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Page Number: 28

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

25 

Opinion of the Court 

better able to resist tyranny. 

3. Relationship between Prefatory Clause and 
  Operative Clause 

We  reach  the  question,  then:  Does  the  preface  fit  with 
an  operative  clause  that  creates  an  individual  right  to 
keep and bear arms?  It fits perfectly, once one knows the 
history  that  the  founding  generation  knew  and  that  we 
have  described  above.    That  history  showed  that  the  way 
tyrants had eliminated a militia consisting of all the able-
bodied men was not by banning the militia but simply by 
taking away the people’s arms, enabling a select militia or 
standing  army  to  suppress  political  opponents.  This  is 
what had occurred in  England  that prompted codification 
of the right to have arms in the English Bill of Rights. 

The  debate  with  respect  to  the  right  to  keep  and  bear
arms,  as  with  other  guarantees  in  the  Bill  of  Rights,  was
not over whether it was desirable (all agreed that it was) 
but over whether it needed to be codified in the Constitu­
tion.  During  the  1788  ratification  debates,  the  fear  that
the  federal  government  would  disarm  the  people  in  order 
to  impose  rule  through  a  standing  army  or  select  militia
was pervasive in Antifederalist rhetoric.  See, e.g., Letters 
from  The  Federal  Farmer  III  (Oct.  10,  1787),  in  2  The
Complete  Anti-Federalist  234,  242  (H.  Storing  ed.  1981). 
John Smilie, for example, worried not only that Congress’s
“command of the militia” could be used to create a “select 
militia,” or to have “no militia at all,” but also, as a sepa­
rate  concern,  that  “[w]hen  a  select  militia  is  formed;  the 
people  in  general  may  be  disarmed.”  2  Documentary 
History of the Ratification of the Constitution 508–509 (M.
Jensen ed. 1976) (hereinafter Documentary Hist.).  Feder­
alists  responded  that  because  Congress  was  given  no
power  to  abridge  the  ancient  right  of  individuals  to  keep
and  bear  arms,  such  a  force  could  never  oppress  the  peo­
ple.  See, e.g., A Pennsylvanian III (Feb. 20, 1788), in The