Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/07pdf/07-290.pdf
Page Number: 50

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

47 

Opinion of the Court 

“The  right  to  bear  arms  has  always  been  the  dis­
tinctive  privilege  of  freemen.  Aside  from  any  neces­
sity  of  self-protection  to  the  person,  it  represents
among all nations power coupled with the exercise of a
certain jurisdiction. . . . [I]t was not necessary that the
right to bear arms should be granted in the Constitu­
tion, for it had always existed.”  J. Ordronaux, Consti­
tutional  Legislation  in  the  United  States  241–242
(1891). 

E 
We  now  ask  whether  any  of  our  precedents  forecloses
the conclusions we have reached about the meaning of the
Second Amendment. 

United States v. Cruikshank, 92 U. S. 542, in the course 
of vacating the convictions of members of a white mob for 
depriving blacks of their right to keep and bear arms, held
that  the  Second  Amendment  does  not  by  its  own  force 
apply to anyone other than the Federal Government.  The 
opinion explained that the right “is not a right granted by
the Constitution [or] in any manner dependent upon that
instrument  for  its  existence.    The  second  amendment  . . . 
means no more than that it shall not be infringed by Con­
gress.”  92  U. S.,  at  553.    States,  we  said,  were  free  to 
restrict or protect the right under their police powers.  The 
limited  discussion  of  the  Second  Amendment  in  Cruik-
shank  supports,  if  anything,  the  individual-rights  inter­
pretation.  There  was  no  claim  in  Cruikshank  that  the 
victims had been deprived of their right to carry arms in a
militia;  indeed,  the  Governor  had  disbanded  the  local 
militia unit the year before the mob’s attack, see C. Lane, 
The Day Freedom Died 62 (2008).  We described the right 
protected by the Second Amendment as “ ‘bearing arms for
a lawful purpose’ ”22 and said that “the people [must] look 

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22 JUSTICE STEVENS’ accusation that this is “not accurate,” post, at 39,