Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/07pdf/07-290.pdf
Page Number: 106

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

39 

STEVENS, J., dissenting 

The  majority’s  assertion  that  the  Court  in  Cruikshank 
“described  the  right  protected  by  the  Second  Amendment
as  ‘ “bearing  arms  for  a  lawful  purpose,” ’ ”  ante,  at  47 
(quoting  Cruikshank,  92  U. S.,  at  553),  is  not  accurate. 
The  Cruikshank  Court  explained  that  the  defective  in-
dictment  contained  such  language,  but  the  Court  did  not 
itself  describe  the  right,  or  endorse  the  indictment’s  de­
scription of the right.

Moreover,  it  is  entirely  possible  that  the  basis  for  the
indictment’s  counts  2  and  10,  which  charged  respondents
with depriving the victims of rights secured by the Second
Amendment, was the prosecutor’s belief that the victims—
members  of  a  group  of  citizens,  mostly  black  but  also 
white, who were rounded up by the Sheriff, sworn in as a 
posse  to  defend  the  local  courthouse,  and  attacked  by  a 
white  mob—bore  sufficient  resemblance  to  members  of  a 
state  militia  that  they  were  brought  within  the  reach  of 
the Second Amendment.  See generally C. Lane, The Day
Freedom Died: The Colfax Massacre, The Supreme Court,
and the Betrayal of Reconstruction (2008).

Only one other 19th-century  case in this Court, Presser 
v. Illinois, 116 U. S. 252 (1886), engaged in any significant 
discussion  of  the  Second  Amendment.    The  petitioner  in 
Presser  was  convicted  of  violating  a  state  statute  that 
prohibited  organizations  other  than  the  Illinois  National
Guard from associating together as military companies or 
parading  with  arms.    Presser  challenged  his  conviction,
asserting,  as  relevant,  that  the  statute  violated  both  the
Second and the Fourteenth Amendments.  With respect to 
the Second Amendment, the Court wrote: 

“We  think  it  clear  that  the  sections  under  considera­
tion,  which  only  forbid  bodies  of  men  to  associate  to­
gether as military organizations, or to drill or parade
with  arms  in  cities  and  towns  unless  authorized  by 
law, do not infringe the right of the people to keep and