Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/07pdf/07-290.pdf
Page Number: 96

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

29 

STEVENS, J., dissenting 

The English Bill of Rights 

The  Court’s  reliance  on  Article  VII  of  the  1689  English 
Bill of Rights—which, like most of the evidence offered by 
the Court today, was considered in Miller30—is misguided
both because Article VII was enacted in response to differ­
ent concerns from those that motivated the Framers of the 
Second  Amendment,  and  because  the  guarantees  of  the
two  provisions  were  by  no  means  coextensive.    Moreover, 
the English text contained no preamble or other provision 
identifying a narrow, militia-related purpose. 

The  English  Bill  of  Rights  responded  to  abuses  by  the 
Stuart  monarchs;  among  the  grievances  set  forth  in  the 
Bill of Rights was that the King had violated the law “[b]y 
causing  several  good  Subjects  being  Protestants  to  be 
disarmed at the same time when Papists were both armed 
and Employed contrary to Law.”  Article VII of the Bill of 
Rights  was  a  response  to  that  selective  disarmament;  it
guaranteed that “the Subjects  which are Protestants may 
have  Armes  for  their  defence,  Suitable  to  their  condition 
and as allowed by Law.”  L. Schwoerer, The Declaration of 
Rights, 1689 (App. 1, pp. 295, 297) (1981).  This grant did 

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militia-focused right, and thus that its passing mention of the right to
bear arms provides scant support for the Court’s position.  

30 The Government argued in its brief that: 

“[I]t  would  seem  that  the  early  English  law  did  not  guarantee  an 
unrestricted right to bear arms.  Such recognition as existed of a right
in  the  people  to  keep  and  bear  arms  appears  to  have  resulted  from 
oppression  by  rulers  who  disarmed  their  political  opponents  and  who
organized  large  standing  armies  which  were  obnoxious  and  burden­
some to the people.  This right, however, it is clear, gave sanction only 
to  the  arming  of  the  people  as  a  body  to  defend  their  rights  against
tyrannical  and  unprincipled  rulers.    It  did  not  permit  the  keeping  of 
arms for purposes of private defense.”  Brief for United States in United 
States v. Miller, O. T. 1938, No. 696, pp. 11–12 (citations omitted).  The 
Government  then  cited  at  length  the  Tennessee  Supreme  Court’s
opinion  in  Aymette,  21  Tenn.  154,  which  further  situated  the  English
Bill of Rights in its historical context.  See n. 10, supra.