98
Thomas, J., dissenting
and so long as the proscription has a rational basis, all sorts of perfectly harmless activity by millions of perfectly innocent people can be forbidden—riding a motorcycle without a safety helmet, for example, starting a campfire in a national forest, or selling a safe and effective drug not yet approved by the Food and Drug Administration. All of these acts are entirely innocent and harmless in themselves, but because of the risk of harm that they entail, the freedom to engage in them has been abridged. The citizens of Chicago have decided that depriving themselves of the freedom to "hang out" with a gang member is necessary to eliminate pervasive gang crime and intimidation—and that the elimination of the one is worth the deprivation of the other. This Court has no business second-guessing either the degree of necessity or the fairness of the trade.
I dissent from the judgment of the Court.
Justice Thomas, with whom The Chief Justice and Justice Scalia join, dissenting.
The duly elected members of the Chicago City Council enacted the ordinance at issue as part of a larger effort to prevent gangs from establishing dominion over the public streets. By invalidating Chicago's ordinance, I fear that the Court has unnecessarily sentenced law-abiding citizens to lives of terror and misery. The ordinance is not vague. "[A]ny fool would know that a particular category of conduct would be within [its] reach." Kolender v. Lawson, 461 U. S. 352, 370 (1983) (White, J., dissenting). Nor does it violate the Due Process Clause. The asserted "freedom to loiter for innocent purposes," ante, at 53 (plurality opinion), is in no way " 'deeply rooted in this Nation's history and tradition,' " Washington v. Glucksberg, 521 U. S. 702, 721 (1997) (citation omitted). I dissent.
I
The human costs exacted by criminal street gangs are inestimable. In many of our Nation's cities, gangs have "[v]ir-
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