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Page Number: 79.0

8 

UNITED STATES v. RAHIMI 

THOMAS, J., dissenting 

1700–1702, p. 234 (E. Bateson ed. 1937) (Calendar William 
III).

At first glance, these laws targeting “dangerous” persons
might appear relevant.  After all, if the Second Amendment 
right was historically understood to allow an official to dis-
arm  anyone  he  deemed  “dangerous,”  it  may  follow  that 
modern Congresses can do the same.  Yet, historical context 
compels the opposite conclusion.  The Second Amendment 
stems from English resistance against “dangerous” person 
laws. 

The sweeping disarmament authority wielded by English 
officials during the 1600s, including the Militia Act of 1662,
prompted  the  English  to  enshrine  an  individual  right  to 
keep  and  bear  arms.  “[T]he  Stuart  Kings  Charles  II  and 
James II succeeded in using select militias loyal to them to
suppress political dissidents, in part by disarming their op-
ponents.”  Heller, 554 U. S., at 592.  Englishmen, as a re-
sult,  grew  “to  be  extremely  wary  of  concentrated  military 
forces run by the state and to be jealous of their arms.”  Id., 
at 593.  Following the Glorious Revolution, they “obtained 
an  assurance  . . .  in  the  Declaration  of  Right  (which  was 
codified  as  the  English  Bill  of  Rights),  that  Protestants 
would never be disarmed.”  Ibid. 

The English Bill of Rights “has long been understood to
be  the  predecessor  to  our  Second  Amendment.”  Ibid.  In 
fact,  our  Founders  expanded  on  it  and  made  the  Second 
Amendment even more protective of individual liberty.  The 
English Bill of Rights assured Protestants “Arms for their 
Defence,” but only where “suitable to their Conditions and 
as allowed by Law.”  1 Wm. & Mary, ch. 2, (1688), in 6 Stat-
utes of the Realm 143.  The Second Amendment, however, 
contains  no  such  qualifiers  and  protects  the  right  of  “the 
people” generally.  In short, laws targeting “dangerous” per-
sons  led  to  the  Second  Amendment.    It  would  be  passing
strange to permit the Government to resurrect those self-