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Page Number: 81.0

10 

UNITED STATES v. RAHIMI 

THOMAS, J., dissenting 

included  “disarm[ing]  all  factious  and  seditious  spirits.” 
Id., at 538 (Nov. 1, 1662).  For example, following “turbu-
lency and difficulties” arising from the Conventicles Act of
1670, which forbade religious nonconformists from assem-
bling, the lord mayor of London pressed that “a special war-
rant or commission [was] necessary” empowering commis-
sioners  to  “resist,  fight,  kill,  and  execute  such  rebels.” 
Calendar  of  State  Papers,  Domestic  Series,  1670,  p.  236 
(May  25,  1670)  (M.  Green  ed.  1895)  (emphasis  deleted).
King  Charles  II  ordered  the  lord  mayor  “to  make  strict
search  in  the  city  and  precincts  for  dangerous  and  disaf-
fected persons, seize and secure them and their arms, and
detain them in custody till our further pleasure.”  Id., at 237 
(May 26, 1670).

History repeated itself a few decades later.  In 1701, King 
William  III  declared  that  “great  quantities  of  arms,  and 
other provisions of war” had been discovered in the hands 
of “papists and other disaffected persons, who disown [the]
government,” and that such persons had begun to assemble 
“in great numbers . . . in the cities of London and Westmin-
ster.”  Calendar William III 233.  He ordered the lord mayor 
of London and the justices of the peace to “secur[e] the gov-
ernment”  by  disarming  “any  persons  whom  they  judge[d]
dangerous,” including “any papist, or reputed papist.”  Id., 
at 233–234 (emphasis deleted).  Similar disarmaments tar-
geting  “Papists  and  Non-jurors  dangerous  to  the  peace  of
the  kingdom”  continued  into  the  1700s.    Privy  Council  to 
the  Earl  of  Carlisle  (July  30,  1714),  in  Historical  Manu-
scripts Comm’n, Manuscripts of the Earl of Westmoreland
et al.  10th  Report,  Appx.,  Pt.  4,  p.  343  (1885).    As  before, 
disarmament was designed to stifle “wicked conspirac[ies],” 
such as “raising a Rebellion in this Kingdom in favour of a 
Popish Pretender.”  Lord Lonsdale to Deputy Lieutenants 
of  Cumberland  (May  20,  1722),  in  Historical  Manuscripts
Commission, Manuscripts of the Earl of Carlisle, 15th Re-
port, Appx., Pt. 6, pp. 39–40 (1897).