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Page Number: 81.0

14 

DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA v. HELLER 

STEVENS, J., dissenting 

But  when  discussing  these  words,  the  Court  simply  ig­
nores the preamble.

The Court argues that a “qualifying phrase that contra­
dicts  the  word  or  phrase  it  modifies  is  unknown  this  side
of the looking glass.”  Ante, at 15.  But this fundamentally
fails  to  grasp  the  point.    The  stand-alone  phrase  “bear 
arms”  most  naturally  conveys  a  military  meaning  unless 
the addition of a qualifying phrase signals that a different 
meaning  is  intended.    When,  as  in  this  case,  there  is  no 
such  qualifier,  the  most  natural  meaning  is  the  military 
one; and, in the absence of any qualifier, it is all the more
appropriate to look to the preamble to confirm the natural 
meaning of the text.11  The Court’s objection is particularly 
—————— 

to keep and bear arms is secured, is of general and public nature, to be
exercised  by  the  people  in  a  body,  for  their  common  defence,  so  the 
arms,  the  right  to  keep  which  is  secured,  are  such  as  are  usually
employed in civilized warfare, and that constitute the ordinary military 
equipment.”    21  Tenn.,  at  158.    The  court  elaborated:  “[W]e  may  re­
mark, that the phrase ‘bear arms’ is used in the Kentucky Constitution 
as  well  as  our  own,  and  implies,  as  has  already  been  suggested,  their
military use. . . . A man in the pursuit of deer, elk, and buffaloes, might
carry his rifle every day, for forty years, and, yet, it would never be said 
of  him,  that  he  had  borne  arms,  much  less  could  it  be  said,  that  a 
private  citizen  bears  arms,  because  he  has  a  dirk  or  pistol  concealed
under his clothes, or a spear in a cane.”  Id., at 161. 

11 As  lucidly  explained  in  the  context  of  a  statute  mandating  a  sen­
tencing  enhancement  for  any  person  who  “uses”  a  firearm  during  a 
crime of violence or drug trafficking crime:

“To use an instrumentality ordinarily means to use it for its intended 
purpose.  When someone asks, ‘Do you use a cane?,’ he is not inquiring 
whether  you  have  your  grandfather’s  silver-handled  walking  stick  on 
display  in  the  hall;  he  wants  to  know  whether  you  walk  with  a  cane. 
Similarly,  to  speak  of  ‘using  a  firearm’  is  to  speak  of  using  it  for  its
distinctive purpose, i.e., as a weapon.  To be sure, one can use a firearm 
in  a  number  of  ways,  including  as  an  article  of  exchange,  just  as  one 
can  ‘use’  a  cane  as  a  hall  decoration—but  that  is  not  the  ordinary 
meaning of ‘using’ the one or the other.  The Court does not appear to
grasp  the  distinction  between  how  a  word  can  be  used  and  how  it 
ordinarily  is  used.”    Smith  v.  United  States,  508  U. S.  223,  242  (1993) 
(SCALIA,  J.,  dissenting)  (some  internal  marks,  footnotes,  and  citations