Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/07pdf/07-290.pdf
Page Number: 54

Cite as:  554 U. S. ____ (2008) 

51 

Opinion of the Court 

fault.  The  defendants  made  no  appearance  in  the  case,
neither  filing  a  brief  nor  appearing  at  oral  argument;  the 
Court  heard  from  no  one  but  the  Government  (reason 
enough, one would think, not to make that case the begin­
ning  and  the  end  of  this  Court’s  consideration  of  the  Sec­
ond Amendment).  See Frye, The Peculiar Story of United 
States  v.  Miller,  3  N. Y.  U.  J. L.  &  Liberty  48,  65–68 
(2008).  The  Government’s  brief  spent  two  pages  discuss­
ing  English  legal  sources,  concluding  “that  at  least  the 
carrying of weapons without lawful occasion or excuse was 
always  a  crime”  and  that  (because  of  the  class-based  re­
strictions  and  the  prohibition  on  terrorizing  people  with
dangerous or unusual weapons) “the early English law did 
not  guarantee  an  unrestricted  right  to  bear  arms.”    Brief 
for  United  States,  O.  T.  1938,  No.  696,  at  9–11.    It  then 
went on to rely primarily on the discussion of the English 
right  to  bear  arms  in  Aymette  v.  State,  21  Tenn.  154,  for 
the proposition that the only uses of arms protected by the
Second  Amendment  are  those  that  relate  to  the  militia, 
not  self-defense.  See  Brief  for  United  States,  O.  T.  1938, 
No. 696, at 12–18.  The final section of the brief recognized
that  “some  courts  have  said  that  the  right  to  bear  arms
includes  the  right  of  the  individual  to  have  them  for  the
protection  of  his  person  and  property,”  and  launched  an
alternative  argument  that  “weapons  which  are  commonly 
used  by  criminals,”  such  as  sawed-off  shotguns,  are  not 
protected.  See  id.,  at  18–21.  The  Government’s  Miller 
brief  thus  provided  scant  discussion  of  the  history  of  the
Second  Amendment—and  the  Court  was  presented  with
no  counterdiscussion.  As  for  the  text  of  the Court’s  opin­
ion itself, that discusses none of the history of the Second 
It  assumes  from  the  prologue  that  the
Amendment. 
Amendment  was  designed  to  preserve  the  militia,  307 
U. S., at 178 (which we do not dispute), and then reviews 
some  historical  materials  dealing  with  the  nature  of  the 
militia, and in particular with the nature of the arms their