Printz v. United States, 521 U.S. 898, 80 (1997)

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Cite as: 521 U. S. 898 (1997)

Breyer, J., dissenting

to safeguard individual liberty as well. See Council of European Communities, European Council in Edinburgh, 11-12 Dec. 1992, Conclusions of the Presidency 20-21 (1993); D. Lasok & K. Bridge, Law and Institutions of the European Union 114 (1994); Currie, supra, at 68, 81-84, 100-101; Frowein, Integration and the Federal Experience in Germany and Switzerland, in 1 Integration Through Law 573, 586-587 (M. Cappelletti, M. Seccombe, & J. Weiler eds. 1986); Lenaerts, supra, at 232, 263.

Of course, we are interpreting our own Constitution, not those of other nations, and there may be relevant political and structural differences between their systems and our own. Cf. The Federalist No. 20, pp. 134-138 (C. Rossiter ed. 1961) (J. Madison and A. Hamilton) (rejecting certain aspects of European federalism). But their experience may nonetheless cast an empirical light on the consequences of different solutions to a common legal problem—in this case the problem of reconciling central authority with the need to preserve the liberty-enhancing autonomy of a smaller constituent governmental entity. Cf. id., No. 42, at 268 (J. Madison) (looking to experiences of European countries); id., No. 43, at 275, 276 (J. Madison) (same). And that experience here offers empirical confirmation of the implied answer to a question Justice Stevens asks: Why, or how, would what the majority sees as a constitutional alternative—the creation of a new federal gun-law bureaucracy, or the expansion of an existing federal bureaucracy—better promote either state sovereignty or individual liberty? See ante, at 945, 959 (Stevens, J., dissenting).

As comparative experience suggests, there is no need to interpret the Constitution as containing an absolute principle—forbidding the assignment of virtually any federal duty to any state official. Nor is there a need to read the Brady Act as permitting the Federal Government to overwhelm a state civil service. The statute uses the words "reasonable effort," 18 U. S. C. § 922(s)(2)—words that easily can encom-

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