is dangerously approached when we have one law for the majority of our citizens and another for those of a particular racial heritage.

In view, however, of the critical military situation which prevailed on the Pacific Coast area in the spring of 1942, and the urgent necessity of taking prompt and effective action to secure defense installations and military operations against the risk of sabotage and espionage, the military authorities should not be required to conform to standards of regulatory action appropriate to normal times. Because of the damage wrought by the Japanese at Pearl Harbor and the availability of new weapons and new techniques with greater capacity for speed and deception in offensive operations, the immediate possibility of an attempt at invasion somewhere along the Pacific Coast had to be reckoned with. However desirable such a procedure might have been, the military authorities could have reasonably concluded at *113the time that determinations as to the loyalty and dependability of individual members of the large and widely scattered group of persons of Japanese extraction on the West Coast could not be made without delay that might have had tragic consequences. Modern war does not always wait for the observance of procedural requirements that are considered essential and appropriate under normal conditions. Accordingly I think that the military arm, confronted with the peril of imminent enemy attack and acting under the authority conferred by the Congress, made an allowable judgment at the time the curfew restriction was imposed. Whether such a restriction is valid today is another matter.

In voting for affirmance of the judgment I do not wish to be understood as intimating that the military authorities in time of war are subject to no restraints whatsoever, or that they are free to impose any restrictions they may choose on the rights and liberties of individual citizens or groups of citizens in those places which may be designated as “military areas.” While this Court sits, it has the inescapable duty of seeing that the mandates of the Constitution are obeyed. That duty exists in time of war as well as in time of peace, and in its performance we must not forget that few indeed have been the invasions upon essential liberties which have not been accompanied by pleas of urgent necessity advanced in good faith by responsible men. Cf. Mr. Justice Brandeis concurring in Whitney v. California, 274 U. S. 357, 372.

Nor do I mean to intimate that citizens of a particular racial group whose freedom may be curtailed within an area threatened with attack should be generally prevented from leaving the area and going at large in other areas that are not in danger of attack and where special precautions are not needed. Their status as citizens, though subject to requirements of national security and *114military necessity, should at all times be accorded the fullest consideration and respect. When the danger is past, the restrictions imposed on them should be promptly removed and their freedom of action fully restored.

Mr. Justice Rutledge,

concurring:

I concur in the Court’s opinion, except for the suggestion, if that is intended (as to which I make no assertion), that the courts have no power to review any action a military officer may “in his discretion” find it necessary to take with respect to civilian citizens in military areas or zones, once it is found that an emergency has created the conditions requiring or justifying the creation of the area or zone and the institution of some degree of military control short of suspending habeas corpus. Given the generating conditions for exercise of military authority and recognizing the wide latitude for particular applications that ordinarily creates, I do not think it is necessary in this case to decide that there is no action a person in the position of General DeWitt here may take, and which he may regard as necessary to the region’s or the country’s safety, which will call judicial power into play. The officer of course must have wide discretion and room for its operation. But it does not follow there may not be bounds beyond which he cannot go and, if he oversteps them, that the courts may not have power to protect the civilian citizen. But in this case that question need not be faced and I merely add my reservation without indication of opinion concerning it.

OPINION OF THE COURT

[564 U.S. 788]

Justice Scalia

delivered the opinion of the Court.

We consider whether a California law imposing restrictions on violent video games comports with the First Amendment.

[564 U.S. 789]

I

Assembly Bill 1179 (2005), Cal. Civ. Code Ann. §§ 1746-1746.5 (West 2009) (Act), prohibits the sale or rental of “violent video games” to minors, and requires their packaging to be labeled “18.” The Act covers games “in which the range of options available to a player includes killing, maiming, dismembering, or sexually assaulting an image of a human being, if those acts are depicted” in a manner that “[a] reasonable person, considering the game as a whole, would find appeals to a deviant or morbid interest of minors,” that is “patently offensive to prevailing standards in the community as to what is suitable for minors,” and that “causes the game, as a whole, to lack serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value for minors.” § 1746(d)(1)(A). Violation of the Act is punishable by a civil fine of up to $1,000. § 1746.3.

Respondents, representing the video-game and software industries, brought a preenforcement challenge to the Act in the United States District Court for the Northern District

[564 U.S. 790]

of California. That court concluded that the Act violated the First Amendment and permanently enjoined its enforcement. Video Software Dealers Assn. v. Schwarzenegger, No. C-05-04188 RMW (2007), App. to Pet. for Cert. 39a. The Court of Appeals affirmed, Video Software Dealers Assn. v. Schwarzenegger, 556 F.3d 950 (CA9 2009), and we granted certiorari, 559 U.S. 1092, 130 S. Ct. 2398, 176 L. Ed. 2d 784 (2010).

II

California correctly acknowledges that video games qualify for First Amendment protection. The Free Speech Clause exists principally to protect discourse on public matters, but we have long recognized that it is difficult to distinguish politics from entertainment, and dangerous to try. “Everyone is familiar with instances of propaganda through fiction. What is one man’s amusement, teaches another’s doctrine.” Winters v. New York, 333 U.S. 507, 510, 68 S. Ct. 665, 92 L. Ed. 840 (1948). Like the protected books, plays, and movies that preceded them, video games communicate ideas—and even social messages—through many familiar literary devices (such as characters, dialogue, plot, and music) and through features distinctive to the medium (such as the player’s interaction with the virtual world). That suffices to confer First Amendment protection. Under our Constitution, “esthetic and moral judgments about art and literature . . . are for the individual to make, not for the Government to decree, even with the mandate or approval of a majority.” *715 United States v. Playboy Entertainment Group, Inc., 529 U.S. 803, 818, 120 S. Ct. 1878, 146 L. Ed. 2d 865 (2000). And whatever the challenges of applying the Constitution to ever-advancing technology, “the basic principles of freedom of speech and the press, like the First Amendment’s command, do not vary” when a new and different medium for communication appears. Joseph Burstyn, Inc. v. Wilson, 343 U.S. 495, 503, 72 S. Ct. 777, 96 L. Ed. 1098 (1952).

The most basic of those principles is this: “[A]s a general matter, . . . government has no power to restrict expression

[564 U.S. 791]

because of its message, its ideas, its subject matter, or its content.” Ashcroft v. American Civil Liberties Union, 535 U.S. 564, 573, 122 S. Ct. 1700, 152 L. Ed. 2d 771 (2002) (internal quotation marks omitted). There are of course exceptions. “‘From 1791 to the present,’ . . . the First Amendment has ‘permitted restrictions upon the content of speech in a few limited areas,’ and has never ‘include [d] a freedom to disregard these traditional limitations.’ ” United States v. Stevens, 559 U.S. 460, 468, 130 S. Ct. 1577, 176 L. Ed. 2d 435 (2010) (quoting R. A. V. v. St. Paul, 505 U.S. 377, 382-383, 112 S. Ct. 2538, 120 L. Ed. 2d 305 (1992)). These limited areas—such as obscenity, Roth v. United States, 354 U.S. 476, 483, 77 S. Ct. 1304, 1 L. Ed. 2d 1498 (1957), incitement, Brandenburg v. Ohio, 395 U.S. 444, 447-449, 89 S. Ct. 1827, 23 L. Ed. 2d 430 (1969) (per curiam), and fighting words, Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire, 315 U.S. 568, 572, 62 S. Ct. 766, 86 L. Ed. 1031 (1942)—represent “well-defined and narrowly limited classes of speech, the prevention and punishment of which have never been thought to raise any Constitutional problem,” id., at 571-572, 62 S. Ct. 766, 86 L. Ed. 1031.

Last Term, in Stevens, we held that new categories of unprotected speech may not be added to the list by a legislature that concludes certain speech is too harmful to be tolerated. Stevens concerned a federal statute purporting to criminalize the creation, sale, or possession of certain depictions of animal cruelty. See 18 U.S.C. § 48 (amended 2010). The statute covered depictions “in which a living animal is intentionally maimed, mutilated, tortured, wounded, or killed” if that harm to the animal was illegal where “the creation, sale, or possession t[ook] place,” § 48(c)(1). A saving clause largely borrowed from our obscenity jurisprudence, see Miller v. California, 413 U.S. 15, 24, 93 S. Ct. 2607, 37 L. Ed. 2d 419 (1973), exempted depictions with “serious religious, political, scientific, educational, journalistic, historical, or artistic value,” § 48(b). We held that statute to be an impermissible content-based restriction on speech. There was no American tradition of forbidding the depiction of animal cruelty—though States have long had laws against committing it.

[564 U.S. 792]

The Government argued in Stevens that lack of a historical warrant did not matter; that it could create new categories of unprotected speech by applying a “simple balancing test” that weighs the value of a particular category of speech against its social costs and then punishes that category of speech if it fails the test. Stevens, 559 U.S., at 470, 130 S. Ct. 1577, 176 L. Ed. 2d 435. We emphatically rejected that “startling and dangerous” proposition. Ibid.. “Maybe there are some categories of speech that have been historically unpro*716tected, but have not yet been specifically identified or discussed as such in our case law.” Id., at 472, 130 S. Ct. 1577, 176 L. Ed. 2d 435. But without persuasive evidence that a novel restriction on content is part of a long (if heretofore unrecognized) tradition of proscription, a legislature may not revise the “judgment [of] the American people,” embodied in the First Amendment, “that the benefits of its restrictions on the Government outweigh the costs.”Id., at 470, 130 S. Ct. 1577, 176 L. Ed. 2d 435.

That holding controls this case.1 As in Stevens, California has tried to make violent-speech regulation look like obscenity regulation by appending a saving clause required for the latter. That does not suffice. Our cases have been clear that the obscenity exception to the First Amendment does

[564 U.S. 793]

not cover whatever a legislature finds shocking, but only depictions of “sexual conduct,” Miller, supra, at 24, 93 S. Ct. 2607, 37 L. Ed. 2d 419. See also Cohen v. California, 403 U.S. 15, 20, 91 S. Ct. 1780, 29 L. Ed. 2d 284 (1971); Roth, supra, at 487, and n. 20, 77 S. Ct. 1304, 1 L. Ed. 2d 1498.

Stevens was not the first time we have encountered and rejected a State’s attempt to shoehorn speech about violence into obscenity. In Winters, we considered a New York criminal statute “forbid [ding] the massing of stories of bloodshed and lust in such a way as to incite to crime against the person,” 333 U.S., at 514, 68 S. Ct. 665, 92 L. Ed. 840. The New York Court of Appeals upheld the provision as a law against obscenity. “[T]here can be no more precise test of written indecency or obscenity,” it said, “than the continuing and changeable experience of the community as to what types of books are likely to bring about the corruption of public morals or other analogous injury to the public order.” Ibid, (internal quotation marks omitted). That is of course the same expansive view of governmental power to abridge the freedom of speech based on interest balancing that we rejected in Stevens. Our opinion in Winters, which concluded that the New York statute failed a heightened vagueness standard applicable to restrictions upon speech entitled to First Amendment protection, 333 U.S., at 517-519, 68 S. Ct. 665, 92 L. Ed. 840, made clear that violence is not part of the obscenity that the Constitution permits to be regulated. The speech reached by the statute contained “no indecency or obscenity in any sense heretofore known to the law.” Id., at 519, 68 S. Ct. 665, 92 L. Ed. 840.

Because speech about violence is *717not obscene, it is of no consequence that California’s statute mimics the New York statute regulating obscenity for minors that we upheld in Ginsberg v. New York, 390 U.S. 629, 88 S. Ct. 1274, 20 L. Ed. 2d 195 (1968). That case approved a prohibition on the sale to minors of sexual material that would be obscene from the perspective of a child.2 We

[564 U.S. 794]

held that the legislature could “adjus[t] the definition of obscenity ‘to social realities by permitting the appeal of this type of material to be assessed in terms of the sexual interests .. .’of... minors.” Id., at 638, 88 S. Ct. 1274, 20 L. Ed. 2d 195 (quoting Mishkin v. New York, 383 U.S. 502, 509, 86 S. Ct. 958, 16 L. Ed. 2d 56 (1966)). And because “obscenity is not protected expression,” the New York statute could be sustained so long as the legislature’s judgment that the proscribed materials were harmful to children “was not irrational.” 390 U.S., at 641, 88 S. Ct. 1274, 20 L. Ed. 2d 195.

The California Act is something else entirely. It does not adjust the boundaries of an existing category of unprotected speech to ensure that a definition designed for adults is not uncritically applied to children. California does not argue that it is empowered to prohibit selling offensively violent works to adults—and it is wise not to, since that is but a hair’s breadth from the argument rejected in Stevens. Instead, it wishes to create a wholly new category of content-based regulation that is permissible only for speech directed at children.

That is unprecedented and mistaken. “[M]inors are entitled to a significant measure of First Amendment protection, and only in relatively narrow and well-defined circumstances may government bar public dissemination of protected materials to them.” Erznoznik v. Jacksonville, 422 U.S. 205, 212-213, 95 S. Ct. 2268, 45 L. Ed. 2d 125 (1975) (citation omitted). No doubt a State possesses legitimate power to protect children from harm, Ginsberg, supra, at 640-641, 88 S. Ct. 1274, 20 L. Ed. 2d 195; Prince v. Massachusetts, 321 U.S. 158, 165, 64 S. Ct. 438, 88 L. Ed. 645 (1944), but that does not include a free-floating power to restrict the ideas to which children may be exposed.

[564 U.S. 795]

“Speech that is neither obscene as to youths nor subject to some other legitimate proscription cannot be suppressed solely to protect the young from ideas or images that a legislative body thinks unsuitable for them.” Erznoznik, supra, at 213-214, 95 S. Ct. 2268, 45 L. Ed. 2d 125.3

*718California’s argument would fare better if there were a longstanding tradition in this country of specially restricting children’s access to depictions of violence, but there is none. Certainly the books we give children to read—or read to

[564 U.S. 796]

them when they are younger—contain no shortage of gore. Grimm’s Fairy Tales, for example, are grim indeed. As her just deserts for trying to poison Snow White, the wicked queen is made to dance in red hot slippers “till she fell dead on the floor, a sad example of envy and jealousy.” The Complete Brothers Grimm Fairy Tales 198 (2006 ed.). Cinderella’s evil stepsisters have their eyes pecked out by doves. Id., at 95. And Hansel and Gretel (children!) kill their captor by baking her in an oven. Id., at 54.

High-school reading lists are full of similar fare. Homer’s Odysseus blinds Polyphemus the Cyclops by grinding out his eye with a heated stake. 22 The Odyssey of Homer, Book IX, p. 125 (S. Butcher & A. Lang transís. 1909) (“Even so did we seize the fiery-pointed brand and whirled it round in his eye, and the blood flowed about the heated bar. And the breath of the flame singed his eyelids and brows all about, as the ball of the eye burnt away, and the roots thereof crackled in the flame”). In the Inferno, Dante and Virgil watch corrupt politicians struggle to stay submerged beneath a lake of boiling pitch, lest they be skewered by devils above the surface. Canto XXI, pp. 187-189 (A. Mandelbaum transí. Bantam Classic ed. 1982). And Golding’s Lord of the Flies recounts how a schoolboy called Piggy is savagely murdered by other children while marooned on an island. W. Golding, Lord of the Flies 208-209 (1997 ed.).4

[564 U.S. 797]

*719This is not to say that minors’ consumption of violent entertainment has never encountered resistance. In the 1800’s, dime novels depicting crime and “penny dreadfuls” (named for their price and content) were blamed in some quarters for juvenile delinquency. See Brief for Cato Institute as Amicus Curiae 6-7. When motion pictures came along, they became the villains instead. “The days when the police looked upon dime novels as the most dangerous of textbooks in the school for crime are drawing to a close. . . . They say that the moving picture machine . . . tends even more than did the dime novel to turn the thoughts of the easily influenced to paths which sometimes lead to prison.” Moving Pictures as Helps to Crime, N. Y. Times, Feb. 21, 1909, quoted in Brief for Cato Institute 8. For a time, our Court did permit broad censorship of movies because of their capacity to be “used for evil,” see Mutual Film Corp. v. Industrial Comm’n of Ohio, 236 U.S. 230, 242, 35 S. Ct. 387, 59 L. Ed. 552 (1915), but we eventually reversed course, Joseph Burstyn, Inc., 343 U.S., at 502, 72 S. Ct. 777, 96 L. Ed. 1098; see also Erznoznik, supra, at 212-214, 95 S. Ct. 2268, 45 L. Ed. 2d 125 (invalidating a drive-in movies restriction designed to protect children). Radio dramas were next, and then came comic books. Brief for Cato Institute 10-11. Many in the late 1940’s and early 1950’s blamed comic books for fostering a “preoccupation with violence and horror” among the young, leading to a rising juvenile crime rate. See Note, Regulation of Comic Books, 68 Harv. L. Rev. 489, 490 (1955). But efforts to convince Congress to restrict comic books failed. Brief for Comic Book Legal Defense Fund as Amicus Curiae 11-15.5

[564 U.S. 798]

And, of course, after comic books came television and music lyrics.

California claims that video games present special problems because they are “interactive,” in that the player participates in the violent action on screen and determines its outcome. The latter feature is nothing new: Since at least the publication of The Adventures of You: Sugarcane Island in 1969, young readers of choose-your-own-adventure stories have been able to make decisions that determine the plot by following instructions about which page to turn to. Cf. Interactive Digital Software Assn. v. St. Louis County, 329 F.3d 954, 957-958 (CA8 2003). As for the argument that video games enable participation in the violent action, that seems to us more a matter of degree than of kind. As Judge Posner has observed, all literature is interactive. “[T]he better it is, the more interactive. Literature when it is successful draws the reader into the story, makes him identify with the characters, invites him to judge them and quarrel with them, to experience their joys and sufferings as the reader’s own.” American Amusement Machine Assn. v. Kendrick, 244 F.3d 572, *720577 (CA7 2001) (striking down a similar restriction on violent video games).

Justice Alito has done considerable independent research to identify, see post, at 818-819, nn. 13-18, 180 L. Ed. 2d, at 732, video games in which “the violence is astounding,” post, at 818, 180 L. Ed. 2d, at 732. “Victims are dismembered, decapitated, disemboweled, set on fire, and chopped into little pieces. . . . Blood gushes, splatters, and pools.” Ibid. Justice Alito recounts all these disgusting video games in order to disgust us—but disgust is not a valid basis for restricting expression. And the same is true of Justice Alito’s description, post, at 819, 180 L. Ed. 2d, at 732, of those

[564 U.S. 799]

video games he has discovered that have a racial or ethnic motive for their violence—“ ‘ethnic cleansing’ [of] . . . African-Americans, Latinos, or Jews.” To what end does he relate this? Does it somehow increase the “aggressiveness” that California wishes to suppress? Who knows? But it does arouse the reader’s ire, and the reader’s desire to put an end to this horrible message. Thus, ironically, Justice Alito’s argument highlights the precise danger posed by the California Act: that the ideas expressed by speech—whether it be violence, or gore, or racism—and not its objective effects, may be the real reason for governmental proscription.

Ill

Because the Act imposes a restriction on the content of protected speech, it is invalid unless California can demonstrate that it passes strict scrutiny—that is, unless it is justified by a compelling government interest and is narrowly drawn to serve that interest. R. A. V., 505 U.S., at 395, 112 S. Ct. 2538, 120 L. Ed. 2d 305. The State must specifically identify an “actual problem” in need of solving, Playboy, 529 U.S., at 822-823, 120 S. Ct. 1878, 146 L. Ed. 2d 86, and the curtailment of free speech must be actually necessary to the solution, see R. A. V., supra, at 395, 112 S. Ct. 2538, 120 L. Ed. 2d 305. That is a demanding standard. “It is rare that a regulation restricting speech because of its content will ever be permissible.” Playboy, supra, at 818, 120 S. Ct. 1878, 146 L. Ed. 2d 86.

California cannot meet that standard. At the outset, it acknowledges that it cannot show a direct causal link between violent video games and harm to minors. Rather, relying upon our decision in Turner Broadcasting System, Inc. v. FCC, 512 U.S. 622, 114 S. Ct. 2445, 129 L. Ed. 2d 497 (1994), the State claims that it need not produce such proof because the legislature can make a predictive judgment that such a link exists, based on competing psychological studies. But reliance on Turner Broadcasting is misplaced. That decision applied intermediate scrutiny to a content-neutral regulation. Id., at 661-662, 114 S. Ct. 2445, 129 L. Ed. 2d 497. California’s burden is much higher, and because it bears the

[564 U.S. 800]

risk of uncertainty, see Playboy, supra, at 816-817, 120 S. Ct. 1878, 146 L. Ed. 2d 86, ambiguous proof will not suffice.

The State’s evidence is not compelling. California relies primarily on the research of Dr. Craig Anderson and a few other research psychologists whose studies purport to show a connection between exposure to violent video games and harmful effects on children. These studies have been rejected by every court to consider *721them,6 and with good reason: They do not prove that violent video games cause minors to act aggressively (which would at least be a beginning). Instead, “[n] early all of the research is based on correlation, not evidence of causation, and most of the studies suffer from significant, admitted flaws in methodology.” 556 F.3d, at 964. They show at best some correlation between exposure to violent entertainment and minuscule real-world effects, such as children’s feeling more aggressive or making louder noises in the few minutes after playing a violent game than after playing a nonviolent game.7

Even taking for granted Dr. Anderson’s conclusions that violent video games produce some effect on children’s feelings of aggression, those effects are both small and indistinguishable

[564 U.S. 801]

from effects produced by other media. In his testimony in a similar lawsuit, Dr. Anderson admitted that the “effect sizes” of children’s exposure to violent video games are “about the same” as that produced by their exposure to violence on television. App. 1263. And he admits that the same effects have been found when children watch cartoons starring Bugs Bunny or the Road Runner, id., at 1304, or when they play video games like Sonic the Hedgehog that are rated “E” (appropriate for all ages), id., at 1270, or even when they “vie[w] a picture of a gun,” id., at 1315-1316.8

Of course, California has (wisely) declined to restrict Saturday morning *722cartoons, the sale of games rated for young

[564 U.S. 802]

children, or the distribution of pictures of guns. The consequence is that its regulation is wildly underinclusive when judged against its asserted justification, which in our view is alone enough to defeat it. Underinclusiveness raises serious doubts about whether the government is in fact pursuing the interest it invokes, rather than disfavoring a particular speaker or viewpoint. See City of Ladue v. Gilleo, 512 U.S. 43, 51, 114 S. Ct. 2038, 129 L. Ed. 2d 36 (1994); Florida Star v. B. J. F., 491 U.S. 524, 540, 109 S. Ct. 2603, 105 L. Ed. 2d 443 (1989). Here, California has singled out the purveyors of video games for disfavored treatment—at least when compared to booksellers, cartoonists, and movie producers—and has given no persuasive reason why.

The Act is also seriously underin-clusive in another respect—and a respect that renders irrelevant the contentions of the concurrence and the dissents that video games are qualitatively different from other portrayals of violence. The California Legislature is perfectly willing to leave this dangerous, mind-altering material in the hands of children so long as one parent (or even an aunt or uncle) says it’s OK. And there are not even any requirements as to how this parental or avuncular relationship is to be verified; apparently the child’s or putative parent’s, aunt’s, or uncle’s say-so suffices. That is not how one addresses a serious social problem.

California claims that the Act is justified in aid of parental authority: By requiring that the purchase of violent video games can be made only by adults, the Act ensures that parents can decide what games are appropriate. At the outset, we note our doubts that punishing third parties for conveying protected speech to children just in case their parents disapprove of that speech is a proper governmental means of aiding parental authority. Accepting that position would largely vitiate the rule that “only in relatively narrow and well-defined circumstances may government bar public dissemination of protected materials to [minors].” Erznoznik, 422 U.S., at 212-213, 95 S. Ct. 2268, 45 L. Ed. 2d 125.

[564 U.S. 803]

But leaving that aside, California cannot show that the Act’s restrictions meet a substantial need of parents who wish to restrict their children’s access to violent video games but cannot do so. The video-game industry has in place a voluntary rating system designed to inform consumers about the content of games. The system, implemented by the Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB), assigns age-specific ratings to each video game submitted: EC (Early Childhood); E (Everyone); E10+ (Everyone 10 and older); T (Teens); M (17 and older); and AO (Adults Only—18 and older). App. 86. The Video Software Dealers Association encourages retailers to prominently display information about the ESRB system in their stores; to refrain from renting or selling adults-only games to minors; and to rent or sell “M” rated games to minors only with parental consent. Id., at 47. In 2009, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) found that, as a result of this system, “the video game industry outpaces the movie and music industries” in “(1) restricting target-marketing of mature-rated *723products to children; (2) clearly and prominently disclosing rating information; and (3) restricting children’s access to mature-rated products at retail.” FTC, Report to Congress, Marketing Violent Entertainment to Children 30 (Dec. 2009), online at http://www.ftc.gov/os/ 2009/12/ P9945llviolententertainment.pdf (as visited June 24,2011, and available in Clerk of Court’s case file) (FTC Report). This system does much to ensure that minors cannot purchase seriously violent games on their own, and that parents who care about the matter can readily evaluate the games their children bring home. Filling the remaining modest gap in concerned parents’ control can hardly be a compelling state interest.9

[564 U.S. 804]

And finally, the Act’s purported aid to parental authority is vastly overinclusive. Not all of the children who are forbidden to purchase violent video games on their own have parents who care whether they purchase violent video games. While some of the legislation’s effect may indeed be in support of what some parents of the restricted children actually want, its entire effect is only in support of what the State thinks parents ought to want. This is not the narrow tailoring to “assisting parents” that restriction of First Amendment rights requires.

California’s effort to regulate violent video games is the latest episode in a long series of failed attempts to censor violent entertainment for minors. While we have pointed out above that some of the evidence brought forward to support the harmfulness of video games is unpersuasive, we do not mean to demean or disparage the concerns that underlie the attempt to regulate them—concerns that may and doubtless do prompt a good deal of parental oversight. We have no business passing judgment on the view of the California Legislature that violent video games (or, for that matter, any other forms of speech) corrupt the young or harm their moral development. Our task is only to say whether or not such works constitute a “well-defined and narrowly limited clas[s] of speech, the prevention and punishment of which have never been thought to raise any Constitutional problem,” Chaplinsky, 315 U.S., at 571-572, 62 S. Ct. 766, 86 L. Ed. 1031, 62 S. Ct. 766, 86 L. Ed. 1031 (the answer plainly is no); and if not, whether the regulation of such works is justified by that high degree of necessity we have described as a compelling state interest (it is not). Even where the protection

[564 U.S. 805]

of children is the object, the constitutional limits on governmental action apply.

California’s legislation straddles the fence between (1) addressing a serious social problem and (2) helping concerned parents control their children. Both ends are legitimate, but when they affect First Amendment rights they must be pursued by means that are neither seri*724ously underinclusive nor seriously overinclusive. See Church of Lukumi Babalu Aye, Inc. v. Hialeah, 508 U.S. 520, 546, 113 S. Ct. 2217, 124 L. Ed. 2d 472 (1993). As a means of protecting children from portrayals of violence, the legislation is seriously underinclusive, not only because it excludes portrayals other than video games, but also because it permits a parental or avuncular veto. And as a means of assisting concerned parents it is seriously overinclusive because it abridges the First Amendment rights of young people whose parents (and aunts and uncles) think violent video games are a harmless pastime. And the overbreadth in achieving one goal is not cured by the underbreadth in achieving the other. Legislation such as this, which is neither fish nor fowl, cannot survive strict scrutiny.

We affirm the judgment below.

It is so ordered.

SEPARATE OPINIONS

Justice Alito,

with whom The Chief Justice joins, concurring in the judgment.

The California statute that is before us in this case represents a pioneering effort to address what the state legislature and others regard as a potentially serious social problem: the effect of exceptionally violent video games on impressionable minors, who often spend countless hours immersed in the alternative worlds that these games create. Although the California statute is well intentioned, its terms are not framed with the precision that the Constitution demands, and I therefore agree with the Court that this particular law cannot be sustained.

[564 U.S. 806]

I disagree, however, with the approach taken in the Court’s opinion. In considering the application of unchanging constitutional principles to new and rapidly evolving technology, this Court should proceed with caution. We should make every effort to understand the new technology. We should take into account the possibility that developing technology may have important societal implications that will become apparent only with time. We should not jump to the conclusion that new technology is fundamentally the same as some older thing with which we are familiar. And we should not hastily dismiss the judgment of legislators, who may be in a better position than we are to assess the implications of new technology. The opinion of the Court exhibits none of this caution.

In the view of the Court, all those concerned about the effects of violent video games—federal and state legislators, educators, social scientists, and parents—are unduly fearful, for violent video games really present no serious problem. See ante, at 798-801, 803-804, 180 L. Ed. 2d, at 719-721, 722-723. Spending hour upon hour controlling the actions of a character who guns down scores of innocent victims is not different in “kind” from reading a description of violence in a work of literature. See ante, at 798, 180 L. Ed. 2d, at 719-720.

The Court is sure of this; I am not. There are reasons to suspect that the experience of playing violent video games just might be very different from reading a book, listening to the radio, or watching a movie or a television show.

*725I

Respondents in this case, representing the video-game industry, ask us to strike down the California law on two grounds: the broad ground adopted by the Court and the narrower ground that the law’s definition of “violent video game,” see Cal. Civ. Code Ann. § 1746(d)(1)(A) (West 2009), is impermissibly vague. See Brief for Respondents 23-61. Because I agree with the latter argument, I see no need to

[564 U.S. 807]

reach the broader First Amendment issues addressed by the Court.1

A

Due process requires that laws give people of ordinary intelligence fair notice of what is prohibited. Grayned v. City of Rockford, 408 U.S. 104, 108, 92 S. Ct. 2294, 33 L. Ed. 2d 222 (1972). The lack of such notice in a law that regulates expression “raises special First Amendment concerns because of its obvious chilling effect on free speech.” Reno v. American Civil Liberties Union, 521 U.S. 844, 871-872, 117 S. Ct. 2329, 138 L. Ed. 2d 874 (1997). Vague laws force potential speakers to “ ‘steer far wider of the unlawful zone’ . . . than if the boundaries of the forbidden areas were clearly marked.” Baggett v. Bullitt, 377 U.S. 360, 372, 84 S. Ct. 1316, 12 L. Ed. 2d 377 (1964) (quoting Speiser v. Randall, 357 U.S. 513, 526, 78 S. Ct. 1332, 2 L. Ed. 2d 1460 (1958)). While “perfect clarity and precise guidance have never been required even of regulations that restrict expressive activity,” Ward v. Rock Against Racism, 491 U.S. 781, 794, 109 S. Ct. 2746, 105 L. Ed. 2d 661 (1989), “government may regulate in the area” of First Amendment freedoms “only with narrow specificity,” NAACP v. Button, 371 U.S. 415, 433, 83 S. Ct. 328, 9 L. Ed. 2d 405 (1963); see also Hoffman Estates v. Flipside, Hoffman Estates, Inc., 455 U.S. 489, 499, 102 S. Ct. 1186, 71 L. Ed. 2d 362 (1982). These principles apply to laws that regulate expression for the purpose of protecting children. See Interstate Circuit, Inc. v. Dallas, 390 U.S. 676, 689, 88 S. Ct. 1298, 20 L. Ed. 2d 225 (1968).

Here, the California law does not define “violent video games” with the “narrow specificity” that the Constitution demands. In an effort to avoid First Amendment problems, the California Legislature modeled its violent video game statute on the New York law that this Court upheld in Ginsberg v. New York, 390 U.S. 629, 88 S. Ct. 1274, 20 L. Ed. 2d 195 (1968)—a law that prohibited the sale of certain sexually related materials to minors, see id., at 631-633, 88 S. Ct. 1274, 20 L. Ed. 2d 195. But the California Legislature departed

[564 U.S. 808]

from the Ginsberg model in an important respect, and the legislature overlooked important differences between the materials falling within the scope of the two statutes.

B

The law at issue in Ginsberg prohibited the sale to minors of materials that were deemed “harmful to minors,” and the law defined “harmful to minors” simply by adding the words “for minors” to each element of the definition of obscenity set out in what were then the Court’s leading obscenity decisions, see Roth v. United States, 354 U.S. 476, 77 S. Ct. 1304, 1 *726L. Ed. 2d 1498 (1957), and Book Named “John Cleland’s Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure” v. Attorney General of Mass., 383 U.S. 413, 86 S. Ct. 975, 16 L. Ed. 2d 1 (1966).

Seeking to bring its violent video game law within the protection of Ginsberg, the California Legislature began with the obscenity test adopted in Miller v. California, 413 U.S. 15, 93 S. Ct. 2607, 37 L. Ed. 2d 419 (1973), a decision that revised the obscenity tests previously set out in Roth and Memoirs. The legislature then made certain modifications to accommodate the aim of the violent video game law.

Under Miller, an obscenity statute must contain a threshold limitation that restricts the statute’s scope to specifically described “hard core” materials. See 413 U.S., at 23-25, 27, 93 S. Ct. 2607, 37 L. Ed. 2d 419. Materials that fall within this “hard core” category may be deemed to be obscene if three additional requirements are met:

(1) An “average person, applying contemporary community standards [must] find . . . the work, taken as a whole, appeals to the prurient interest”;

(2) “the work [must] depic[t] or describe], in a patently offensive way, sexual conduct specifically defined by the applicable state law; and”

(3) “the work, taken as a whole, [must] lac[k] serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value.” Id., at 24, 93 S. Ct. 2607, 37 L. Ed. 2d 419 (internal quotation marks omitted).

[564 U.S. 809]

Adapting these standards, the California law imposes the following threshold limitation: “[T]he range of options available to a player [must] includ[e] killing, maiming, dismembering, or sexually assaulting an image of a human being.” § 1746(d)(1). Any video game that meets this threshold test is subject to the law’s restrictions if it also satisfies three further requirements:

“(i) A reasonable person, considering the game as a whole, would find [the game] appeals to a deviant or morbid interest of minors.

“(ii) It is patently offensive to prevailing standards in the community as to what is suitable for minors.

“(iii) It causes the game, as a whole, to lack serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value for minors.” § 1746(d)(1)(A).2

C

The first important difference between the Ginsberg law and the California violent video game statute concerns their respective threshold requirements. As noted, the Ginsberg law built upon the test for adult obscenity, and the current adult obscenity test, which was set out in Miller, requires an obscenity statute to contain a threshold limitation that restricts the statute’s coverage to spec-*727cifically defined “hard core” depictions. See 413 U.S., at 23-25, 27, 93 S. Ct. 2607, 37 L. Ed. 2d 419. The Miller Court gave as an example a statute that applies to only “[p]atently offensive representations or descriptions of ultimate sexual acts,” “masturbation, excretory functions, and

[564 U.S. 810]

lewd exhibition of the genitals.” Id., at 25, 93 S. Ct. 2607, 37 L. Ed. 2d 419. The Miller Court clearly viewed this threshold limitation as serving a vital notice function. “We are satisfied,” the Court wrote, “that these specific prerequisites will provide fair notice to a dealer in such materials that his public and commercial activities may bring prosecution.” Id., at 27, 93 S. Ct. 2607, 37 L. Ed. 2d 419; see also Reno, 521 U.S., at 873, 117 S. Ct. 2329, 138 L. Ed. 2d 874 (observing that Miller’s threshold limitation “reduces the vagueness inherent in the open-ended term ‘patently offensive’ ”).3

By contrast, the threshold requirement of the California law does not perform the narrowing function served by the limitation in Miller. At least when Miller was decided, depictions of “hard core” sexual conduct were not a common feature of mainstream entertainment. But nothing similar can be said about much of the conduct covered by the California law. It provides that a video game cannot qualify as “violent” unless “the range of options available to a player includes killing, maiming, dismembering, or sexually assaulting an image of a human being.” § 1746(d)(1).

For better or worse, our society has long regarded many depictions of killing and maiming4 as suitable features of popular entertainment, including entertainment that is widely available to minors. The California law’s threshold requirement would more closely resemble the limitation in Miller if it targeted a narrower class of graphic depictions.

Because of this feature of the California law’s threshold test, the work of providing fair notice is left in large part to

[564 U.S. 811]

the three requirements that follow, but those elements are also not up to the task. In drafting the violent video game law, the California Legislature could have made its own judgment regarding the kind and degree of violence that is acceptable in games played by minors (or by minors in particular age groups). Instead, the legislature relied on undefined societal or community standards.

One of the three elements at issue here refers expressly to “prevailing standards in the community as to what is suitable for minors.” § 1746(d)(1)(A)(ii). Another element points in the same direction, asking whether “[a] reasonable person, considering [a] game as a whole,” would find that it “appeals to a deviant or morbid, interest of minors.” § 1746(d)(1)(A)(i) (emphasis added).

The terms “deviant” and “morbid” are not defined in the statute, and *728California offers no reason to think that its courts would give the terms anything other than their ordinary meaning. See Reply Brief for Petitioners 5 (arguing that “[a] reasonable person can make this judgment through ... a common understanding and definition of the applicable terms”). I therefore assume that “deviant” and “morbid” carry the meaning that they convey in ordinary speech. The adjective “deviant” ordinarily means “deviating . . . from some accepted norm,” and the term “morbid” means “of, relating to, or characteristic of disease.” Webster’s 618, 1469. A “deviant or morbid interest” in violence, therefore, appears to be an interest that deviates from what is regarded—presumably in accordance with some generally accepted standard—as normal and healthy. Thus, the application of the California law is heavily dependent on the identification of generally accepted standards regarding the suitability of violent entertainment for minors.

The California Legislature seems to have assumed that these standards are sufficiently well known so that a person of ordinary intelligence would have fair notice as to whether the kind and degree of violence in a particular game is

[564 U.S. 812]

enough to qualify the game as “violent.” And because the Miller test looks to community standards, the legislature may have thought that the use of undefined community standards in the violent video game law would not present vagueness problems.

There is a critical difference, however, between obscenity laws and laws regulating violence in entertainment. By the time of this Court’s landmark obscenity cases in the 1960’s, obscenity had long been prohibited, see Roth, 354 U.S., at 484-485, 77 S. Ct. 1304, 1 L. Ed. 2d 1498, and this experience had helped to shape certain generally accepted norms concerning expression related to sex.

There is no similar history regarding expression related to violence. As the Court notes, classic literature contains descriptions of great violence, and even children’s stories sometimes depict very violent scenes. See ante, at 795-797, 180 L. Ed. 2d, at 718-719.

Although our society does not generally regard all depictions of violence as suitable for children or adolescents, the prevalence of violent depictions in children’s literature and entertainment creates numerous opportunities for reasonable people to disagree about which depictions may excite “deviant” or “morbid” impulses. See Edwards & Berman, Regulating Violence on Television, 89 Nw. U. L. Rev. 1487, 1523 (1995) (observing that the Miller test would be difficult to apply to violent expression because “there is nothing even approaching a consensus on low-value violence”).

Finally, the difficulty of ascertaining the community standards incorporated into the California law is compounded by the legislature’s decision to lump all minors together. The California law draws no distinction between young children and adolescents who are nearing the age of majority.

In response to a question at oral argument, the attorney defending the constitutionality of the California law said that the State would accept a narrowing construction of the law under which the law’s references to “minors” would be interpreted to refer to the oldest minors—that is, those just short

[564 U.S. 813]

of 18. Tr. of Oral Arg. 11-12. However, “it is not within our power *729to construe and narrow state laws.” Grayned, 408 U.S., at 110, 92 S. Ct. 2294, 33 L. Ed. 2d 222. We can only “ ‘extrapolate [their] allowable meaning’ ” from the statutory text and authoritative interpretations of similar laws by courts of the State. Ibid. (quoting Garner v. Louisiana, 368 U.S. 157, 174, 82 S. Ct. 248, 7 L. Ed. 2d 207 (1961) (Frankfurter, J., concurring in judgment)).

In this case, California has not provided any evidence that the California Legislature intended the law to be limited in this way, or cited any decisions from its courts that would support an “oldest minors” construction.5

For these reasons, I conclude that the California violent video game law fails to provide the fair notice that the Constitution requires. And I would go no further. I would not express any view on whether a properly drawn statute would or would not survive First Amendment scrutiny. We should address that question only if and when it is necessary to do so.

II

Having outlined how I would decide this case, I will now briefly elaborate on my reasons for questioning the wisdom of the Court’s approach. Some of these reasons are touched upon by the dissents, and while I am not prepared at this time to go as far as either Justice Thomas or Justice Breyer, they raise valid concerns.

A

The Court is wrong in saying that the holding in United States v. Stevens, 559 U.S. 460, 130 S. Ct. 1577, 176 L. Ed. 2d 435 (2010), “controls this case.” Ante, at 792, 180 L. Ed. 2d, at 716. First, the statute in Stevens differed sharply

[564 U.S. 814]

from the statute at issue here. Stevens struck down a law that broadly prohibited any person from creating, selling, or possessing depictions of animal cruelty for commercial gain. The California law involved here, by contrast, is limited to the sale or rental of violent video games to minors. The California law imposes no restriction on the creation of violent video games, or on the possession of such games by anyone, whether above or below the age of 18. The California law does not regulate the sale or rental of violent games by adults. And the California law does not prevent parents and certain other close relatives from buying or renting violent games for their children or other young relatives if they see fit.

Second, Stevens does not support the proposition that a law like the one at issue must satisfy strict scrutiny. The portion of Stevens on which the Court relies rejected the Government’s contention that depictions of animal cruelty were categorically outside the range of any First Amendment protection. 559 U.S., at 471-472, 130 S. Ct. 1577, 176 L. Ed. 2d 435. Going well beyond Stevens, the Court now holds that any law that attempts to prevent minors from purchasing violent video games must satisfy strict scrutiny instead of the more lenient standard applied in Ginsberg, 390 U.S. 629, 88 S. Ct. 1274, 20 L. Ed. 2d 195, our most closely related precedent. As a result of today’s decision, *730a State may prohibit the sale to minors of what Ginsberg described as “girlie magazines,” but a State must surmount a formidable (and perhaps insurmountable) obstacle if it wishes to prevent children from purchasing the most violent and depraved video games imaginable.

Third, Stevens expressly left open the possibility that a more narrowly drawn statute targeting depictions of animal cruelty might be compatible with the First Amendment. See 559 U.S., at 482, 130 S. Ct. 1577, 176 L. Ed. 2d 435. In this case, the Court’s sweeping opinion will likely be read by many, both inside and outside the video-game industry, as suggesting that no regulation of minors’ access to violent video games is allowed—at least

[564 U.S. 815]

without supporting evidence that may not be realistically obtainable given the nature of the phenomenon in question.

B

The Court’s opinion distorts the effect of the California law. I certainly agree with the Court that the government has no “free-floating power to restrict the ideas to which children may be exposed,” ante, at 794-795, 180 L. Ed. 2d, at 717, but the California law does not exercise such a power. If parents want their child to have a violent video game, the California law does not interfere with that parental prerogative. Instead, the California law reinforces parental de-cisionmaking in exactly the same way as the New York statute upheld in Ginsberg. Under both laws, minors are prevented from purchasing certain materials; and under both laws, parents are free to supply their children with these items if that is their wish.

Citing the video-game industry’s voluntary rating system, the Court argues that the California law does not “meet a substantial need of parents who wish to restrict their children’s access to violent video games but cannot do so.” Ante, at 803, 180 L. Ed. 2d, at 722. The Court does not mention the fact that the industry adopted this system in response to the threat of federal regulation, Brief for Activision Blizzard, Inc., as Amicus Curiae 7-10, a threat that the Court’s opinion may now be seen as largely eliminating. Nor does the Court acknowledge that compliance with this system at the time of the enactment of the California law left much to be desired6—or that future enforcement may decline if the video-game

[564 U.S. 816]

industry perceives that any threat of government regulation has vanished. Nor does the Court note, as Justice Breyer points out, see post, at 849-850, 180 L. Ed. 2d, at 751 (dissenting opinion), that many parents today are simply not able to monitor their children’s use of computers and gaming devices.

C

Finally, the Court is far too quick to dismiss the possibility that the experience of playing video games (and the effects on minors of playing violent video games) may be very different from anything that we have seen before. Any assessment of the experi*731ence of playing video games must take into account certain characteristics of the video games that are now on the market and those that are likely to be available in the near future.

Today’s most advanced video games create realistic alternative worlds in which millions of players immerse themselves for hours on end. These games feature visual imagery and sounds that are strikingly realistic, and in the near future video-game graphics may be virtually indistinguishable from actual video footage.7 Many of the games already on the market can produce high definition images,8 and it is predicted that it will not be long before video-game images will be seen in three dimensions.9 It is also forecast that

[564 U.S. 817]

video games will soon provide sensory feedback.10 By wearing a special vest or other device, a player will be able to experience physical sensations supposedly felt by a character on the screen.11 Some amici who support respondents foresee the day when “ ‘virtual-reality shoot-‘em-ups’ ” will allow children to “ ‘actually feel the splatting blood from the blown-off head’ ” of a victim. Brief for Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press et al. as Amici Curiae 29 (quoting H. Schechter, Savage Pastimes 18 (2005)).

Persons who play video games also have an unprecedented ability to participate in the events that take place in the virtual worlds that these games create. Players can create their own video-game characters and can use photos to produce characters that closely resemble actual people. A person playing a sophisticated game can make a multitude of choices and can thereby alter the course of the action in the game. In addition, the means by which players control the action in video games now bear a closer relationship to the means by which people control action in the real world. While the action in older games was often directed with buttons or a joystick, players dictate the action in newer games by engaging in the same motions that they desire a character

[564 U.S. 818]

in *732the game to perform.12 For example, a player who wants a video-game character to swing a baseball bat—either to hit a ball or smash a skull—could bring that about by simulating the motion of actually swinging a bat.

These present-day and emerging characteristics of video games must be considered together with characteristics of the violent games that have already been marketed.

In some of these games, the violence is astounding.13 Victims by the dozens are killed with every imaginable implement, including ma-chineguns, shotguns, clubs, hammers, axes, swords, and chainsaws. Victims are dismembered, decapitated, disemboweled, set on fire, and chopped into little pieces. They cry out in agony and beg for mercy. Blood gushes, splatters, and pools. Severed body parts and gobs of human remains are graphically shown. In some games, points are awarded based, not only on the number of victims killed, but on the killing technique employed.

It also appears that there is no antisocial theme too base for some in the video-game industry to exploit. There are games in which a player can take on the identity and reenact the killings carried out by the perpetrators of the murders at Columbine High School and Virginia Tech.14 The objective

[564 U.S. 819]

of one game is to rape a mother and her daughters;15 in another, the goal is to rape Native American women.16 There is a game in which players engage in “ethnic cleansing” and can choose to gun down African-Americans, Latinos, or Jews.17 In still another game, players attempt to fire a rifle shot into the head of President Kennedy as his motorcade passes by the Texas School Book Depository.18

If the technological characteristics of the sophisticated games that are likely to be available in the near future are combined with the character*733istics of the most violent games already marketed, the result will be games that allow troubled teens to experience in an extraordinarily personal and vivid way what it would be like to carry out unspeakable acts of violence.

The Court is untroubled by this possibility. According to the Court, the “interactive” nature of video games is “nothing new” because “all literature is interactive.” Ante, at 798, 180 L. Ed. 2d, at 719. Disagreeing with this assessment, the International Game Developers Association (IGDA)—a group that presumably understands the nature of video games and that supports respondents—tells us that video games are “far more concretely interactive.” Brief for IGDA et al. as Amici Curiae 3. And on this point, the game developers are surely correct.

[564 U.S. 820]

It is certainly true, as the Court notes, that “ ‘[l]iterature when it is successful draws the reader into the story, makes him identify with the characters, invites him to judge them and quarrel with them, to experience their joys and sufferings as the reader’s own.’ ” Ante, at 798, 180 L. Ed. 2d, at 719 (quoting American Amusement Machine Assn. v. Kendrick, 244 F.3d 572, 577 (CA7 2001)). But only an extraordinarily imaginative reader who reads a description of a killing in a literary work will experience that event as vividly as he might if he played the role of the killer in a video game. To take an example, think of a person who reads the passage in Crime and Punishment in which Ras-kolnikov kills the old pawnbroker with an ax. See F. Dostoyevsky, Crime and Punishment 78 (Modern Library ed. 1950). Compare that reader with a video-game player who creates an avatar that bears his own image; who sees a realistic image of the victim and the scene of the killing in high definition and in three dimensions; who is forced to decide whether or not to kill the victim and decides to do so; who then pretends to grasp an ax, to raise it above the head of the victim, and then to bring it down; who hears the thud of the ax hitting her head and her cry of pain; who sees her split skull and feels the sensation of blood on his face and hands. For most people, the two experiences will not be the same.19

When all of the characteristics of video games are taken into account, there is certainly a reasonable basis for thinking that the experience of playing a video game may be quite different from the experience of reading a book, listening to a radio broadcast, or viewing a movie. And if this is so,

[564 U.S. 821]

then for at least some minors, the effects of playing violent video games may also be quite different. The Court acts prematurely in dismissing this possibility out of hand.

For all these reasons, I would hold only that the particular law at issue here fails to provide the clear notice that the Constitution requires. I would not squelch legislative efforts to deal with what is perceived by some to be a significant and developing social problem. If differently framed statutes are enacted by the *734States or by the Federal Government, we can consider the constitutionality of those laws when cases challenging them are presented to us.

Justice Thomas,

dissenting.

The Court’s decision today does not comport with the original public understanding of the First Amendment. The majority strikes down, as facially unconstitutional, a state law that prohibits the direct sale or rental of certain video games to minors because the law “abridges] the freedom of speech.” U. S. Const., Amdt. 1. But I do not think the First Amendment stretches that far. The practices and beliefs of the founding generation establish that “the freedom of speech,” as originally understood, does not include a right to speak to minors (or a right of minors to access speech) without going through the minors’ parents or guardians. I would hold that the law at issue is not facially unconstitutional under the First Amendment, and reverse and remand for further proceedings.1

[564 U.S. 822]

I

When interpreting a constitutional provision, “the goal is to discern the most likely public understanding of [that] provision at the time it was adopted.” McDonald v. Chicago, 561 U.S. 742, 828, 130 S. Ct. 3020, 177 L. Ed. 2d 894 (2010) (Thomas, J., concurring in part and concurring in judgment). Because the Constitution is a written instrument, “its meaning does not alter.” McIntyre v. Ohio Elections Comm’n, 514 U.S. 334, 359, 115 S. Ct. 1511, 131 L. Ed. 2d 426 (1995) (Thomas, J., concurring in judgment) (internal quotation marks omitted). “That which it meant when adopted, it means now.” Ibid, (internal quotation marks omitted).

As originally understood, the First Amendment’s protection against laws “abridging the freedom of speech” did not extend to all speech. “There are certain well-defined and narrowly limited classes of speech, the prevention and punishment of which have never been thought to raise any Constitutional problem.” Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire, 315 U.S. 568, 571-572, 62 S. Ct. 766, 86 L. Ed. 1031 (1942); see also United States v. Stevens, 559 U.S. 460, 468-469, 130 S. Ct. 1577, 176 L. Ed. 2d 435 (2010). Laws regulating such speech do not “abridg[e] the freedom of speech” because such speech is understood to fall outside “the freedom of speech.” See Ashcroft v. Free Speech Coalition, 535 U.S. 234, 245-246, 122 S. Ct. 1389, 152 L. Ed. 2d 403 (2002).

In my view, the “practices and beliefs held by the Founders” reveal another category of excluded speech: speech to minor children bypassing their parents. McIntyre, supra, at 360, 115 S. Ct. 1511, 131 L. Ed. 2d 426. The historical evidence shows that the founding generation believed parents had absolute authority over their minor children and expected parents to use that authority to direct the proper development of their children. It would be absurd to suggest that such a society understood “the

[564 U.S. 823]

freedom of speech” to include a right *735to speak to minors (or a corresponding right of minors to access speech) without going through the minors’ parents. Cf. Brief for Common Sense Media as Amicus Curiae 12-15. The founding generation would not have considered it an abridgment of “the freedom of speech” to support parental authority by restricting speech that bypasses minors’ parents.

A

Attitudes toward children were in a state of transition around the time that the States ratified the Bill of Rights. A complete understanding of the founding generation’s views on children and the parent-child relationship must therefore begin roughly a century earlier, in colonial New England.

In the Puritan tradition common in the New England Colonies, fathers ruled families with absolute authority. “The patriarchal family was the basic building block of Puritan society.” S. Mintz, Huck’s Raft 13 (2004) (hereinafter Mintz); see also R. MacDonald, Literature for Children in England and America From 1646 to 1774, p. 7 (1982) (hereinafter MacDonald). The Puritans rejected many customs, such as godparenthood, that they considered inconsistent with the patriarchal structure. Mintz 13.

Part of the father’s absolute power was the right and duty “to fill his children’s minds with knowledge and . . . make them apply their knowledge in right action.” E. Morgan, The Puritan Family 97 (rev. ed. 1966) (hereinafter Morgan). Puritans thought children were “innately sinful and that parents’ primary task was to suppress their children’s natural depravity.” S. Mintz & S. Kellogg, Domestic Revolutions 2 (1988) (hereinafter Mintz & Kellogg); see also B. Wadsworth, The Well-Ordered Family 55 (1712) (“Children should not be left to themselves ... to do as they please; . . . not being fit to govern themselves”); C. Mather, A Family Well-Ordered 38 (1699). Accordingly, parents were not to let their children read “vain Books, profane Ballads, and filthy Songs” or “fond and amorous Romances, . . . fabulous Histories of Giants, the bombast Achievements of Knight Errantry, and the like.” The History of Genesis, pp. vi-vii (3d ed. corrected 1708).

[564 U.S. 824]

This conception of parental authority was reflected in laws at that time. In the Massachusetts Colony, for example, it was unlawful for tavern keepers (or anyone else) to entertain children without their parents’ consent. 2 Records and Files of the Quarterly Courts of Essex County, Massachusetts, p. 180 (1912); 4 id., at 237, 275 (1914); 5 id., at 143 (1916); see also Morgan 146. And a “stubborn or REBELLIOUS SON” of 16 years or more committed a capital offense if he disobeyed “the voice of his Father, or the voice of his Mother.” The Laws and Liberties of Massachusetts 6 (1648) (reprint M. Farrand ed. 1929); see also J. Kamensky, Governing the Tongue 102, n. 14 (1997) (citing similar laws in the Connecticut, New Haven, Plymouth, and New Hampshire Colonies in the late 1600’s).

B

In the decades leading up to and following the Revolution, attitudes toward children changed. See, e.g., J. Reinier, From Virtue to Character: American Childhood, 1775-1850, p. 1 (1996) (hereinafter Reinier). Children came to be seen less as innately sinful and more as blank slates requiring careful and deliberate development. But the same overarching principles *736remained. Parents continued to have both the right and duty to ensure the proper development of their children. They exercised significant authority over their children, including control over the books that children read. And laws at the time continued to reflect strong support for parental authority and the sense that children were not fit to govern themselves.

1

The works of John Locke and Jean-Jacques Rousseau were a driving force behind the changed understanding of children and childhood. See id., at 2-5; H. Brewer, By Birth or Consent 97 (2005) (hereinafter Brewer); K. Calvert, Children in

[564 U.S. 825]

the House 59-60 (1992) (hereinafter Calvert). Locke taught that children’s minds were blank slates and that parents therefore had to be careful and deliberate about what their children were told and observed. Parents had only themselves to blame if, “by humour-ing and cockering” their children, they “poison’d the fountain” and later “taste[d] the bitter waters.” Some Thoughts Concerning Education (1692), in 37 English Philosophers of the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries 27-28 (C. Eliot ed. 1910). All vices, he explained, were sowed by parents and “those about children.” Id., at 29. Significantly, Locke did not suggest circumscribing parental authority but rather articulated a new basis for it. Rousseau disagreed with Locke in important respects, but his philosophy was similarly premised on parental control over a child’s development. Although Rousseau advocated that children should be allowed to develop naturally, he instructed that the environment be directed by “a tutor who is given total control over the child and who removes him from society, from all competing sources of authority and influence.” J. Fliegel-man, Prodigals and Pilgrims 30 (1982) (hereinafter Fliegelman); see also Reinier 15.

These writings received considerable attention in America. Locke’s An Essay Concerning Human Understanding and his Some Thoughts Concerning Education were significantly more popular than his Two Treatises of Government, according to a study of 92 colonial libraries between 1700 and 1776. Lundberg & May, The Enlightened Reader in America, 28 American Quarterly 262, 273 (1976) (hereinafter Lundberg). And Rousseau’s Emile, a treatise on education, was more widely advertised and distributed than his political work, The Social Contract. Fliegelman 29; see also Lundberg 285. In general, the most popular books in the Colonies on the eve of the American Revolution were not political discourses but ones concerned with child rearing. See Mintz & Kellogg 45.

[564 U.S. 826]

2

Locke’s and Rousseau’s writings fostered a new conception of childhood. Children were increasingly viewed as malleable creatures, and childhood came to be seen as an important period of growth, development, and preparation for adulthood. See id., at 17, 21, 47; M. Grossberg, Governing the Hearth 8 (1985) (hereinafter Grossberg). Noah Webster, called the father of American education, wrote that “ [t]he impressions received in early life usually form the characters of individuals.” On the Education of Youth in America (1790) (hereinafter Webster), in Essays on Education in the Early Republic 43 (F. Rudolph ed. 1965) (hereinafter Rudolph); cf. Slater, Noah Webster: Founding Father of Ameri*737can Scholarship and Education, in Noah Webster’s First Edition of an American Dictionary of the English Language (1967). Elizabeth Smith, sister-in-law to John Adams, similarly wrote: “The Infant Mind, I beleive[,] is a blank, that eassily receives any impression.” M. Norton, Liberty’s Daughters 101 (1996) (hereinafter Norton) (internal quotation marks omitted; alteration in original); see also S. Doggett, A Discourse on Education (1796) (hereinafter Doggett), in Rudolph 151 (“[I]n early youth,. . . every power and capacity is pliable and susceptible of any direction or impression”); J. Abbott, The Mother at Home 2 (1834) (hereinafter Abbott) (“What impressions can be more strong, and more lasting, than those received upon the mind in the freshness and the susceptibility of youth”).

Children lacked reason and deci-sionmaking ability. They “have not Judgment or Will of their own,” John Adams noted. Letter to James Sullivan (May 26, 1776), in 4 Papers of John Adams 210 (R. Taylor ed. 1979); see also Vol. 1 1787: Drafting the Constitution, p. 229 (W. Benton ed. 1986) (quoting Gouverneur Morris in James Madison’s notes from the Constitutional Convention explaining that children do not vote because they “want prudence” and “have no will of their own”). Children’s “utter incapacity” rendered them “almost

[564 U.S. 827]

wholly at the mercy of their Parents or Instructors for a set of habits to regulate their whole conduct through life.” J. Burgh, Thoughts on Education 7 (1749) (hereinafter Burgh) (emphasis deleted).

This conception of childhood led to great concern about influences on children. “Youth are ever learning to do what they see others around them doing, and these imitations grow into habits.” Doggett, in Rudolph 151; see also B. Rush, A Plan for the Establishment of Public Schools (1786) (hereinafter Rush), in Rudolph 16 (“The vices of young people are generally learned from each other”); Webster, in Rudolph 58 (“[CJhildren, artless and unsuspecting, resign their hearts to any person whose manners are agreeable and whose conduct is respectable”). Books therefore advised parents “not to put children in the way of those whom you dare not trust.” L. Child, The Mother’s Book 149 (1831) (hereinafter Child); see also S. Coontz, The Social Origins of Private Life 149-150 (1988) (noting that it was “considered dangerous to leave children to the supervision of servants or apprentices”).

As a result, it was widely accepted that children needed close monitoring and carefully planned development. See B. Wishy, The Child and the Republic 24-25, 32 (1968) (hereinafter Wishy); Grossberg 8. Managing the young mind was considered “infinitely important.” Doggett, in Rudolph 151; see also A. MacLeod, A Moral Tale 72-73 (1975) (hereinafter MacLeod). In an essay on the education of youth in America, Noah Webster described the human mind as “a rich field, which, without constant care, will ever be covered with a luxuriant growth of weeds.” Rudolph 54. He advocated sheltering children from “every low-bred, drunken, immoral character” and keeping their minds “untainted till their reasoning faculties have acquired strength and the good principles which may be planted in their minds have taken deep root.” Id., at 63; see also Rush, in id., at 16 (“[T]he most useful citizens have been formed from those youth who have

[564 U.S. 828]

never known or felt their own wills till they were one and twenty years of age”); Burgh 7 (“[T]he souls of Youth *738are more immediately committed to the care of their Parents and Instructors than even those of a People are to their Pastor”).

The Revolution only amplified these concerns. The Republic would require virtuous citizens, which necessitated proper training from childhood. See Mintz 54, 71; MacLeod 40; Saxton, French and American Childhoods, in Children and Youth in a New Nation 69 (J. Marten ed. 2009) (hereinafter Marten); see also W. Cardell, Story of Jack Halyard, pp. xv-xvi (30th ed. 1834) (hereinafter Cardell) (“[T]he glory and efficacy of our institutions will soon rest with those who are growing up to succede us”). Children were “the pivot of the moral world,” and their proper development was “a subject of as high interest, as any to which the human mind ha[d] ever been called.” Id., at xvi.

3

Based on these views of childhood, the founding generation understood parents to have a right and duty to govern their children’s growth. Parents were expected to direct the development and education of their children and ensure that bad habits did not take root. See Calvert 58-59; MacLeod 72; Mintz & Kellogg 23. They were responsible for instilling “moral prohibitions, behavioral standards, and a capacity for self-government that would prepare a child for the outside world.” Mintz & Kellogg 58; see also Youth’s Companion, Apr. 16, 1827, p. 1 (hereinafter Youth’s Companion) (“Let [children’s] minds be formed, their hearts prepared, and their characters moulded for the scenes and the duties of a brighter day”). In short, “[h]ome and family bore the major responsibility for the moral training of children and thus, by implication, for the moral health of the nation.” MacLeod 29; see also Introduction, in Marten 6; Reinier, p. xi; Smith, Autonomy and Affection: Parents and Children

[564 U.S. 829]

in Eighteenth-Century Chesapeake Families, in Growing up in America 54 (N. Hiner & J. Hawes eds. 1985).

This conception of parental rights and duties was exemplified by Thomas Jefferson’s approach to raising children. He wrote letters to his daughters constantly and often gave specific instructions about what the children should do. See, e.g., Letter to Martha Jefferson (Nov. 28, 1783), in S. Randolph, The Domestic Life of Thomas Jefferson 44 (1939) (dictating her daily schedule of music, dancing, drawing, and studying); Letter to Martha Jefferson (Dec. 22, 1783), in id., at 45-46 (“I do not wish you to be gaily clothed at this time of life .... [A]bove all things and at all times let your clothes be neat, whole, and properly put on”). Jefferson expected his daughter, Martha, to write “by every post” and instructed her, “Inform me what books you read [and] what tunes you learn.” Letter (Nov. 28, 1783), in id., at 44. He took the same approach with his nephew, Peter Carr, after Carr’s father died. See Letter (Aug. 19, 1785), in 8 The Papers of Thomas Jefferson 405-408 (J. Boyd ed. 1953) (detailing a course of reading and exercise, and asking for monthly progress reports describing “in what manner you employ every hour in the day”); see also 3 Dictionary ofVirginia Biography 29 (2006).

Jefferson’s rigorous management of his charges was not uncommon. “[M]uch evidence indicates that mothers and fathers both believed in giving their children a strict upbringing, enforcing obedience to their commands *739and stressing continued subjection to the parental will.” Norton 96. Two parenting books published in the 1830’s gave prototypical advice. In The Mother’s Book, Lydia Child advised that “[t]he first and most important step in management is, that whatever a mother says, always must be done.” Child 26. John Abbott, the author of The Mother at Home, likewise advised that “[o]bedience is absolutely essential to proper family government.” Abbott 18. Echoing Locke, Abbott warned that parents who indulged a child’s “foolish and unreasonable

[564 U.S. 830]

wishes” would doom that child to be indulgent in adulthood. Id., at 16.

The concept of total parental control over children’s lives extended into the schools. “The government both of families and schools should be absolute,” declared Noah Webster. Rudolph 57-58. Dr. Benjamin Rush concurred: “In the education of youth, let the authority of our masters be as absolute as possible.” Id., at 16. Through the doctrine of in loco parentis, teachers assumed the “ ‘sacred dut[y] of parents ... to train up and qualify their children’ ” and exercised the same authority “ ‘to command obedience, to control stubbornness, to quicken diligence, and to reform bad habits.’ ” Morse v. Frederick, 551 U.S. 393, 413-414, 127 S. Ct. 2618, 168 L. Ed. 2d 290 (2007) (Thomas, J., concurring) (quoting State v. Pendergrass, 19 N.C. 365, 365-366 (1837)); see also Wishy 73. Thus, the quality of teachers and schools had to “be watched with the most scrupulous attention.” Webster, in Rudolph 64.

For their part, children were expected to be dutiful and obedient. Mintz & Kellogg 53; Wishy 31; cf. J. Kett, Rites of Passage 45 (1977). Schoolbooks instructed children to do so and frequently featured vignettes illustrating the consequences of disobedience. See Adams, “Pictures of the Vicious ultimately overcome by misery and shame”: The Cultural Work of Early National Schoolbooks (hereinafter Adams), in Marten 156. One oft-related example was the hangings of 19 alleged witches in 1692, which, the schoolbooks noted, likely began with false complaints by two young girls. See J. Morse, The American Geography 191 (1789); see also Adams, in Marten 164.

An entire genre of books, “loosely termed ‘advice to youth,’ ” taught similar lessons well into the 1800’s. J. Demos, Circles and Lines: The Shape of Life in Early America 73 (2004); cf. Wishy 54. “Next to your duty to God,” advised one book, “is your duty to your parents,” even if the child did not “understand the reason of their commands.” L. Sigourney, The Girl’s Reading Book 44 (14th ed.

[564 U.S. 831]

1843); see also Filial Duty Recommended and Enforced, Introduction, p. iii (c. 1798); The Parent’s Present 44 (3d ed. 1841). “Disobedience is generally punished in some way or other,” warned another, “and often very severely.” S. Goodrich, Peter Parley’s Book of Fables 43 (1836); see also The Country School-House 27 (1848) (“[T]he number of children who die from the effects of disobedience to their parents is very large”).

4

Society’s concern with children’s development extended to the books they read. “Vice always spreads by being published,” Noah Webster observed. Rudolph 62. “[Y]oung people are taught many vices by fiction, books, or public exhibitions, vices which they never would have known had they *740never read such books or attended such public places.” Ibid.; see also Cardell, p. xii (cautioning parents that “[t]he first reading lessons for children have an extensive influence on the acquisitions and habits of future years”); Youth’s Companion 1 (“[T]he capacities of children, and the peculiar situation and duties of youth, require select and appropriate reading”). Prominent children’s authors harshly criticized fairy tales and the use of anthropomorphic animals. See, e.g., S. Goodrich, 2 Recollections of a Lifetime 320, n.* (1856) (describing fairy tales as “calculated to familiarize the mind with things shocking and monstrous; to cultivate a taste for tales of bloodshed and violence; to teach the young to use coarse language, and cherish vulgar ideas; . . . and to fill [the youthful mind] with the horrors of a debased and debauched fancy”); 1 id., at 167 (recalling that children’s books were “full of nonsense” and “lies”); Cardell, p. xiv (“The fancy of converting inferior animals into ‘teachers of children,’ has been carried to ridiculous extravagance”); see also MacDonald 83, 103 (noting that fables and works of fantasy were not popular in America in the 1700’s).

Adults carefully controlled what they published for children. Stories written for children were dedicated to moral

[564 U.S. 832]

instruction and were relatively austere, lacking details that might titillate children’s minds. See MacLeod 24-25, 42-48; see also id., at 42 (“The authors of juvenile fiction imposed the constraints upon themselves in the name of duty, and for the sake of giving to children what they thought children should have, although they were often well aware that children might prefer more exciting fare”); Francis, American Children’s Literature, 1646-1880, in American Childhood 208-209 (J. Hawes & N. Hiner eds. 1985). John Newbery, the publisher often credited with creating the genre of children’s literature, removed traditional folk characters, like Tom Thumb, from their original stories and placed them in new morality tales in which good children were rewarded and disobedient children punished. Reinier 12.

Parents had total authority over what their children read. See A. MacLeod, American Childhood 177 (1994) (“Ideally, if not always actually, nineteenth-century parents regulated their children’s lives fully, certainly including their reading”). Lydia Child put it bluntly in The Mother’s Book: “Children . . . should not read anything without a mother’s knowledge and sanction; this is particularly necessary between the ages of twelve and sixteen.” Child 92; see also id., at 143 (“[P]arents, or some guardian friends, should carefully examine every volume they put into the hands of young people”); E. Monaghan, Learning To Read and Write in Colonial America 337 (2005) (reviewing a 12-year-old girl’s journal from the early 1770’s and noting that the child’s aunts monitored and guided her reading).

5

The law at the time reflected the founding generation’s understanding of parent-child relations. According to Sir William Blackstone, parents were responsible for maintaining, protecting, and educating their children, and therefore had “power” over their children. 1 Commentaries on the Laws of England 434, 440-441 (1765); cf. Washington v.

[564 U.S. 833]

Glucksberg, 521 U.S. 702, 712, 117 S. Ct. 2258, 117 S. Ct. 2302, 138 L. Ed. 2d 772 (1997) (Blackstone’s Commentaries was “a primary legal *741authority for 18th- and 19th-century American lawyers”). Chancellor James Kent agreed. 2 Commentaries on American Law *189-*207. The law entitled parents to “the custody of their [children],” “the value of th[e] [children’s] labor and services,” and the “right to the exercise of such discipline as may be requisite for the discharge of their sacred trust.” Id., at *193, *203. Children, in turn, were charged with “obedience and assistance during their own minority, and gratitude and reverance during the rest of their lives.” Id., at *207.

Thus, in case after case, courts made clear that parents had a right to the child’s labor and services until the child reached majority. In 1810, the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts explained, “There is no question but that a father, who is entitled to the services of his minor son, and for whom he is obliged to provide, may, at the common law, assign those services to others, for a consideration to enure to himself.” Day v. Everett, 7 Mass. 145, 147; see also Benson v. Remington, 2 Mass. 113, 115 (1806) (opinion of Parsons, C. J.) (“The law is very well settled, that parents are under obligations to support their children, and that they are entitled to their earnings”). Similarly, the Supreme Court of Judicature of New Hampshire noted that the right of parents to recover for the services of their child, while a minor, “cannot be contested.” Gale v. Parrot, 1 N.H. 28, 29 (1817). And parents could bring tort suits against those who knowingly enticed a minor away from them. See, e.g., Kirkpatrick v. Lockhart, 2 Brev. 276 (S. C. Constitutional Ct. 1809); Jones v. Tevis, 4 Litt. 25 (Ky. App. 1823).

Relatedly, boys could not enlist in the military without parental consent. Many of those who did so during the Revolutionary War found, after-wards, that their fathers were entitled to their military wages. See Cox, Boy Soldiers of the American Revolution, in Marten 21-24. And after the

[564 U.S. 834]

war, minors who enlisted without parental consent in violation of federal law could find themselves returned home on writs of habeas corpus issued at their parents’ request. See, e.g., United States v. Anderson, 24 F. Cas. 813 (No. 14,449) (CC Tenn. 1812); Commonwealth v. Callan, 6 Binn. 255 (Pa. 1814) (per curiam).

Laws also set age limits restricting marriage without parental consent. For example, from 1730 until at least 1849, Pennsylvania law required parental consent for the marriage of anyone under the age of 21. See 4 Statutes at Large of Pennsylvania 153 (J. Mitchell & H. Flanders eds. 1897) (hereinafter Pa. Stats. at Large); General Laws of Pennsylvania 82-83 (J. Dunlop 2d ed. 1849) (including the 1730 marriage law with no amendments); see also Perpetual Laws of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts 253 (1788), in The First Laws of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts (J. Cushing ed. 1981). In general, “[p]ost-Revolutionary marriage law assumed that below a certain age, children could . . . no[t] intellectually understand its significance.” Grossberg 105.

Indeed, the law imposed age limits on all manner of activities that required judgment and reason. Children could not vote, could not serve on juries, and generally could not be witnesses in criminal cases unless they were older than 14. See Brewer 43, 145, 148, 159. Nor could they swear loyalty to a State. See, e.g., 9 Pa. Stats, at Large 111 (1903 ed.). Early federal laws granting aliens the abil*742ity to become citizens provided that those under 21 were deemed citizens if their fathers chose to naturalize. See, e.g., Act of Mar. 26, 1790, 1 Stat. 104; Act of Jan. 29, 1795, ch. 20, 1 Stat. 415.

C

The history clearly shows a founding generation that believed parents to have complete authority over their minor children and expected parents to direct the development of those children. The Puritan tradition in New England laid the foundation of American parental authority and duty.

[564 U.S. 835]

See MacDonald 6 (“The Puritans are virtually the inventors of the family as we know it today”). In the decades leading up to and following the Revolution, the conception of the child’s mind evolved but the duty and authority of parents remained. Indeed, society paid closer attention to potential influences on children than before. See Mintz 72 (“By weakening earlier forms of patriarchal authority, the Revolution enhanced the importance of childrearing and education in ensuring social stability”). Teachers and schools came under scrutiny, and children’s reading material was carefully supervised. Laws reflected these concerns and often supported parental authority with the coercive power of the state.

II

A

In light of this history, the Framers could not possibly have understood “the freedom of speech” to include an unqualified right to speak to minors. Specifically, I am sure that the founding generation would not have understood “the freedom of speech” to include a right to speak to children without going through their parents. As a consequence, I do not believe that laws limiting such speech—for example, by requiring parental consent to speak to a minor—“abridg[e] the freedom of speech” within the original meaning of the First Amendment.

We have recently noted that this Court does not have “freewheeling authority to declare new categories of speech outside the scope of the First Amendment.” Stevens, 559 U.S., at 472, 130 S. Ct. 1577, 176 L. Ed. 2d 435. But we also recognized that there may be “some categories of speech that have been historically unprotected [and] have not yet been specifically identified or discussed as such in our case law.” Ibid. In my opinion, the historical evidence here plainly reveals one such category.2

[564 U.S. 836]

B

Admittedly, the original public understanding of a constitutional provi*743sion does not always comport with modern sensibilities. See Morse, 551 U.S., at 419, 127 S. Ct. 2618, 168 L. Ed. 2d 290 (Thomas, J., concurring) (treating students “as though it were still the 19th century would find little support today”). It may also be inconsistent with precedent. See McDonald, 561 U.S., at 851-855, 130 S. Ct. 3020, 177 L. Ed. 2d 894 (Thomas, J., concurring in part and concurring in judgment) (rejecting the Slaughter-House Cases, 16 Wall. 36, 21 L. Ed. 394 (1873), as inconsistent with the original public meaning of the Privileges or Immunities Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment).

This, however, is not such a case. Although much has changed in this country since the Revolution, the notion that parents have authority over their children and that the law can support that authority persists today. For example, at least some States make it a crime to lure or entice a minor away from the minor’s parent. See, e.g., Cal. Penal Code Ann. § 272(b)(1) (West 2008); Fla. Stat. § 787.03 (2010). Every State in the Union still establishes a minimum age for marriage without parental or judicial consent. Cf. Roper v. Simmons, 543 U.S. 551, 558, 125 S. Ct. 1183, 161 L. Ed. 2d 1 (2005) (Appendix D to opinion

[564 U.S. 837]

of the Court). Individuals less than 18 years old cannot enlist in the military without parental consent. 10 U.S.C. § 505(a). And minors remain subject to curfew laws across the country, see Brief for State of Louisiana et al. as Amici Curiae 16, and cannot unilaterally consent to most medical procedures, id., at 15.

Moreover, there are many things minors today cannot do at all, whether they have parental consent or not. State laws set minimum ages for voting and jury duty. See Roper, supra, at 581-585, 125 S. Ct. 1183, 161 L. Ed. 2d 1 (Appendixes B and C to opinion of the Court). In California (the State at issue here), minors cannot drive for hire or drive a school bus, Cal. Veh. Code Ann. §§ 12515, 12516 (West 2010), purchase tobacco, Cal. Penal Code Ann. § 308(b) (West 2008), play bingo for money, § 326.5(e), or execute a will, Cal. Prob. Code Ann. § 6220 (West 2009).

My understanding of “the freedom of speech” is also consistent with this Court’s precedents. To be sure, the Court has held that children are entitled to the protection of the First Amendment, see, e.g., Erznoznik v. Jacksonville, 422 U.S. 205, 212-213, 95 S. Ct. 2268, 45 L. Ed. 2d 125 (1975), and the government may not unilaterally dictate what children can say or hear, see id., at 213-214, 95 S. Ct. 2268, 45 L. Ed. 2d 125; Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School Dist., 393 U.S. 503, 511, 89 S. Ct. 733, 21 L. Ed. 2d 731 (1969). But this Court has never held, until today, that “the freedom of speech” includes a right to speak to minors (or a right of minors to access speech) without going through the minors’ parents. To the contrary, “ [i] t is well settled that a State or municipality can adopt more stringent controls on communicative materials available to youths than on those available to adults.” Erznoznik, supra, at 212, 95 S. Ct. 2268, 45 L. Ed. 2d 125; cf. post, at 841-842, 180 L. Ed. 2d, at 746 (Breyer, J., dissenting).

The Court’s constitutional jurisprudence “historically has reflected Western civilization concepts of the family as a unit with broad parental authority over minor children.” Parham v. J. R., 442 U.S. 584, 602, 99 S. Ct. 2493, 61 L. Ed. 2d 101 (1979). Under that case law,

[564 U.S. 838]

“legislature [s] [can] properly conclude that parents and *744others, teachers for example, who have . . . primary responsibility for children’s well-being are entitled to the support of laws designed to aid discharge of that responsibility.” Ginsberg v. New York, 390 U.S. 629, 639, 88 S. Ct. 1274, 20 L. Ed. 2d 195 (1968); see also Bellotti v. Baird, 443 U.S. 622, 635, 99 S. Ct. 3035, 61 L. Ed. 2d 797 (1979) (opinion of Powell, J.) (“[T]he State is entitled to adjust its legal system to account for children’s vulnerability and their needs for concern, . . . sympathy, and . . . paternal attention” (internal quotation marks omitted)). This is because “the tradition of parental authority is not inconsistent with our tradition of individual liberty; rather, the former is one of the basic presuppositions of the latter.” Id., at 638, 99 S. Ct. 3035, 61 L. Ed. 2d 797; id., at 638-639, 99 S. Ct. 3035, 61 L. Ed. 2d 797 (“Legal restrictions on minors, especially those supportive of the parental role, may be important to the child’s chances for the full growth and maturity that make eventual participation in a free society meaningful and rewarding”).

Ill

The California law at issue here forbids the sale or rental of “violent video game[s]” to minors, defined as anyone “under 18 years of age.” Cal. Civ. Code Ann. §§ 1746.1(a), 1746 (West 2009). A violation of the law is punishable by a civil fine of up to $1,000. § 1746.3. Critically, the law does not prohibit adults from buying or renting violent video games for a minor or prohibit minors from playing such games. Cf. ante, at 814, 180 L. Ed. 2d, at 729 (Alito, J., concurring in judgment); post, at 848, 180 L. Ed. 2d, at 750 (Breyer, J., dissenting). The law also does not restrict a “minor’s parent, grandparent, aunt, uncle, or legal guardian” from selling or renting him a violent video game. § 1746.1(c).

Respondents, associations of companies in the video game industry, brought a preenforcement challenge to California’s law, claiming that on its face the law violates the free speech rights of their members. The Court holds that video games are speech for purposes of the First Amendment and finds

[564 U.S. 839]

the statute facially unconstitutional. See ante, at 789-790, 799-804, 180 L. Ed. 2d, at 714, 720-723. I disagree.

Under any of this Court’s standards for a facial First Amendment challenge, this one must fail. The video game associations cannot show “that no set of circumstances exists under which [the law] would be valid,” “that the statute lacks any plainly legitimate sweep,” or that “a substantial number of its applications are unconstitutional, judged in relation to the statute’s plainly legitimate sweep.” Stevens, 559 U.S., at 472, 473, 130 S. Ct. 1577, 176 L. Ed. 2d 435 (internal quotation marks omitted). Even assuming that video games are speech, in most applications the California law does not implicate the First Amendment. All that the law does is prohibit the direct sale or rental of a violent video game to a minor by someone other than the minor’s parent, grandparent, aunt, uncle, or legal guardian. Where a minor has a parent or guardian, as is usually true, the law does not prevent that minor from obtaining a violent video game with his parent’s or guardian’s help. In the typical case, the only speech affected is speech that bypasses a minor’s parent or guardian. Because such speech does not fall within “the freedom of speech” as originally understood, California’s law does not ordinarily *745implicate the First Amendment and is not facially unconstitutional.3

“The freedom of speech,” as originally understood, does not include a right to speak to minors without going through the minors’ parents or guardians. Therefore, I cannot agree that the statute at issue is facially unconstitutional under the First Amendment.

I respectfully dissent.

[564 U.S. 840]

Justice Breyer,

dissenting.

California imposes a civil fine of up to $1,000 upon any person who distributes a violent video game in California without labeling it “18,” or who sells or rents a labeled violent video game to a person under the age of 18. Representatives of the video game and software industries, claiming that the statute violates the First Amendment on its face, seek an injunction against its enforcement. Applying traditional First Amendment analysis, I would uphold the statute as constitutional on its face and would consequently reject the industries’ facial challenge.

I

A

California’s statute defines a violent video game as: A game in which a player “kill [s], maim[s], dismember [s], or sexually assault[s] an image of a human being,” and

“[a] reasonable person, considering the game as a whole, would find [the game] appeals to a deviant or morbid interest of minors,”

and

“[the game] is patently offensive to prevailing standards in the community as to what is suitable for minors,”

and

“the game, as a whole, . . . lack[s] serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value for minors.” Cal. Civ. Code Ann. § 1746(d)(1) (West 2009).

The statute in effect forbids the sale of such a game to minors unless they are accompanied by a parent; it requires the makers of the game to affix a label identifying it as a game suitable only for those aged 18 and over; it exempts retailers from liability unless such a label is properly affixed to the

[564 U.S. 841]

game; and it imposes a civil fine of up to $1,000 upon a violator. See §§ 1746.1-1746.3.

B

A facial challenge to this statute based on the First Amendment can succeed only if “a substantial number of its applications are unconstitutional, judged in relation to the statute’s plainly legitimate sweep.” United States v. Stevens, 559 U.S. 460, 473, 130 S. Ct. 1577, 176 L. Ed. 2d 435 (2010) (internal quotation marks omitted). Moreover, it is more difficult to mount a facial First Amendment attack on a statute that seeks to regulate activity that involves action as well as speech. See Broadrick v. Oklahoma, 413 U.S. 601, 614-615, 93 S. Ct. 2908, 37 L. Ed. 2d *746830 (1973). Hence, I shall focus here upon an area within which I believe the State can legitimately apply its statute, namely, sales to minors under the age of 17 (the age cutoff used by the industry’s own ratings system), of highly realistic violent video games, which a reasonable game maker would know meet the Act’s criteria. That area lies at the heart of the statute. I shall assume that the number of instances in which the State will enforce the statute within that area is comparatively large, and that the number outside that area (for example, sales to 17-year-olds) is comparatively small. And the activity the statute regulates combines speech with action (a virtual form of target practice).

C

In determining whether the statute is unconstitutional, I would apply both this Court’s “vagueness” precedents and a strict form of First Amendment scrutiny. In doing so, the special First Amendment category I find relevant is not (as the Court claims) the category of “depictions of violence,” ante, at 795, 180 L. Ed. 2d, at 718, but rather the category of “protection of children.” This Court has held that the “power of the state to control the conduct of children reaches beyond the scope of its authority over adults.” Prince v. Massachusetts, 321 U.S. 158, 170, 64 S. Ct. 438, 88 L. Ed. 645 (1944). And the “ ‘regulado [n] of communication

[564 U.S. 842]

addressed to [children] need not conform to the requirements of the [F]irst [A]mendment in the same way as those applicable to adults.’ ” Ginsberg v. New York, 390 U.S. 629, 638, n. 6, 88 S. Ct. 1274, 20 L. Ed. 2d 195 (1968) (quoting Emerson, Toward a General Theory of the First Amendment, 72 Yale L. J. 877, 939 (1963)).

The majority’s claim that the California statute, if upheld, would create a “new categor[y] of unprotected speech,” ante, at 791, 794, 180 L. Ed. 2d, at 715, 717, is overstated. No one here argues that depictions of violence, even extreme violence, automatically fall outside the First Amendment’s protective scope as, for example, do obscenity and depictions of child pornography. We properly speak of categories of expression that lack protection when, like “child pornography,” the category is broad, when it applies automatically, and when the State can prohibit everyone, including adults, from obtaining access to the material within it. But where, as here, careful analysis must precede a narrower judicial conclusion (say, denying protection to a shout of “fire” falsely made in a crowded theater, or to an effort to teach a terrorist group how to peacefully petition the United Nations), we do not normally describe the result as creating a “new category of unprotected speech.” See Schenck v. United States, 249 U.S. 47, 52, 39 S. Ct. 247, 63 L. Ed. 470 (1919); Holder v. Humanitarian Law Project, 561 U.S. 1, 130 S. Ct. 2705, 177 L. Ed. 2d 355 (2010).

Thus, in Stevens, after rejecting the claim that all depictions of animal cruelty (a category) fall outside the First Amendment’s protective scope, we went on to decide whether the particular statute at issue violates the First Amendment under traditional standards; and we held that, because the statute was overly broad, it was invalid. Similarly, here the issue is whether, applying traditional First Amendment standards, this statute does, or does not, pass muster.

II

In my view, California’s statute provides “fair notice of what is prohib*747ited,” and consequently it is not impermissibly vague. United States v. Williams, 553 U.S. 285, 304, 128 S. Ct. 1830, 170 L. Ed. 2d 650 (2008).

[564 U.S. 843]

Ginsberg explains why that is so. The Court there considered a New York law that forbade the sale to minors of a

“picture, photograph, drawing, sculpture, motion picture film, or similar visual representation or image of a person or portion of the human body which depicts nudity

that

“predominately appeals to the prurient, shameful or morbid interest of minors,”

and

“is patently offensive to prevailing standards in the adult community as a whole with respect to what is suitable material for minors,”

and

“is utterly without redeeming social importance for minors.” 390 U.S., at 646-647, 88 S. Ct. 1274, 20 L. Ed. 2d 195.

This Court upheld the New York statute in Ginsberg (which is sometimes unfortunately confused with a very different, earlier case, Ginzburg v. United States, 383 U.S. 463, 86 S. Ct. 942, 16 L. Ed. 2d 31 (1966)). The five-Justice majority, in an opinion written by Justice Brennan, wrote that the statute was sufficiently clear. 390 U.S., at 643-645, 88 S. Ct. 1274, 20 L. Ed. 2d 195. No Member of the Court voiced any vagueness objection. See id., at 648-650, 88 S. Ct. 1274, 20 L. Ed. 2d 195 (Stewart, J., concurring in result); id., at 650-671, 88 S. Ct. 1274, 20 L. Ed. 2d 195 (Douglas, J., joined by Black, J., dissenting); id., at 671-675, 88 S. Ct. 1274, 20 L. Ed. 2d 195 (Fortas, J., dissenting).

Comparing the language of California’s statute (set forth supra, at 840, 180 L. Ed. 2d, at 745) with the language of New York’s statute (set forth immediately above), it is difficult to find any vagueness-related difference. Why are the words “kill,” “maim,” and “dismember” any more difficult to understand than the word “nudity?” Justice Alito objects that these words do “not perform the narrowing function” that this Court has required in adult obscenity cases, where statutes

[564 U.S. 844]

can only cover “ ‘hard core’ ” depictions. Ante, at 810, 180 L. Ed. 2d, at 727 (opinion concurring in judgment). But the relevant comparison is not to adult obscenity cases but to Ginsberg, which dealt with “nudity,” a category no more “narrow” than killing and maiming. And in any event, narrowness and vagueness do not necessarily have anything to do with one another. All that is required for vagueness purposes is that the terms “kill,” “maim,” and “dismember” give fair notice as to what they cover, which they do.

The remainder of California’s definition copies, almost word for word, the language this Court used in Miller v. California, 413 U.S. 15, 93 S. Ct. 2607, 37 L. Ed. 2d 419 (1973), in permitting a total ban on material that satisfied its definition (one enforced with criminal penalties). The California law’s reliance on “community standards” adheres to Miller, and in Fort Wayne Books, Inc. v. Indiana, 489 U.S. 46, 57-58, 109 S. Ct. 916, 103 L. Ed. 2d 34 (1989), this Court specifically upheld the use of Miller’s language against charges of vagueness. California only departed from the Miller formulation in two signifi*748cant respects: It substituted the word “deviant” for the words “prurient” and “shameful,” and it three times added the words “for minors.” The word “deviant” differs from “prurient” and “shameful,” but it would seem no less suited to defining and narrowing the reach of the statute. And the addition of “for minors” to a version of the Miller standard was approved in Ginsberg, supra, at 643, 88 S. Ct. 1274, 20 L. Ed. 2d 195, even though the New York law “dr[ew] no distinction between young children and adolescents who are nearing the age of majority,” ante, at 812, 180 L. Ed. 2d, at 728 (opinion of Alito, J.).

Both the Miller standard and the law upheld in Ginsberg lack perfect clarity. But that fact reflects the difficulty of the Court’s long search for words capable of protecting expression without depriving the State of a legitimate constitutional power to regulate. As is well known, at one point Justice Stewart thought he could do no better in defining obscenity than, “I know it when I see it.” Jacobellis v. Ohio, 378 U.S. 184, 197, 84 S. Ct. 1676, 12 L. Ed. 2d 793 (1964) (concurring opinion). And Justice

[564 U.S. 845]

Douglas dissented from Miller’s standard, which he thought was still too vague. 413 U.S., at 39-40, 93 S. Ct. 2607, 37 L. Ed. 2d 419. Ultimately, however, this Court accepted the “community standards” tests used in Miller and Ginsberg. They reflect the fact that sometimes, even when a precise standard proves elusive, it is easy enough to identify instances that fall within a legitimate regulation. And they seek to draw a line, which, while favoring free expression, will nonetheless permit a legislature to find the words necessary to accomplish a legitimate constitutional objective. Cf. Williams, 553 U.S., at 304, 128 S. Ct. 1830, 170 L. Ed. 2d 650 (the Constitution does not always require “ ‘perfect clarity and precise guidance,’ ” even when “ ‘expressive activity’ ” is involved).

What, then, is the difference between Ginsberg and Miller on the one hand and the California law on the other? It will often be easy to pick out cases at which California’s statute directly aims, involving, say, a character who shoots out a police officer’s knee, douses him with gasoline, lights him on fire, urinates on his burning body, and finally kills him with a gunshot to the head. (Footage of one such game sequence has been submitted in the record.) See also ante, at 818-819, 180 L. Ed. 2d, at 732-733 (opinion of Alito, J.). As in Miller and Ginsberg, the California law clearly protects even the most violent games that possess serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value. § 1746(d)(1)(A)(iii). And it is easier here than in Miller or Ginsberg to separate the sheep from the goats at the statute’s border. That is because here the industry itself has promulgated standards and created a review process, in which adults who “typically have experience with children” assess what games are inappropriate for minors. See Entertainment Software Rating Board, Rating Process, online at http://www.esrb.org/ ratings/, process.jsp (all Internet materials as visited June 24, 2011, and available in Clerk of Court’s case file).

There is, of course, one obvious difference: The Ginsberg statute concerned depictions of “nudity,” while California’s statute concerns extremely violent video games. But for

[564 U.S. 846]

purposes of vagueness, why should that matter? Justice Alito argues that the Miller standard sufficed because there are “certain generally accepted *749norms concerning expression related to sex,” whereas there are no similarly “accepted standards regarding the suitability of violent entertainment.” Ante, at 811-812, 180 L. Ed. 2d, at 728. But there is no evidence that is so. The Court relied on “community standards” in Miller precisely because of the difficulty of articulating “accepted norms” about depictions of sex. I can find no difference—historical or otherwise—that is relevant to the vagueness question. Indeed, the majority’s examples of literary descriptions of violence, on which Justice Ah to relies, do not show anything relevant at all.

After all, one can find in literature as many (if not more) descriptions of physical love as descriptions of violence. Indeed, sex “has been a theme in art and literature throughout the ages.” Ashcroft v. Free Speech Coalition, 535 U.S. 234, 246, 122 S. Ct. 1389, 152 L. Ed. 2d 403 (2002). For every Homer, there is a Titian. For every Dante, there is an Ovid. And for all the teenagers who have read the original versions of Grimm’s Fairy Tales, I suspect there are those who know the story of Lady Godiva.

Thus, I can find no meaningful vagueness-related differences between California’s law and the New York law upheld in Ginsberg. And if there remain any vagueness problems, the state courts can cure them through interpretation. See Erznoznik v. Jacksonville, 422 U.S. 205, 216, 95 S. Ct. 2268, 45 L. Ed. 2d 125 (1975) (“state statute should not be deemed facially invalid unless it is not readily subject to a narrowing construction by the state courts”). Cf. Ginsberg, 390 U.S., at 644, 88 S. Ct. 1274, 20 L. Ed. 2d 195 (relying on the fact that New York Court of Appeals would read a knowledge requirement into the statute); Berry v. Santa Barbara, 40 Cal. App. 4th 1075, 1088-1089, 47 Cal. Rptr. 2d 661, 669 (1995) (reading a knowledge requirement into a statute). Consequently, for purposes of this facial challenge, I would not find the statute unconstitutionally vague.

[564 U.S. 847]

III

Video games combine physical action with expression. Were physical activity to predominate in a game, government could appropriately intervene, say by requiring parents to accompany children when playing a game involving actual target practice, or restricting the sale of toys presenting physical dangers to children. See generally Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act of 2008, 122 Stat. 3016 (“Title I—Children’s Product Safety”). But because video games also embody important expressive and artistic elements, I agree with the Court that the First Amendment significantly limits the State’s power to regulate. And I would determine whether the State has exceeded those limits by applying a strict standard of review.

Like the majority, I believe that the California law must be “narrowly tailored” to further a “compelling interest,” without there being a “less restrictive” alternative that would be “at least as effective.” Reno v. American Civil Liberties Union, 521 U.S. 844, 874, 875, 879, 117 S. Ct. 2329, 138 L. Ed. 2d 874 (1997). I would not apply this strict standard “mechanically.” United States v. Playboy Entertainment Group, Inc., 529 U.S. 803, 841, 120 S. Ct. 1878, 146 L. Ed. 2d 865 (2000) (Breyer, J., joined by Rehnquist, C. J., and O’Connor and Scalia, JJ., dissenting). Rather, in applying it, I would evaluate the degree to *750which the statute injures speech-related interests, the nature of the potentially justifying “compelling interests,” the degree to which the statute furthers that interest, the nature and effectiveness of possible alternatives, and, in light of this evaluation, whether, overall, “the statute works speech-related harm .. . out of proportion to the benefits that the statute seeks to provide.” Ibid. See also Burson v. Freeman, 504 U.S. 191, 210, 112 S. Ct. 1846, 119 L. Ed. 2d 5 (1992) (plurality opinion) (applying strict scrutiny and finding relevant the lack of a “significant impingement” on speech).

First Amendment standards applied in this way are difficult but not impossible to satisfy. Applying “strict scrutiny”

[564 U.S. 848]

the Court has upheld restrictions on speech that, for example, ban the teaching of peaceful dispute resolution to a group on the State Department’s list of terrorist organizations, Holder, 561 U.S., at 27-39, 130 S. Ct. 2705, 177 L. Ed. 2d 355; but cf. id., at 41, 130 S. Ct. 2705, 177 L. Ed. 2d 355 (Breyer, J., dissenting), and limit speech near polling places, Burson, supra, at 210-211, 112 S. Ct. 1846, 119 L. Ed. 2d 5 (plurality opinion). And applying less clearly defined but still rigorous standards, the Court has allowed States to require disclosure of petition signers, Doe v. Reed, 561 U.S. 186, 130 S. Ct. 2811, 177 L. Ed. 2d 493 (2010), and to impose campaign contribution limits that were “ ‘closely drawn’ to match a ‘sufficiently important interest,’ ” Nixon v. Shrink Missouri Government PAC, 528 U.S. 377, 387-388, 120 S. Ct. 897, 145 L. Ed. 2d 886 (2000).

Moreover, although the Court did not specify the “level of scrutiny” it applied in Ginsberg, we have subsequently described that case as finding a “compelling interest” in protecting children from harm sufficient to justify limitations on speech. See Sable Communications of Cal., Inc. v. FCC, 492 U.S. 115, 126, 109 S. Ct. 2829, 106 L. Ed. 2d 93 (1989). Since the Court in Ginsberg specified that the statute’s prohibition applied to material that was not obscene, 390 U.S., at 634, 88 S. Ct. 1274, 20 L. Ed. 2d 195, I cannot dismiss Ginsberg on the ground that it concerned obscenity. But cf. ante, at 793-794, 180 L. Ed. 2d, at 716-717 (majority opinion). Nor need I depend upon the fact that the Court in Ginsberg insisted only that the legislature have a “rational” basis for finding the depictions there at issue harmful to children. 390 U.S., at 639, 88 S. Ct. 1274, 20 L. Ed. 2d 195. For in this case, California has substantiated its claim of harm with considerably stronger evidence.

A

California’s law imposes no more than a modest restriction on expression. The statute prevents no one from playing a video game, it prevents no adult from buying a video game, and it prevents no child or adolescent from obtaining a game provided a parent is willing to help. § 1746.1(c). All it prevents is a child or adolescent from buying, without a parent’s assistance, a gruesomely violent video game of a kind that

[564 U.S. 849]

the industry itself tells us it wants to keep out of the hands of those under the age of 17. See Brief for Respondents 8.

Nor is the statute, if upheld, likely to create a precedent that would adversely affect other media, say, films, or videos, or books. A typical video game involves a significant amount of physical activity. See ante, at 817-818, 180 L. Ed. 2d, at 731-732 (Alito, J., concurring in judgment) *751(citing examples of the increasing interactivity of video game controllers). And pushing buttons that achieve an interactive, virtual form of target practice (using images of human beings as targets), while containing an expressive component, is not just like watching a typical movie. See infra, at 853, 180 L. Ed. 2d, at 752.

B

The interest that California advances in support of the statute is compelling. As this Court has previously described that interest, it consists of both (1) the “basic” parental claim “to authority in their own household to direct the rearing of their children,” which makes it proper to enact “laws designed to aid discharge of [parental] responsibility,” and (2) the State’s “independent interest in the well-being of its youth.” Ginsberg, 390 U.S., at 639-640, 88 S. Ct. 1274, 20 L. Ed. 2d 195. Cf. id., at 639, n. 7, 88 S. Ct. 1274, 20 L. Ed. 2d 195 (“ ‘[O]ne can well distinguish laws which do not impose a morality on children, but which support the right of parents to deal with the morals of their children as they see fit’ ” (quoting Henkin, Morals and the Constitution: The Sin of Obscenity, 63 Colum. L. Rev. 391, 413, n. 68 (1963))). And where these interests work in tandem, it is not fatally “underinclusive” for a State to advance its interests in protecting children against the special harms present in an interactive video game medium through a default rule that still allows parents to provide their children with what their parents wish.

Both interests are present here. As to the need to help parents guide their children, the Court noted in 1968 that

[564 U.S. 850]

“ ‘parental control or guidance cannot always be provided.’ ” 390 U.S., at 640, 88 S. Ct. 1274, 20 L. Ed. 2d 195. Today, 5.3 million grade-school-age children of working parents are routinely home alone. See Dept, of Commerce, Census Bureau, Who’s Minding the Kids? Child Care Arrangements: Spring 2005/Summer 2006, p. 12 (2010), online at http:// www.census.gov/prod/2010pubs/p70-121.pdf. Thus, it has, if anything, become more important to supplement parents’ authority to guide their children’s development.

As to the State’s independent interest, we have pointed out that juveniles are more likely to show a “ ‘lack of maturity’ ” and are “more vulnerable or susceptible to negative influences and outside pressures,” and that their “character ... is not as well formed as that of an adult.” Roper v. Simmons, 543 U.S. 551, 569-570, 125 S. Ct. 1183, 161 L. Ed. 2d 1 (2005). And we have therefore recognized “a compelling interest in protecting the physical and psychological well-being of minors.” Sable Communications, supra, at 126, 109 S. Ct. 2829, 106 L. Ed. 2d 93.

At the same time, there is considerable evidence that California’s statute significantly furthers this compelling interest. That is, in part, because video games are excellent teaching tools. Learning a practical task often means developing habits, becoming accustomed to performing the task, and receiving positive reinforcement when performing that task well. Video games can help develop habits, accustom the player to performance of the task, and reward the player for performing that task well. Why else would the Armed Forces incorporate video games into its training? See CNN, War Games: Military Training Goes High-Tech (Nov. 22, 2001), on*752line at http://articles.cnn.com/2001-ll-2/tech/2war.games_l_ict-bill-swartout-r eal-world-training?_s=PM:TE C H.

When the military uses video games to help soldiers train for missions, it is using this medium for a beneficial purpose. But California argues that when the teaching features of video games are put to less desirable ends, harm can ensue.

[564 U.S. 851]

In particular, extremely violent games can harm children by rewarding them for being violently aggressive in play, and thereby often teaching them to be violently aggressive in life. And video games can cause more harm in this respect than can typically passive media, such as books or films or television programs.

There are many scientific studies that support California’s views. Social scientists, for example, have found causal evidence that playing these games results in harm. Longitudinal studies, which measure changes over time, have found that increased exposure to violent video games causes an increase in aggression over the same period. See Moller & Krahé, Exposure to Violent Video Games and Aggression in German Adolescents: A Longitudinal Analysis, 35 Aggressive Behavior 75 (2009); Gentile & Gentile, Violent Video Games as Exemplary Teachers: A Conceptual Analysis, 37 J. Youth & Adolescence 127 (2008); Anderson et al., Longitudinal Effects of Violent Video Games on Aggression in Japan and the United States, 122 Pediatrics el067 (2008); Wallenius & Punamki, Digital Game Violence and Direct Aggression in Adolescence: A Longitudinal Study of the Roles of Sex, Age, and Parent-Child Communication, 29 J. Applied Developmental Psychology 286 (2008).

Experimental studies in laboratories have found that subjects randomly assigned to play a violent video game subsequently displayed more characteristics of aggression than those who played nonviolent games. See, e.g., Anderson et al., Violent Video Games: Specific Effects of Violent Content on Aggressive Thoughts and Behavior, 36 Advances in Experimental Soc. Psychology 199 (2004).

Surveys of eighth and ninth grade students have found a correlation between playing violent video games and aggression. See, e.g., Gentile, Lynch, Linder, & Walsh, The Effects of Violent Video Game Habits on Adolescent Hostility, Aggressive Behaviors, and School Performance, 27 J. Adolescence 5 (2004).

[564 U.S. 852]

Cutting-edge neuroscience has shown that “virtual violence in video game playing results in those neural patterns that are considered characteristic for aggressive cognition and behavior.” Weber, Ritterfeld, & Mathiak, Does Playing Violent Video Games Induce Aggression? Empirical Evidence of a Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging Study, 8 Media Psychology 39, 51 (2006).

And “meta-analyses,” i.e., studies of all the studies, have concluded that exposure to violent video games “was positively associated with aggressive behavior, aggressive cognition, and aggressive affect,” and that “playing violent video games is a causal risk factor for long-term harmful outcomes.” Anderson et al., Violent Video Game Effects on Aggression, Empathy, and Prosocial Behavior in Eastern and Western Countries: A Meta-Analytic Review, 136 Psychological Bull. 151, 167, 169 (2010) (emphasis added).

Some of these studies take care to explain in a common-sense way why *753video games are potentially more harmful than, say, films or books or television. In essence, they say that the closer a child’s behavior comes, not to watching, but to acting out horrific violence, the greater the potential psychological harm. See Bushman & Huesmann, Aggression, in 2 Handbook of Social Psychology 833, 851 (S. Fiske, D. Gilbert, & G. Lindzey eds., 5th ed. 2010) (video games stimulate more aggression because “[p]eople learn better when they are actively involved,” players are “more likely to identify with violent characters,” and “violent games directly reward violent behavior”); Polman, de Castro, & van Aken, Experimental Study of the Differential Effects of Playing Versus Watching Violent Video Games on Children’s Aggressive Behavior, 34 Aggressive Behavior 256 (2008) (finding greater aggression resulting from playing, as opposed to watching, a violent game); C. Anderson, D. Gentile, & K. Buckley, Violent Video Game Effects on Children and Adolescents 136-137 (2007) (three studies finding greater effects from games as opposed to television). See also infra,

[564 U.S. 853]

at 854-855, 180 L. Ed. 2d, at 753-754 (statements of expert public health associations agreeing that interactive games can be more harmful than “passive” media like television); ante, at 816-821, 180 L. Ed. 2d, at 730-733 (Alito, J., concurring in judgment).

Experts debate the conclusions of all these studies. Like many, perhaps most, studies of human behavior, each study has its critics, and some of those critics have produced studies of their own in which they reach different conclusions. (I list both sets of research in the appendixes.) I, like most judges, lack the social science expertise to say definitively who is right. But associations of public health professionals who do possess that expertise have reviewed many of these studies and found a significant risk that violent video games, when compared with more passive media, are particularly likely to cause children harm.

Eleven years ago, for example, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, the American Psychological Association, the American Medical Association, the American Academy of Family Physicians, and the American Psychiatric Association released a joint statement, which said:

“[0]ver 1000 studies . . . point overwhelmingly to a causal connection between media violence and aggressive behavior in some children . . . [and, though less research had been done at that time, preliminary studies indicated that] the impact of violent interactive entertainment (video games and other interactive media) on young people . . . may be significantly more severe than that wrought by television, movies, or music.” Joint Statement on the Impact of Entertainment Violence on Children (2000) (emphasis added), online at http://www.aap.org/ advocacy/releases/jstmtevc.htm.

Five years later, after more research had been done, the American Psychological Association adopted a resolution that said:

[564 U.S. 854]

“[C]omprehensive analysis of violent interactive video game research suggests such exposure . . . increases aggressive behavior, . . . increases aggressive thoughts, . . . increases angry feelings, . . . decreases helpful behavior, and . . . increases physiological arousal.” *754Resolution on Violence in Video Games and Interactive Media (2005), online at http://www.apa. org/about/governance/council/policy/ interactive-media.pdf.

The association added:

“[T]he practice, repetition, and rewards for acts of violence may be more conducive to increasing aggressive behavior among children and youth than passively watching violence on TV and in films.” Ibid. (emphasis added).

Four years after that, in 2009, the American Academy of Pediatrics issued a statement in significant part about interactive media. It said:

“Studies of these rapidly growing and ever-more-sophisticated types of media have indicated that the effects of child-initiated virtual violence may be even more profound than those of passive media such as television. In many games, the child or teenager is ‘embedded’ in the game and uses a ‘joystick’ (handheld controller) that enhances both the experience and the aggressive feelings.” Policy Statement— Media Violence, 124 Pediatrics 1495, 1498 (2009) (emphasis added).

It added:

“Correlational and experimental studies have revealed that violent video games lead to increases in aggressive behavior and aggressive thinking and decreases in prosocial behavior. Recent longitudinal studies ... have revealed that in as little as 3 months, high exposure to violent video games increased physical aggression.

[564 U.S. 855]

Other recent longitudinal studies . . . have revealed similar effects across 2 years.” Ibid, (footnotes omitted).

Unlike the majority, I would find sufficient grounds in these studies and expert opinions for this Court to defer to an elected legislature’s conclusion that the video games in question are particularly likely to harm children. This Court has always thought it owed an elected legislature some degree of deference in respect to legislative facts of this kind, particularly when they involve technical matters that are beyond our competence, and even in First Amendment cases. See Holder, 561 U.S., at 33-34, 130 S. Ct. 2705, 177 L. Ed. 2d 355 (deferring, while applying strict scrutiny, to the Government’s national security judgments); Turner Broadcasting System, Inc. v. FCC, 520 U.S. 180, 195-196, 117 S. Ct. 1174, 137 L. Ed. 2d 369 (1997) (deferring, while applying intermediate scrutiny, to the Government’s technological judgments). The majority, in reaching its own, opposite conclusion about the validity of the relevant studies, grants the legislature no deference at all. Compare ante, at 800, 180 L. Ed. 2d, at 720-721 (stating that the studies do not provide evidence that violent video games “cause” harm (emphasis deleted)), with supra, at 851, 180 L. Ed. 2d, at 752 (citing longitudinal studies finding causation).

C

I can find no “less restrictive” alternative to California’s law that would be “at least as effective.” See Reno, 521 U.S., at 874, 117 S. Ct. 2329, 138 L. Ed. 2d 874. The majority points to a voluntary alternative: The industry tries to prevent those under 17 from buying extremely violent games by labeling those games with an “M” (Mature) and encouraging retailers to restrict their sales to those 17 and older. See ante, at 803, 180 L. *755Ed. 2d, at 722-723. But this voluntary system has serious enforcement gaps. When California enacted its law, a Federal Trade Commission (FTC) study had found that nearly 70% of unaccompanied 13- to 16-year-olds were able to buy M-rated video games. FTC, Marketing Violent Entertainment to Children 27 (2004), online at http://www.ftc.gov/os/2004/ 07/040708kidsviolencerpt.pdf.

[564 U.S. 856]

Subsequently the voluntary program has become more effective. But as of the FTC’s most recent update to Congress, 20% of those under 17 are still able to buy M-rated video games, and, breaking down sales by store, one finds that this number rises to nearly 50% in the case of one large national chain. FTC, Marketing Violent Entertainment to Children 28 (2009), online at http://www.ftc.gov/os/2009/ 12/P9945 llviolententertainment.pdf. And the industry could easily revert back to the substantial noncompliance that existed in 2004, particularly after today’s broad ruling reduces the industry’s incentive to police itself.

The industry also argues for an alternative technological solution, namely, “[filtering at the console level.” Brief for Respondents 53. But it takes only a quick search of the Internet to find guides explaining how to circumvent any such technological controls. YouTube viewers, for example, have watched one of those guides (called “How to bypass parental controls on the Xbox 360”) more than 47,000 times. See http://www. youtube. com/watch?v=CFlVfVmvN 6k.

IV

The upshot is that California’s statute, as applied to its heartland of applications (i.e., buyers under 17; extremely violent, realistic video games), imposes a restriction on speech that is modest at most. That restriction is justified by a compelling interest (supplementing parents’ efforts to prevent their children from purchasing potentially harmful violent, interactive material). And there is no equally effective, less restrictive alternative. California’s statute is consequently constitutional on its face—though litigants remain free to challenge the statute as applied in particular instances, including any effort by the State to apply it to minors aged 17.

I add that the majority’s different conclusion creates a serious anomaly in First Amendment law. Ginsberg makes

[564 U.S. 857]

clear that a State can prohibit the sale to minors of depictions of nudity; today the Court makes clear that a State cannot prohibit the sale to minors of the most violent interactive video games. But what sense does it make to forbid selling to a 13-year-old boy a magazine with an image of a nude woman, while protecting a sale to that 13-year-old of an interactive video game in which he actively, but virtually, binds and gags the woman, then tortures and kills her? What kind of First Amendment would permit the government to protect children by restricting sales of that extremely violent video game only when the woman—bound, gagged, tortured, and killed—is also topless?

This anomaly is not compelled by the First Amendment. It disappears once one recognizes that extreme violence, where interactive, and without literary, artistic, or similar justification, can prove at least as, if not more, harmful to children as photographs of nudity. And the record here is more than adequate to support such a view. That is why I believe that Ginsberg controls the outcome here a fortiori. *756And it is why I believe California’s law is constitutional on its face.

This case is ultimately less about censorship than it is about education. Our Constitution cannot succeed in securing the liberties it seeks to protect unless we can raise future generations committed cooperatively to making our system of government work. Education, however, is about choices. Sometimes, children need to learn by making choices for themselves. Other times, choices are made for children—by their parents, by their teachers, and by the people acting democratically through their governments. In my view, the First Amendment does not disable government from helping parents make such a choice here—a choice not to have their children buy extremely violent, interactive video games, which they more than reasonably fear pose only the risk of harm to those children.

For these reasons, I respectfully dissent.

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APPENDIXES

With the assistance of the Supreme Court Library, I have compiled these two appendixes listing peer-reviewed academic journal articles on the topic of psychological harm resulting from playing violent video games. The library conducted a search for relevant articles on the following databases: PsycINFO, PubMed, Academic Search Premier, ArticleFirst (OCLC), and Dialog (files 1, 7, 34, 98, 121, 142, 144, 149). The following search terms were used: “(video* or computer or arcade or online) and (game*) and (attack* or fight* or aggress* or vio-len* or hostil* or ang* or arous* or prosocial or help* or desens* or empathy).” After eliminating irrelevant matches based on title or abstract, I categorized these articles as either supporting the hypothesis that violent video games are harmful (listed in Appendix A), or not supporting/ rejecting the hypothesis that violent video games are harmful (listed in Appendix B).

Many, but not all, of these articles were available to the California Legislature or the parties in briefing this case. I list them because they suggest that there is substantial (though controverted) evidence supporting the expert associations of public health professionals that have concluded that violent video games can cause children psychological harm. See supra, at 853-855, 180 L. Ed. 2d, at 753-754. And consequently, these studies help to substantiate the validity of the original judgment of the California Legislature, as well as that judgment’s continuing validity.

A

Anderson & Bushman, Effects of Violent Video Games on Aggressive Behavior, Aggressive Cognition, Aggressive Affect, Physiological Arousal, and Prosocial Behavior: A Meta-Analytic Review of the Scientific Literature, 12 Psychological Science: J. Am. Psychological Society 353 (2001).

Anderson & Dill, Video Games and Aggressive Thoughts, Feelings, and Behavior in the Laboratory and in Life, 78 J. Personality & Soc. Psychology 772 (2000).

[564 U.S. 859]

Anderson et al., Violent Video Games: Specific Effects of Violent Content on Aggressive Thoughts and Behavior, 36 Advances in Experimental Soc. Psychology 199 (2004).

Anderson & Ford, Affect of the Game Player: Short-Term Effects of Highly and Mildly Aggressive Video Games, 12 Personality & Soc. Psychology Bull. 390 (1986).

Anderson & Morrow, Competitive Aggression Without Interaction: Effects of Competitive Versus Cooperative In*757structions on Aggressive Behavior in Video Games, 21 Personality & Soc. Psychology Bull. 1020 (1995).

Anderson et al., Longitudinal Effects of Violent Video Games on Aggression in Japan and the United States, 122 Pediatrics e1067 (2008).

Anderson et al., Violent Video Game Effects on Aggression, Empathy, and Prosocial Behavior in Eastern and Western Countries: A Meta-Analytic Review, 136 Psychological Bull. 151 (2010).

Anderson, An Update on the Effects of Playing Violent Video Games, 27 J. Adolescence 113 (2004).

Anderson et al., The Influence of Media Violence on Youth, 4 Psychological Science in the Public Interest 81 (2003).

Anderson & Carnagey, Causal Effects of Violent Sports Video Games on Aggression: Is It Competitiveness or Violent Content? 45 J. Experimental Soc. Psychology 731 (2009).

Anderson & Murphy, Violent Video Games and Aggressive Behavior in Young Women, 29 Aggressive Behavior 423 (2003).

Arriaga, Esteves, Carneiro, & Monteiro, Violent Computer Games and Their Effects on State Hostility and Physiological Arousal, 32 Aggressive Behavior 146 (2006).

Arriaga, Esteves, Carneiro, & Mon-teiro, Are the Effects of Unreal Violent Video Games Pronounced When Playing With a Virtual Reality System? 34 Aggressive Behavior 521 (2008).

[564 U.S. 860]

Baldaro et al., Aggressive and NonViolent Videogames: Short-Term Psychological and Cardiovascular Effects on Habitual Players, 20 Stress & Health: J. Int’l Society for Investigation of Stress 203 (2004).

Ballard, Hamby, Panee, & Nivens, Repeated Exposure to Video Game Play Results in Decreased Blood Pressure Responding, 8 Media Psychology 323 (2006).

Ballard & Lineberger, Video Game Violence and Confederate Gender: Effects on Reward and Punishment Given by College Males, 41 Sex Roles 541 (1999).

Ballard & Wiest, Mortal Kombat (tm): The Effects of Violent Videogame Play on Males’ Hostility and Cardiovascular Responding, 26 J. Applied Soc. Psychology 717 (1996).

Barlett, Branch, Rodeheffer, & Harris, How Long Do the Short-Term Violent Video Game Effects Last? 35 Aggressive Behavior 225 (2009).

Barlett, Rodeheffer, Baldassaro, Hinkin, & Harris, The Effect of Advances in Video Game Technology and Content on Aggressive Cognitions, Hostility, and Heart Rate, 11 Media Psychology 540 (2008).

Barlett, Harris, & Baldassaro, Longer You Play, the More Hostile You Feel: Examination of First Person Shooter Video Games and Aggression During Video Game Play, 33 Aggressive Behavior 486 (2007).

Barlett, Harris, & Bruey, The Effect of the Amount of Blood in a Violent Video Game on Aggression, Hostility, and Arousal, 44 J. Experimental Soc. Psychology 539 (2008).

Barlett & Rodeheffer, Effects of Realism on Extended Violent and Nonviolent Video Game Play on Aggressive Thoughts, Feelings, and Physiological Arousal, 35 Aggressive Behavior 213 (2009).

*758Barlett, Anderson, & Swing, Video Game Effects—Confirmed, Suspected, and Speculative: A Review of the Evidence, 40 Simulation & Gaming 377 (2009).

Bartholow, Sestir, & Davis, Correlates and Consequences of Exposure to Video Game Violence: Hostile Personality,

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