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Page Number: 105.0

38 

DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA v. HELLER 

STEVENS, J., dissenting 

firelock”  and  other  specified  weaponry.35  Ibid.    The  stat­
ute  is  significant,  for  it  confirmed  the  way  those  in  the 
founding  generation  viewed  firearm  ownership:  as  a  duty 
linked  to  military  service.  The  statute  they  enacted,
however, “was virtually ignored for more than a century,” 
and was finally repealed in 1901.  See Perpich, 496 U. S., 
at 341. 

The postratification history of the Second Amendment is 
strikingly  similar.    The  Amendment  played  little  role  in
any legislative debate about the civilian use of firearms for 
most of the 19th century, and it made few appearances in
the decisions of this Court.  Two 19th-century cases, how­
ever, bear mentioning.

In United States v. Cruikshank, 92 U. S. 542 (1876), the 
Court  sustained  a  challenge  to  respondents’  convictions 
under  the  Enforcement  Act  of  1870  for  conspiring  to  de­
prive any individual of “ ‘any right or privilege granted or
secured  to  him  by  the  constitution  or  laws  of  the  United
States.’ ”   Id., at 548.  The Court wrote, as to counts 2 and 
10 of respondents’ indictment: 

“The right there specified is that of ‘bearing arms for a 
lawful  purpose.’  This  is  not  a  right  granted  by  the
Constitution.  Neither is it in any manner dependent 
on  that  instrument  for  its  existence.  The  second 
amendment declares that it shall not be infringed; but 
this,  as  has  been  seen,  means  no  more  than  that  it 
shall not be infringed by Congress.  This is one of the 
amendments  that  has  no  other  effect  than  to  restrict 
the powers of the national government.”  Id., at 553. 

—————— 

35 The  additional  specified  weaponry  included:  “a  sufficient  bayonet 
and belt, two spare flints, and a knapsack, a pouch with a box therein
to contain not less than twenty-four cartridges, suited to the bore of his 
musket  or  firelock,  each  cartridge  to  contain  a  proper  quantity  of 
powder and ball: or with a good rifle, knapsack, shot-pouch and powder-
horn,  twenty  balls  suited  to  the  bore  of  his  rifle  and  a  quarter  of  a
pound of powder.”  1 Stat. 271.