Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/07pdf/07-290.pdf
Page Number: 103.0

36 

DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA v. HELLER 

STEVENS, J., dissenting 

Post-Civil War Legislative History 

The  Court  suggests  that  by  the  post-Civil  War  period, 
the  Second  Amendment  was  understood  to  secure  a  right 
to  firearm  use  and  ownership  for purely  private  purposes 
like personal self-defense.  While it is true that some of the 
legislative history on which the Court relies supports that
contention, see ante, at 41–44, such sources are entitled to 
limited,  if  any,  weight.    All  of  the  statements  the  Court 
cites were made long after the framing of the Amendment
and  cannot  possibly  supply  any  insight  into  the  intent  of 
the  Framers;  and  all  were  made  during  pitched  political 
debates, so that they are better characterized as advocacy
than good-faith attempts at constitutional interpretation.

What  is  more,  much  of  the  evidence  the  Court  offers  is 
decidedly less clear than its discussion allows.  The Court 
notes  that  “[b]lacks  were  routinely  disarmed  by  Southern
States  after  the  Civil  War.  Those  who  opposed  these
injustices  frequently  stated  that  they  infringed  blacks’ 
constitutional  right  to  keep  and  bear  arms.”    Ante,  at  42. 
The  Court  hastily  concludes  that  “[n]eedless  to  say,  the
claim  was  not  that  blacks  were  being  prohibited  from
carrying  arms  in  an  organized  state  militia,”  ibid.  But 
some  of  the  claims  of  the  sort  the  Court  cites  may  have
been just that.  In some Southern States, Reconstruction-
era  Republican  governments  created  state  militias  in
which  both  blacks  and  whites  were  permitted  to  serve. 
Because  “[t]he  decision  to  allow  blacks  to  serve  alongside
whites  meant  that  most  southerners  refused  to  join  the 
new militia,” the bodies were dubbed “Negro militia[s].”  S. 
Cornell,  A  Well-Regulated  Militia  176–177  (2006).    The 
“arming  of  the  Negro  militias  met  with  especially  fierce
resistance  in  South  Carolina. . . .  The  sight  of  organized, 
armed  freedmen  incensed  opponents  of  Reconstruction 
and led to an intensified campaign of Klan terror.  Leading
members of the Negro militia were beaten or lynched and 
their weapons stolen.”  Id., at 177.