Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/07pdf/07-290.pdf
Page Number: 26

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

23 

Opinion of the Court 

Although  we  agree  with  petitioners’  interpretive  assump­
tion  that  “militia”  means  the  same  thing  in  Article  I  and 
the  Second  Amendment,  we  believe  that  petitioners  iden­
tify  the  wrong  thing,  namely,  the  organized  militia. 
Unlike  armies  and  navies,  which  Congress  is  given  the 
power  to  create  (“to  raise  . . .  Armies”;  “to  provide  . . .  a
Navy,”  Art. I,  §8,  cls.  12–13),  the  militia  is  assumed  by 
Article I already to be in existence.  Congress is given the
power  to  “provide  for  calling  forth  the  militia,”  §8,  cl.  15; 
and the power not to create, but to “organiz[e]” it—and not
to  organize  “a”  militia,  which  is  what  one  would  expect  if
the  militia  were  to  be  a  federal  creation,  but  to  organize
“the” militia, connoting a body already in existence,  ibid., 
cl. 16.  This is fully consistent with the ordinary definition
of  the  militia  as  all  able-bodied  men.    From  that  pool,
Congress has plenary power to organize the units that will 
make  up  an  effective  fighting  force.    That  is  what  Con­
gress did in the first militia Act, which specified that “each 
and  every  free  able-bodied  white  male  citizen  of  the  re­
spective states, resident therein, who is or shall be of the 
age of eighteen years, and under the age of forty-five years 
(except  as  is  herein  after  excepted)  shall  severally  and 
respectively  be  enrolled  in  the  militia.”    Act  of  May  8,
1792, 1 Stat. 271.  To be sure, Congress need not conscript 
every able-bodied man into the militia, because nothing in 
Article I suggests that in exercising its power to organize, 
discipline, and arm the militia, Congress must focus upon 
the entire body.  Although the militia consists of all able-
bodied men, the federally organized militia may consist of 
a subset of them. 

Finally,  the  adjective  “well-regulated”  implies  nothing
more than the imposition of proper discipline and training.
See  Johnson  1619  (“Regulate”:  “To  adjust  by  rule  or
method”);  Rawle  121–122;  cf.  Va.  Declaration  of  Rights
§13  (1776),  in  7  Thorpe  3812,  3814  (referring  to  “a  well-
regulated  militia,  composed  of  the  body  of  the  people,