Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/07pdf/07-290.pdf
Page Number: 82.0

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

15 

STEVENS, J., dissenting 

[a  weapon] 

puzzling in light of its own contention that the addition of 
the  modifier  “against”  changes  the  meaning  of  “bear
arms.”  Compare ante, at 10 (defining “bear arms” to mean 
“carrying 
for  a  particular  purpose—
confrontation”), with ante, at 12 (“The phrase ‘bear Arms’
also had at the time of the founding an idiomatic meaning 
that was significantly  different from its natural meaning: 
to  serve  as  a  soldier,  do  military  service,  fight  or  to  wage 
war.    But  it  unequivocally  bore  that  idiomatic  meaning 
only when followed by the preposition ‘against.’ ” (citations
and some internal quotation marks omitted)).

The  Amendment’s  use  of  the  term  “keep”  in  no  way 
contradicts  the  military  meaning  conveyed  by  the  phrase 
“bear  arms”  and  the  Amendment’s  preamble.    To  the 
contrary,  a  number  of  state  militia  laws  in  effect  at  the
time  of  the  Second  Amendment’s  drafting  used  the  term
“keep”  to  describe  the  requirement  that  militia  members
store their arms at their homes, ready to be  used for ser­
vice when necessary.  The Virginia military law, for exam­
ple,  ordered  that  “every  one  of  the  said  officers,  non­
commissioned officers, and privates, shall constantly keep
the  aforesaid  arms,  accoutrements,  and  ammunition, 
ready to be produced whenever called for by his command­
ing officer.”  Act for Regulating and Disciplining the Mili­
tia,  1785  Va.  Acts  ch.  1,  §3,  p. 2  (emphasis  added).12 

—————— 

omitted). 

12 See  also  Act  for  the  regulating,  training, and  arraying of  the  Mili­
tia,  . . .  of  the  State,  1781  N. J.  Laws,  ch.  XIII,  §12,  p. 43  (“And  be  it 
Enacted, That each Person enrolled as aforesaid, shall also keep at his 
Place of Abode one Pound of good merchantable Gunpowder and three
Pounds of Ball sized to his Musket or Rifle” (emphasis added)); An Act
for establishing a Militia, 1785 Del. Laws §7, p. 59 (“And be it enacted, 
That every person between the ages of eighteen and fifty . . . shall at his 
own  expense,  provide  himself  . . .  with  a  musket  or  firelock,  with  a 
bayonet,  a  cartouch  box  to  contain  twenty  three  cartridges,  a  priming
wire, a brush and six flints, all in good order, on or before the first day
of  April  next,  under  the  penalty  of  forty  shillings,  and  shall  keep  the