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Page Number: 45

42 

DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA v. HELLER 

Opinion of the Court 

ing as earlier sources.  Yet those born and educated in the 
early 19th century faced a widespread effort to limit arms
ownership by a large number of citizens; their understand­
ing  of  the  origins  and  continuing  significance  of  the 
Amendment is instructive. 

Blacks  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.    Needless  to  say,  the  claim 
was  not  that  blacks  were  being  prohibited  from  carrying 
arms in an organized state militia.  A Report of the Com­
mission of the Freedmen’s Bureau  in 1866 stated plainly:
“[T]he  civil  law  [of  Kentucky]  prohibits  the  colored  man
from bearing arms. . . .  Their arms are taken from them 
by the civil authorities. . . .  Thus, the right of the people to 
keep  and  bear  arms  as  provided  in  the  Constitution  is 
infringed.”  H. R.  Exec. Doc. No. 70, 39th Cong., 1st Sess., 
233, 236.  A joint congressional Report decried: 

“in some parts of [South Carolina], armed parties are, 
without  proper  authority,  engaged  in  seizing  all  fire­
arms  found  in  the  hands  of  the  freemen.  Such  con­
duct  is  in  clear  and  direct  violation  of  their  personal 
rights as guaranteed by the Constitution of the United
States, which declares that ‘the right of the people to 
keep  and  bear  arms  shall  not  be  infringed.’    The 
freedmen  of  South  Carolina  have  shown  by  their 
peaceful  and  orderly  conduct  that  they  can  safely  be 
trusted  with  fire-arms,  and  they  need  them  to  kill 
game  for  subsistence,  and  to  protect  their  crops  from 
destruction  by  birds  and  animals.”    Joint  Comm.  on 
Reconstruction,  H. R.  Rep.  No.  30,  39th  Cong.,  1st 
Sess., pt. 2, p. 229 (1866) (Proposed Circular of Briga­
dier General R. Saxton). 

The  view  expressed  in  these  statements  was  widely 
reported  and  was  apparently  widely  held.  For  example,