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Page Number: 43

40 

DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA v. HELLER 

Opinion of the Court 

in  the  prefatory  clause,  in  continuity  with  the  English 
right: 

“The  right  of  the  whole  people,  old  and  young,  men, 
women  and  boys,  and  not  militia  only,  to  keep  and 
bear arms of every description, and not such merely as 
are  used  by  the  militia,  shall  not  be  infringed,  cur­
tailed, or broken in upon, in the smallest degree; and 
all this for the important end to be attained: the rear­
ing  up  and  qualifying  a  well-regulated  militia,  so  vi­
tally  necessary  to  the  security  of  a  free  State.    Our 
opinion  is,  that  any  law,  State  or  Federal,  is  repug­
nant to the Constitution, and void, which contravenes 
this  right,  originally  belonging  to  our  forefathers, 
trampled under foot by Charles I. and his two wicked 
sons  and  successors,  re-established  by  the  revolution 
of  1688,  conveyed  to  this  land  of  liberty  by  the  colo­
nists,  and  finally  incorporated  conspicuously  in  our
own Magna Charta!” 

  Likewise,  in  State  v.  Chandler,  5  La.  Ann.  489,  490 
(1850),  the  Louisiana  Supreme  Court  held  that  citizens 
had a right to carry arms openly: “This is the right  guar­
anteed  by  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States,  and 
which  is  calculated  to  incite  men  to  a  manly  and  noble 
defence  of  themselves,  if  necessary,  and  of  their  country, 
without  any  tendency  to  secret  advantages  and  unmanly 
assassinations.” 

Those  who  believe  that  the  Second  Amendment  pre­
serves only a militia-centered right place great reliance on 
the  Tennessee  Supreme  Court’s  1840  decision  in  Aymette 
v.  State,  21  Tenn.  154.    The  case  does  not  stand  for  that 
broad  proposition;  in  fact,  the  case  does  not  mention  the
word  “militia”  at  all,  except  in  its  quoting  of  the  Second
Amendment.  Aymette  held  that  the  state  constitutional 
guarantee of the right to “bear” arms did not prohibit the 
banning  of  concealed  weapons.  The  opinion  first  recog­