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Page Number: 37

34 

DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA v. HELLER 

Opinion of the Court 

In  1825,  William  Rawle,  a  prominent  lawyer  who  had 
been a member of the Pennsylvania Assembly that ratified 
the Bill of Rights, published an influential treatise, which
analyzed the Second Amendment as follows: 

“The  first  [principle]  is  a  declaration  that  a  well
regulated militia is necessary to the security of a free 
state; a proposition from which few will dissent. . . .

“The  corollary,  from  the  first  position  is,  that  the
right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be 
infringed.

“The prohibition is general.  No clause in the consti­
tution  could  by  any  rule  of  construction  be  conceived 
to give to congress a power to disarm the people.  Such 
a  flagitious  attempt  could  only  be  made  under  some 
general pretence by a state legislature.  But if in any 
blind  pursuit  of  inordinate  power,  either  should  at­
tempt it, this amendment may be appealed to as a re­
straint on both.”  Rawle 121–122.20 

Like  Tucker,  Rawle  regarded  the  English  game  laws  as
violating the right codified in the Second Amendment.  See 
id.,  122–123.    Rawle  clearly  differentiated  between  the
people’s  right  to  bear  arms  and  their  service  in  a  militia: 
“In  a  people  permitted  and  accustomed  to  bear  arms,  we
have the rudiments of a militia, which properly consists of 
armed citizens, divided into military bands, and instructed 

—————— 

proposition that such armament could not run afoul of any power of the 
federal  government  (since  the  amendment  prohibits  Congress  from
ordering  disarmament).  Nothing  in  the  passage  implies  that  the 
Second Amendment pertains only to the carrying of arms in the organ­
ized militia. 

20 Rawle,  writing  before  our  decision  in  Barron  ex  rel.  Tiernan  v. 
Mayor  of  Baltimore,  7  Pet.  243  (1833),  believed  that  the  Second 
Amendment could be applied against the States.  Such a belief would of 
course be nonsensical on petitioners’ view that it protected only a right 
to  possess  and  carry  arms  when  conscripted  by  the  State  itself  into 
militia service.