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36  NEW YORK STATE RIFLE & PISTOL ASSN., INC. v. BRUEN 

Opinion of the Court 

Just three years later, Parliament responded by writing
the “predecessor to our Second Amendment” into the 1689 
English Bill of Rights, Heller, 554 U. S., at 593, guarantee-
ing that “Protestants . . . may have Arms for their Defence
suitable to their Conditions, and as allowed by Law,” 1 Wm. 
& Mary c. 2, §7, in 3 Eng. Stat. at Large 417 (1689).  Alt-
hough this right was initially limited—it was restricted to
Protestants and held only against the Crown, but not Par-
liament—it  represented  a  watershed  in  English  history. 
Englishmen had “never before claimed . . . the right of the
individual to arms.”  Schwoerer 156.12  And as that individ-
ual right matured, “by the time of the founding,” the right
to keep and bear arms was “understood to be an individual
right protecting against both public and private violence.” 
Heller, 554 U. S., at 594. 

To be sure, the Statute of Northampton survived both Sir 
John  Knight’s  Case  and  the  English  Bill  of  Rights,  but  it
was no obstacle to public carry for self-defense in the dec-
ades leading to the founding.  Serjeant William Hawkins,
in his widely read 1716 treatise, confirmed that “no wearing 
of Arms is within the meaning of [the Statute of Northamp-
ton], unless it be accompanied with such Circumstances as 
are apt to terrify the People.”  1 Pleas of the Crown 136.  To 
illustrate  that  proposition,  Hawkins  noted  as  an  example 
that “Persons of Quality” were “in no Danger of Offending 
against  this  Statute  by  wearing  common  Weapons”  be-
cause, in those circumstances, it would be clear that they 

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interpretations of Sir John Knight’s Case, we will favor the one that is 
more consistent with the Second Amendment’s command. 

12 Even Catholics, who fell beyond the protection of the right to have
arms, and who were stripped of all “Arms, Weapons, Gunpowder, [and] 
Ammunition,” were at least allowed to keep “such necessary Weapons as
shall be allowed . . . by Order of the Justices of the Peace . . . for the De-
fence of his House or Person.”  1 Wm. & Mary c. 15, §4, in 3 Eng. Stat. at 
Large 399 (1688).