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Page Number: 99

32 

DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA v. HELLER 

STEVENS, J., dissenting 

they  tended  to  collapse  the  Second  Amendment  with 
Article  VII  of  the  English  Bill  of  Rights,  and  they  appear 
to  have  been  unfamiliar  with  the  drafting  history  of  the
Second Amendment.33 

The most significant of these commentators was Joseph
Story.  Contrary to the Court’s assertions, however, Story
actually  supports  the  view  that  the  Amendment  was
designed to protect the right of each of the States to main­
tain  a  well-regulated  militia.    When  Story  used  the  term 
“palladium”  in  discussions  of  the  Second  Amendment,  he 
merely echoed the concerns that animated the Framers of 
the Amendment and led to its adoption.  An excerpt from 

—————— 

answer  seems  to  be,  that  whenever  the  States  think  proper  to  adopt 
either  of  these  measures,  they  will  not  be  with-held  by  the  fear  of
infringing any of the powers of the federal Government.  But to contend 
that  such  a  power  would  be  dangerous  for  the  reasons  above  main­
tained  would  be  subversive  of  every  principle  of  Freedom  in  our  Gov­
ernment; of which the first Congress appears to have been sensible by
proposing  an  Amendment  to  the  Constitution,  which  has  since  been
ratified  and  has  become  part  of  it,  viz.,  ‘That  a  well  regulated  militia
being necessary to the Security of a free State, the right of the people to
keep  and  bear  arms  shall  not  be  infringed.’  To  this  we  may  add  that
this  power  of  arming  the  militia,  is  not  one  of  those  prohibited  to  the
States  by  the  Constitution,  and,  consequently,  is  reserved  to  them
under  the  twelfth  Article  of  the  ratified  aments.”  S.  Tucker,  Ten 
Notebooks  of  Law  Lectures,  1790’s,  Tucker-Coleman  Papers,  pp.  127–
128 (College of William and Mary). 

See  also  Cornell,  St.  George  Tucker  and  the  Second  Amendment:
Original  Understandings  and  Modern  Misunderstandings,  47  Wm.  &
Mary L. Rev. 1123 (2006). 

33 The  Court  does  acknowledge  that  at  least  one  early  commentator
described the Second Amendment as creating a right conditioned upon 
service  in  a  state  militia.    See  ante,  at  37–38  (citing  B.  Oliver,  The 
Rights of an American Citizen (1832)).  Apart from the fact that Oliver 
is the only commentator in the Court’s exhaustive survey who appears 
to have inquired into the intent of the drafters of the Amendment, what 
is  striking  about  the  Court’s  discussion  is  its  failure  to  refute  Oliver’s
description  of  the  meaning  of  the  Amendment  or  the  intent  of  its 
drafters;  rather,  the  Court  adverts  to  simple  nose-counting  to  dismiss
his view.