Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/07pdf/07-290.pdf
Page Number: 40.0

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

37 

Opinion of the Court 

the people of Kansas have been arraigned for keeping 
and bearing them, and the Senator from South Caro­
lina has had the face to say openly, on this floor, that
they should be disarmed—of course, that the fanatics 
of  Slavery,  his  allies  and  constituents,  may  meet  no 
impediment.”  The Crime Against Kansas, May 19–20, 
1856,  in  American  Speeches:  Political  Oratory  from
the Revolution to the Civil War 553, 606–607 (2006). 

We  have  found  only  one  early  19th-century  commenta­
tor  who  clearly  conditioned  the  right  to  keep  and  bear 
arms  upon  service  in  the  militia—and  he  recognized  that 
the prevailing view was to the contrary.  “The provision of
the  constitution,  declaring  the  right  of  the  people  to  keep
and bear arms, &c. was probably intended to apply to the 
right  of  the  people  to  bear  arms  for  such  [militia-related] 
purposes  only,  and  not  to  prevent  congress  or  the  legisla­
tures of the different states from enacting laws to prevent
the  citizens  from  always  going  armed.    A  different  con­
struction  however  has  been  given  to  it.”    B.  Oliver,  The 
Rights of an American Citizen 177 (1832). 

2. Pre-Civil War Case Law 
The  19th-century  cases  that  interpreted  the  Second 

Amendment  universally  support  an  individual  right  un­
connected  to  militia  service.    In  Houston  v.  Moore,  5 
Wheat.  1,  24  (1820),  this  Court  held  that  States  have 
concurrent power over the militia, at least where not pre­
empted  by  Congress.  Agreeing  in  dissent  that  States 
could  “organize,  discipline,  and  arm”  the  militia  in  the 
absence of conflicting federal regulation, Justice Story said
that  the  Second  Amendment  “may  not,  perhaps,  be 
thought to have any important bearing on this point.  If it 
have, it confirms and illustrates, rather than impugns the
reasoning already suggested.”  Id., at 51–53.  Of course, if 
the Amendment simply “protect[ed] the right of the people 
of each of the several States to maintain a well-regulated