Heller Argument Includes Chief Justice's Comment on Evolution of First Amendment Doctrine

During last week's argument in the D.C. gun control case, District of Columbia v. Heller, Chief Justice Roberts offered this disparaging assessment of the evolution of First Amendment doctrine, proffered as a possible model if the Court accepts that an individual Second Amendment right exists and goes on to try and formulate the standard of review to be applied to regulation of such a right:

CHIEF JUSTICE ROBERTS: Well, these various phrases under the different standards that are proposed, "compelling interest," "significant interest," "narrowly tailored," none of them appear in the Constitution; and I wonder why in this case we have to articulate an all-encompassing standard. Isn't it enough to determine the scope of the existing right that the amendment refers to, look at the various regulations that were available at the time, including you can't take the gun to the marketplace and all that, and determine how these -- how this restriction and the scope of this right looks in relation to those?
I'm not sure why we have to articulate some very intricate standard. I mean, these standards that apply in the First Amendment just kind of developed over the years as sort of baggage that the First Amendment picked up. But I don't know why when we are starting afresh, we would try to articulate a whole standard that would apply in every case?

The comment appears on page 44 of the official argument transcript. 

JFB