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DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA v. HELLER 

Opinion of the Court 

carrying  of  arms  only  for  military  purposes,  one  simply 
cannot add “for the purpose of killing game.”  The right “to
carry arms  in the militia for the purpose of killing game” 
is worthy of the mad hatter.  Thus, these purposive quali­
fying  phrases  positively  establish  that  “to  bear  arms”  is 
not limited to military use.11

 JUSTICE  STEVENS  places  great  weight  on  James  Madi­
son’s  inclusion  of  a  conscientious-objector  clause  in  his
original  draft  of  the  Second  Amendment:  “but  no  person 
religiously scrupulous of bearing arms, shall be compelled 
to render military service in person.”  Creating the Bill of
Rights  12  (H.  Veit,  K.  Bowling,  &  C.  Bickford  eds.  1991) 
(hereinafter Veit).  He argues that this clause establishes
that the drafters of the Second Amendment intended “bear 
Arms” to refer only to military service.  See post, at 26.  It 
is  always  perilous  to  derive  the  meaning  of  an  adopted 
provision  from  another  provision  deleted  in  the  drafting 
process.12    In  any  case,  what  JUSTICE  STEVENS  would 
conclude from the deleted provision does not follow.  It was 
not  meant  to  exempt  from  military  service  those  who 

—————— 

11 JUSTICE  STEVENS  contends,  post,  at  15,  that  since  we  assert  that 
adding  “against”  to  “bear  arms”  gives  it  a  military  meaning  we  must
concede  that  adding  a  purposive  qualifying  phrase  to  “bear  arms”  can 
alter  its  meaning.   But  the  difference  is  that  we  do  not  maintain  that 
“against” alters the meaning of “bear arms” but merely that it clarifies 
which  of  various  meanings  (one  of  which  is  military)  is  intended. 
JUSTICE  STEVENS,  however,  argues  that  “[t]he  term  ‘bear  arms’  is  a 
familiar  idiom;  when  used  unadorned  by  any  additional  words,  its
meaning  is  ‘to  serve  as  a  soldier,  do  military  service,  fight.’ ”  Post,  at 
11.  He therefore must establish that adding a contradictory purposive 
phrase can alter a word’s meaning. 

12 JUSTICE  STEVENS  finds  support  for  his  legislative  history  inference 
from  the  recorded  views  of  one  Antifederalist  member  of  the  House. 
Post,  at  26  n.  25.  “The  claim  that  the  best  or  most  representative
reading  of  the  [language  of  the]  amendments  would  conform  to  the 
understanding  and  concerns  of  [the  Antifederalists]  is  . . .  highly 
problematic.”    Rakove,  The  Second  Amendment:  The  Highest  Stage  of 
Originalism, Bogus 74, 81.