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30 

DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA v. HELLER 

Opinion of the Court 

XI, §26 (1796), in 6 Thorpe 3414, 3424; Me. Const., Art. I, 
§16 (1819), in 3 id., at 1646, 1648.  That of the nine state 
constitutional  protections  for  the  right  to  bear  arms  en­
acted immediately after 1789 at least seven unequivocally 
protected  an  individual  citizen’s  right  to  self-defense  is 
strong  evidence  that  that  is  how  the  founding  generation
conceived  of  the  right.    And  with  one  possible  exception 
that  we  discuss  in  Part  II–D–2,  19th-century  courts  and 
commentators interpreted these state constitutional provi­
sions  to  protect  an  individual  right  to  use  arms  for  self-
defense.  See n. 9, supra; Simpson v. State, 5 Yer. 356, 360 
(Tenn. 1833).

The  historical  narrative  that  petitioners  must  endorse 
would  thus  treat  the  Federal  Second  Amendment  as  an 
odd  outlier,  protecting  a  right  unknown  in  state  constitu­
tions or at English common law, based on little more than 
an overreading of the prefatory clause. 

C 
JUSTICE  STEVENS  relies  on  the  drafting  history  of  the
Second  Amendment—the  various  proposals  in  the  state
conventions and the debates in Congress.  It is dubious to 
rely  on  such  history  to  interpret  a  text  that  was  widely
understood  to  codify  a  pre-existing  right,  rather  than  to 
fashion  a  new  one.    But  even  assuming  that  this  legisla­
tive  history  is  relevant,  JUSTICE  STEVENS  flatly  misreads
the historical record. 

It  is  true,  as  JUSTICE  STEVENS  says,  that  there  was
concern  that  the  Federal  Government  would  abolish  the 
institution  of  the  state  militia.  See  post,  at  20.  That 
concern  found  expression,  however,  not  in  the  various 
Second  Amendment  precursors  proposed  in  the  State 
conventions,  but  in  separate  structural  provisions  that 
would  have  given  the  States  concurrent  and  seemingly 
nonpre-emptible authority to organize, discipline, and arm
the  militia  when  the  Federal  Government  failed  to  do  so.