Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/07pdf/07-290.pdf
Page Number: 12

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

9 

Opinion of the Court 

The  phrase  “keep  arms”  was  not  prevalent  in  the  writ­
ten documents of the founding period that we have found, 
but  there  are  a  few  examples,  all  of  which  favor  viewing 
the  right  to  “keep  Arms”  as  an  individual  right  uncon­
nected  with  militia  service.    William  Blackstone,  for  ex­
ample,  wrote  that  Catholics  convicted  of  not  attending
service  in  the  Church  of  England  suffered  certain  penal­
ties,  one  of  which  was  that  they  were  not  permitted  to
“keep arms in their houses.”  4 Commentaries on the Laws 
of  England  55  (1769)  (hereinafter  Blackstone);  see  also  1 
W.  &  M.,  c.  15,  §4,  in  3  Eng.  Stat.  at  Large  422  (1689) 
(“[N]o  Papist  . . .  shall  or  may  have  or  keep  in  his  House 
. . .  any  Arms . . . ”);  1  Hawkins,  Treatise  on  the  Pleas  of 
the Crown 26 (1771) (similar).  Petitioners point to militia
laws of the founding period that required militia members
to “keep” arms in connection with militia service, and they 
conclude  from  this  that  the  phrase  “keep  Arms”  has  a
militia-related  connotation.    See  Brief  for  Petitioners  16– 
17  (citing  laws  of  Delaware,  New  Jersey,  and  Virginia). 
This is rather like saying that, since there are many stat­
utes  that  authorize  aggrieved  employees  to  “file  com­
plaints” with federal agencies, the phrase “file complaints”
has an employment-related connotation.  “Keep arms” was 
simply a common way of referring to possessing arms, for
militiamen and everyone else.7 

—————— 

7 See, e.g., 3 A Compleat Collection of State-Tryals 185 (1719) (“Hath
not every Subject power to keep Arms, as well as Servants in his House
for defence of his Person?”); T. Wood, A New Institute of the Imperial or
Civil  Law  282  (1730)  (“Those  are  guilty  of  publick  Force,  who  keep
Arms  in  their  Houses,  and  make  use  of  them  otherwise  than  upon
Journeys  or  Hunting,  or  for  Sale . . .”);  A  Collection  of  All  the  Acts  of
Assembly,  Now  in  Force,  in  the  Colony  of  Virginia  596  (1733)  (“Free
Negros, Mulattos, or Indians, and Owners of Slaves, seated at Frontier
Plantations,  may  obtain  Licence  from  a  Justice  of  Peace,  for  keeping 
Arms, &c.”);  J. Ayliffe, A New Pandect of Roman Civil Law 195 (1734)
(“Yet a Person might keep Arms in his House, or on his Estate, on the
Account of Hunting, Navigation, Travelling, and on the Score of Selling