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18 

DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA v. HELLER 

Opinion of the Court 

“keep  and  bear  Arms”  is  established  by  the  Second 
Amendment’s  calling  it  a  “right”  (singular)  rather  than 
“rights” (plural).  See post, at 16.  There is nothing to this. 
State  constitutions  of  the  founding  period  routinely 
grouped  multiple  (related)  guarantees  under  a  singular 
“right,”  and  the  First  Amendment  protects  the  “right
[singular]  of  the  people  peaceably  to  assemble,  and  to
petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”  See, 
e.g., Pa. Declaration of Rights §§IX, XII, XVI, in 5 Thorpe 
3083–3084; Ohio Const., Arts. VIII, §§11, 19 (1802), in id., 
at 2910–2911.14  And even if “keep and bear Arms” were a 
unitary phrase, we find no evidence that it bore a military 
meaning.  Although  the  phrase  was  not  at  all  common
(which would be unusual for a term of art), we have found 
instances of its use with a clearly nonmilitary connotation. 
In a 1780 debate in the House of Lords, for example, Lord 
Richmond  described  an  order  to  disarm  private  citizens
(not militia members) as “a violation of the constitutional
right  of  Protestant  subjects  to  keep  and  bear  arms  for 
their  own  defense.”    49  The  London  Magazine  or  Gentle­
man’s  Monthly  Intelligencer  467  (1780).    In  response, 
another  member  of  Parliament  referred  to  “the  right  of
bearing  arms  for  personal  defence,”  making  clear  that  no
special  military  meaning  for  “keep  and  bear  arms”  was
intended in the discussion.  Id., at 467–468.15 

—————— 

14 Faced  with  this  clear  historical  usage,  JUSTICE  STEVENS  resorts  to 
the bizarre argument that because the word “to” is not included before
“bear”  (whereas  it  is  included  before  “petition”  in  the  First  Amend­
ment), the unitary meaning of “to keep and bear” is established.  Post, 
at  16,  n. 13.    We  have  never  heard  of  the  proposition  that  omitting
repetition  of  the  “to”  causes  two  verbs  with  different  meanings  to 
become  one.  A  promise  “to  support  and  to  defend  the  Constitution  of
the  United  States”  is  not  a  whit  different  from  a  promise  “to  support
and defend the Constitution of the United States.” 

15  Cf.  3  Geo.,  34,  §3,  in  7  Eng.  Stat.  at  Large  126  (1748)  (“That  the 
Prohibition  contained  . . .  in  this  Act,  of  having,  keeping,  bearing,  or
wearing any Arms or Warlike Weapons . . . shall not extend . . . to any