Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/07pdf/07-290.pdf
Page Number: 100.0

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

33 

STEVENS, J., dissenting 

his 1833 Commentaries on the Constitution of the United 
States—the same passage cited by the Court in Miller34— 
merits reproducing at some length: 

“The  importance  of  [the  Second  Amendment]  will
scarcely be doubted by any persons who have duly re­
flected upon the subject.  The militia is the natural de­
fence of a free country against sudden foreign invasions, 
domestic  insurrections,  and  domestic  usurpations  of 
power  by  rulers.  It  is  against  sound  policy  for  a  free
people  to  keep  up  large  military  establishments  and 
standing armies in time of peace, both from the enor­
mous expenses with which they are attended and the
facile  means  which  they  afford  to  ambitious  and  un­
principled rulers to subvert the government, or tram­
ple upon the rights of the people.  The right of the citi­
zens to keep and bear arms has justly been considered 
as the palladium of the liberties of a republic, since it
offers  a  strong  moral  check  against  the  usurpation
and arbitrary power of rulers, and will generally, even 
if these are successful in the first instance, enable the 
people  to  resist  and  triumph  over  them.  And  yet,
though this truth would seem so clear, and the impor­
tance of a well-regulated militia would seem so unde­
niable, it cannot be disguised that, among the Ameri­
can  people,  there  is  a  growing  indifference  to  any
system  of  militia  discipline,  and  a  strong  disposition, 
from a sense of its burdens, to be rid of all regulations.
How  it  is  practicable  to  keep  the  people  duly  armed
without some organization, it is difficult to see.  There 
is  certainly  no  small  danger  that  indifference  may
lead  to  disgust,  and  disgust  to  contempt;  and  thus 
gradually  undermine  all  the  protection  intended  by 
the  clause  of  our  national  bill  of  rights.”    2  J.  Story,
Commentaries  on  the  Constitution  of  the  United 

—————— 

34 Miller, 307 U. S., at 182, n. 3.