Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/07pdf/07-290.pdf
Page Number: 27

24 

DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA v. HELLER 

Opinion of the Court 

trained to arms”). 

b. “Security of a Free State.”  The phrase “security of 
a free state” meant “security of a free polity,” not security
of each of the several States as the dissent below argued,
see 478 F. 3d, at 405, and n. 10.  Joseph Story wrote in his
treatise  on  the  Constitution  that  “the  word  ‘state’  is  used 
in  various  senses  [and  in]  its  most  enlarged  sense,  it 
means  the  people  composing  a  particular  nation  or  com­
munity.”  1 Story §208; see also 3 id., §1890 (in reference
to the Second Amendment’s prefatory clause: “The militia 
is  the  natural  defence  of  a  free  country”).  It  is  true  that 
the  term  “State”  elsewhere  in  the  Constitution  refers  to 
individual States, but the phrase “security of a free state” 
and  close  variations  seem  to  have  been  terms  of  art  in 
18th-century  political  discourse,  meaning  a  “ ‘free  coun­
try’ ” or free polity.  See Volokh, “Necessary to the Security
of  a  Free  State,”  83  Notre  Dame  L. Rev.  1,  5  (2007);  see, 
e.g.,  4  Blackstone  151  (1769);  Brutus  Essay  III  (Nov.  15, 
1787),  in  The  Essential  Antifederalist  251,  253  (W.  Allen 
&  G.  Lloyd  eds.,  2d  ed.  2002).  Moreover,  the  other  in­
stances of “state” in the Constitution are typically accom­
panied  by  modifiers  making  clear  that  the  reference  is  to
the  several  States—“each  state,”  “several  states,”  “any 
state,”  “that  state,”  “particular  states,”  “one  state,”  “no 
state.”  And  the  presence  of  the  term  “foreign  state”  in
Article  I  and  Article  III  shows  that  the  word  “state”  did 
not have a single meaning in the Constitution.

There are many reasons why the militia was thought to
be “necessary to the security of a free state.”  See 3 Story
§1890.  First,  of  course,  it  is  useful  in  repelling  invasions 
and  suppressing  insurrections.    Second,  it  renders  large
standing  armies  unnecessary—an  argument  that  Alexan­
der  Hamilton  made  in  favor  of  federal  control  over  the 
militia.  The Federalist No. 29, pp. 226, 227 (B. Wright ed. 
1961) (A. Hamilton).  Third, when the able-bodied men of 
a  nation  are  trained  in  arms  and  organized,  they  are