Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/07pdf/07-290.pdf
Page Number: 44.0

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

41 

Opinion of the Court 

nized that both the state right and the federal right were
descendents  of  the  1689  English  right,  but  (erroneously, 
and  contrary  to  virtually  all  other  authorities)  read  that 
right to refer only to “protect[ion of] the public liberty” and 
“keep[ing]  in  awe  those  in  power,”  id.,  at  158.  The  court 
then  adopted  a  sort  of  middle  position,  whereby  citizens
were  permitted  to  carry  arms  openly,  unconnected  with 
any service in a formal militia, but were given the right to
use them only for the military purpose of banding together 
to oppose tyranny.  This odd reading of the right is, to be 
sure, not the one we adopt—but it is not petitioners’ read­
ing  either.  More  importantly,  seven  years  earlier  the
Tennessee Supreme Court had treated the state constitu­
tional  provision  as  conferring  a  right  “of  all  the  free  citi­
zens of the State to keep and bear arms for their defence,” 
Simpson, 5 Yer., at 360; and 21 years later the court held
that  the  “keep”  portion  of  the  state  constitutional  right
included the right to personal self-defense: “[T]he right to
keep  arms  involves,  necessarily,  the  right  to  use  such
arms for all the ordinary purposes, and in all the ordinary
modes  usual  in  the  country,  and  to  which  arms  are 
adapted, limited by the duties of a good citizen in times of
peace.”  Andrews, 50 Tenn., at 178; see also ibid. (equating 
state provision with Second Amendment). 

3. Post-Civil War Legislation. 
In the aftermath of the Civil War, there was an outpour­
ing  of  discussion  of  the  Second  Amendment  in  Congress 
and  in  public  discourse,  as  people  debated  whether  and 
how  to  secure  constitutional  rights  for  newly  free  slaves. 
See  generally  S.  Halbrook,  Freedmen,  the  Fourteenth 
Amendment,  and  the  Right  to  Bear  Arms,  1866–1876
(1998)  (hereinafter  Halbrook);  Brief  for  Institute  for  Jus­
tice as Amicus Curiae.  Since those discussions took place
75  years  after  the  ratification  of  the  Second  Amendment,
they do not provide as much insight into its original mean­