Parker v. District of Columbia

United States Court of Appeals
FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT

Argued December 7, 2006 Decided March 9, 2007

No. 04-7041

SHELLY PARKER, ET AL.,
APPELLANTS

v.

DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA AND
ADRIAN M. FENTY, MAYOR OF THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA,
APPELLEES

Appeal from the United States District Court
for the District of Columbia
(No. 03cv00213)

Alan Gura argued the cause for appellants. With him on the
briefs were Robert A. Levy and Clark M. Neily, III.

Greg Abbott, Attorney General, Attorney General’s Office
of State of Texas, R. Ted Cruz, Solicitor General, Troy King,
Attorney General, Attorney General’s Office of State of
Alabama, Mike Beebe, Attorney General, Attorney General’s
Office of the State of Arkansas, John W. Suthers, Attorney
General, Attorney General’s Office of the State of Colorado,
Charles J. Crist, Jr., Attorney General, Attorney General’s
Office of the State of Florida, Thurbert E. Baker, Attorney
General, Attorney General’s Office of the State of Georgia,
 2

Michael A. Cox, Attorney General, Attorney General’s Office of
the State of Michigan, Mike Hatch, Attorney General, Attorney
General’s Office of the State of Minnesota, Jon Bruning,
Attorney General, Attorney General’s Office of the State of
Nebraska, Wayne Stenehjem, Attorney General, Attorney
General’s Office of the State of North Dakota, Jim Petro,
Attorney General, Attorney General’s Office of the State of
Ohio, Mark L. Shurtleff, Attorney General, Attorney General’s
Office of the State of Utah, and Patrick J. Crank, Attorney
General, Attorney General’s Office of the State of Wyoming,
were on the brief for amici curiae States of Texas, et. al. in
support of appellants.

Don B. Kates and Daniel D. Polsby were on the brief for
amici curiae Professors Frederick Bieber, et al. and organization
amici curiae Second Amendment Foundation, et al.

Stefan Bijan Tahmassebi was on the brief for amicus curiae
Congress of Racial Equality, Inc. in support of appellants
seeking reversal.

Peter J. Ferrara was on the brief for amicus curiae
American Civil Rights Union in support of appellants.

Robert Dowlut was on the brief for amicus curiae National
Rifle Association Civil Rights Defense Fund in support of
appellants seeking reversal.

Todd S. Kim, Solicitor General, Office of Attorney General
for the District of Columbia, argued the cause for appellees.
With him on the brief were Robert J. Spagnoletti, Attorney
General, Edward E. Schwab, Deputy Solicitor General, and Lutz
Alexander Prager.
 3

Ernest McGill, pro se, was on the brief for amicus curiae
Ernest McGill in support of appellees.

Thomas F. Reilly, Attorney General, Attorney General’s
Office of Commonwealth of Massachusetts, Glenn S. Kaplan,
Assistant Attorney General, J. Joseph Curran, Jr., Attorney
General, Attorney General’s Office of the State of Maryland,
Zulima V. Farber, Attorney General, Attorney General’s Office
of the State of New Jersey, were on the brief for amici curiae
Commonwealth of Massachusetts, et al. in support of appellees.
John Hogrogian, Attorney, Corporation Counsel's Office of City
of New York, and Benna Ruth Solomon, Deputy Corporation
Counsel, Office of the Corporation Counsel of the City of
Chicago, entered appearances.

Andrew L. Frey, David M. Gossett, Danny Y. Chou, Deputy
City Attorney, Office of the City Attorney of the City and
County of San Francisco, and John A. Valentine, were on the
brief for amici curiae The Brady Center to Prevent Gun
Violence, et al. in support of appellees. Eric J. Mogilnicki
entered an appearance.

Before: HENDERSON and GRIFFITH, Circuit Judges, and
SILBERMAN, Senior Circuit Judge.

Opinion for the Court filed by Senior Circuit Judge
SILBERMAN.

Dissenting opinion filed by Circuit Judge HENDERSON.

SILBERMAN, Senior Circuit Judge: Appellants contest the
district court’s dismissal of their complaint alleging that the
District of Columbia’s gun control laws violate their Second
Amendment rights. The court held that the Second Amendment
(“A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a
 4

free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall
not be infringed”) does not bestow any rights on individuals
except, perhaps, when an individual serves in an organized
militia such as today’s National Guard. We reverse.

I

Appellants, six residents of the District, challenge D.C.
Code § 7-2502.02(a)(4), which generally bars the registration of
handguns (with an exception for retired D.C. police officers);
D.C. Code § 22-4504, which prohibits carrying a pistol without
a license, insofar as that provision would prevent a registrant
from moving a gun from one room to another within his or her
home; and D.C. Code § 7-2507.02, requiring that all lawfully
owned firearms be kept unloaded and disassembled or bound by
a trigger lock or similar device. Shelly Parker, Tracey Ambeau,
Tom G. Palmer, and George Lyon want to possess handguns in
their respective homes for self-defense. Gillian St. Lawrence
owns a registered shotgun, but wishes to keep it assembled and
unhindered by a trigger lock or similar device. Finally, Dick
Heller, who is a District of Columbia special police officer
permitted to carry a handgun on duty as a guard at the Federal
Judicial Center, wishes to possess one at his home. Heller
applied for and was denied a registration certificate to own a
handgun. The District, in refusing his request, explicitly relied
on D.C. Code § 7-2502.02(a)(4).

Essentially, the appellants claim a right to possess what they
describe as “functional firearms,” by which they mean ones that
could be “readily accessible to be used effectively when
necessary” for self-defense in the home. They are not asserting
a right to carry such weapons outside their homes. Nor are they
challenging the District’s authority per se to require the
registration of firearms.
 5

Appellants sought declaratory and injunctive relief pursuant
to 28 U.S.C. §§ 2201, 2202, and 42 U.S.C. § 1983, but the court
below granted the District’s motion to dismiss on the grounds
that the Second Amendment, at most, protects an individual’s
right to “bear arms for service in the Militia.” (The court did
not refer to the word “keep” in the Second Amendment.) And,
by “Militia,” the court concluded the Second Amendment
referred to an organized military body—such as a National
Guard unit.

II

After the proceedings before the district judge, we decided
Seegars v. Gonzales, 396 F.3d 1248 (D.C. Cir. 2005). We held
that plaintiffs bringing a pre-enforcement challenge to the
District’s gun laws had not yet suffered an injury-in-fact and,
therefore, they lacked constitutional standing. Although
plaintiffs expressed an intention to violate the District’s gun
control laws, prosecution was not imminent. We thought
ourselves bound by our prior decision in Navegar, Inc. v. United
States, 103 F.3d 994 (D.C. Cir. 1997), to conclude that the
District’s general threat to prosecute violations of its gun laws
did not constitute an Article III injury. Navegar involved a pre-
enforcement challenge by a gun manufacturer to certain
provisions of the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement
Act of 1994, which prohibited the manufacture (and possession)
of semiautomatic assault weapons. We held then that the
manufacturers whose products the statute listed eo nomine had
standing to challenge the law in question because the effect of
the statute was to single out individual firearms purveyors for
prosecution. Id. at 999. However, manufacturers whose
products were described solely by their characteristics had no
pre-enforcement standing because the threat of prosecution was
shared among the (presumably) many gun manufacturers whose
products fit the statutory description, and, moreover, it was not
 6

clear how these descriptive portions of the statute would be
enforced. Id. at 1001.

In Navegar, then, the “factor . . . most significant in our
analysis” was “the statute’s own identification of particular
products manufactured only by appellants” because that
indicated a “special priority” for preventing specified parties
from engaging in a particular type of conduct. Id. Extending
Navegar’s logic to Seegars, we said the Seegars plaintiffs were
required to show that the District had singled them out for
prosecution, as had been the case with at least one of the
manufacturer plaintiffs in Navegar. Since the Seegars plaintiffs
could show nothing more than a general threat of prosecution by
the District, we held their feared injury insufficiently imminent
to support Article III standing. 396 F.3d at 1255-56.

We recognized in Seegars that our analysis in Navegar was
in tension with the Supreme Court’s treatment of a pre-
enforcement challenge to a criminal statute that allegedly
threatened constitutional rights. See id. (citing Babbitt v. United
Farm Workers Nat’l Union, 442 U.S. 289 (1979)). In United
Farm Workers, the Supreme Court addressed the subject of pre-
enforcement challenges in general terms:

When the plaintiff has alleged an intention to engage in
a course of conduct arguably affected with a
constitutional interest, but proscribed by a statute, and
there exists a credible threat of prosecution thereunder,
he “should not be required to await and undergo a
criminal prosecution as the sole means of seeking
relief.”

442 U.S. at 298 (quoting Doe v. Bolton, 410 U.S. 179, 188
(1973)). The unqualified language of United Farm Workers
would seem to encompass the claims raised by the Seegars
 7

plaintiffs, as well as the appellants here. Appellants’ assertions
of Article III standing also find support in the Supreme Court’s
decision in Virginia v. American Booksellers Ass’n, 484 U.S.
383 (1988), which allowed a pre-enforcement challenge to a
Virginia statute criminalizing the display of certain types of
sexually explicit material for commercial purposes. In that case,
the Court held it sufficient for plaintiffs to allege “an actual and
well-founded fear that the law will be enforced against them,”
id. at 393, without any additional requirement that the
challenged statute single out particular plaintiffs by name.1 In
both United Farm Workers and American Booksellers, the
Supreme Court took a far more relaxed stance on pre-
enforcement challenges than Navegar and Seegars permit.
Nevertheless, unless and until this court en banc overrules these
recent precedents, we must be faithful to Seegars just as the
majority in Seegars was faithful to Navegar.

1
Of course, American Booksellers can be distinguished from
Navegar, Seegars, and the present case, on the ground that the
constitutional challenge at issue there implicated the First (as opposed
to the Second) Amendment. The American Booksellers Court was
concerned that Virginia’s statute might chill speech without any
prosecution ever taking place, 484 U.S. at 393, thereby creating a
wrong without remedy if pre-enforcement standing were denied. But
in deciding whether to privilege one amendment to the U.S.
Constitution over another in assessing injury-in-fact, we note the
statement of our dissenting colleague in Seegars: “I know of no
hierarchy of Bill of Rights protections that dictates different standing
analysis.” 396 F.3d at 1257 (Sentelle, J., dissenting). The Seegars
majority, although it felt constrained by Navegar to reach a different
result, tacitly agreed with Judge Sentelle’s assessment that the injury-
in-fact requirement should be applied uniformly over the First and
Second Amendments (and presumably all other constitutionally
protected rights). Id. at 1254.
 8

Applying Navegar-Seegars to the standing question in this
case, we are obliged to look for an allegation that appellants here
have been singled out or uniquely targeted by the D.C.
government for prosecution. No such allegation has been made;
with one exception, appellants stand in a position almost
identical to the Seegars plaintiffs. Appellants attempt to
distinguish their situation from that of the Seegars plaintiffs by
pointing to “actual” and “specific” threats, Appellants’ Br. at 21,
lodged against appellants by D.C. during the course of the
district court litigation. But this is insufficient. None of the
statements cited by appellants expresses a “special priority” for
preventing these appellants from violating the gun laws, or a
particular interest in punishing them for having done so. Rather,
the District appears to be expressing a sentiment ubiquitous
among stable governments the world over, to wit, scofflaws will
be punished.

The noteworthy distinction in this case—a distinction
mentioned in appellants’ complaint and pressed by them on
appeal—is that appellant Heller has applied for and been denied
a registration certificate to own a handgun, a fact not present in
Seegars. The denial of the gun license is significant; it
constitutes an injury independent of the District’s prospective
enforcement of its gun laws, and an injury to which the stringent
requirements for pre-enforcement standing under Navegar and
Seegars would not apply. Since D.C. Code § 22-4504
(prohibition against carrying a pistol without a license) and D.C.
Code § 7-2507.02 (disassembly/trigger lock requirement) would
amount to further conditions on the certificate Heller desires,
Heller’s standing to pursue the license denial would subsume
these other claims too.

This is not a new proposition. We have consistently treated
a license or permit denial pursuant to a state or federal
administrative scheme as an Article III injury. See, e.g., Cassell
 9

v. F.C.C., 154 F.3d 478 (D.C. Cir. 1998) (reviewing denial of
license application to operate private land mobile radio service);
Wilkett v. I.C.C., 710 F.2d 861 (D.C. Cir. 1983) (reviewing
denial of application for expanded trucking license); see also
City of Bedford v. F.E.R.C., 718 F.2d 1164, 1168 (D.C. Cir.
1983) (describing wrongful denial of a preliminary hydroelectric
permit as an injury warranting review). The interests injured by
an adverse licensing determination may be interests protected at
common law, or they may be created by statute. And of course,
a licensing decision can also trench upon constitutionally
protected interests, see, e.g., Dist. Intown Props. Ltd. P’ship v.
District of Columbia, 198 F.3d 874 (D.C. Cir. 1999) (reviewing
District of Columbia’s denial of a building permit under the
Takings Clause); Berger v. Bd. of Psychologist Exam’rs, 521
F.2d 1056 (D.C. Cir. 1975) (reviewing District of Columbia’s
denial of a license to practice psychology under the Due Process
Clause), which will also give rise to Article III injury.

At oral argument, counsel for the District maintained that
we should not view this as a licensing case for standing purposes
because D.C.’s firearm registration system amounts to a
complete prohibition on handgun ownership. The District
argues that we must analyze appellants’ standing exclusively
under our pre-enforcement precedents, Seegars and Navegar.
We disagree on both counts. The District does not completely
prohibit handgun registration. See D.C. Code § 7-2502.02(a)(4)
(allowing certificates for pistols already registered in the District
prior to 1976); D.C. Code § 7-2502.02(b) (excluding retired
police officers of the Metropolitan Police Department from the
ban on pistol registration). Had Heller been a retired police
officer, presumably the District would have granted him a
registration certificate. The same would be true if Heller had
attempted to register a long gun, as opposed to a handgun. In
any event, Heller has invoked his rights under the Second
Amendment to challenge the statutory classifications used to bar
 10

his ownership of a handgun under D.C. law, and the formal
process of application and denial, however routine, makes the
injury to Heller’s alleged constitutional interest concrete and
particular. He is not asserting that his injury is only a threatened
prosecution, nor is he claiming only a general right to handgun
ownership; he is asserting a right to a registration certificate, the
denial of which is his distinct injury.

We note that the Ninth Circuit has recently dealt with a
Second Amendment claim by first extensively analyzing that
provision, determining that it does not provide an individual
right, and then, and only then, concluding that the plaintiff
lacked standing to challenge a California statute restricting the
possession, use, and transfer of assault weapons. See Silveira v.
Lockyer, 312 F.3d 1052, 1066-67 & n.18 (9th Cir. 2003). We
think such an approach is doctrinally quite unsound. The
Supreme Court has made clear that when considering whether
a plaintiff has Article III standing, a federal court must assume
arguendo the merits of his or her legal claim. See Warth v.
Seldin, 422 U.S. 490, 501-02 (1975) (assuming factual
allegations and legal theory of complaint for purposes of
standing analysis). We have repeatedly recognized that
proposition. See Waukesha v. E.P.A., 320 F.3d 228, 235 (D.C.
Cir. 2003); Am. Fed’n of Gov’t Employees, AFL-CIO v. Pierce,
697 F.2d 303, 305 (D.C. Cir. 1982). “Indeed, in reviewing the
standing question, the court must be careful not to decide the
questions on the merits for or against the plaintiff, and must
therefore assume that on the merits the plaintiffs would be
successful in their claims.” Waukesha, 320 F.3d at 235 (citing
Warth, 422 U.S. at 502). This is no less true when, as here, the
merits involve the scope of a constitutional protection.

Still, we have not always been so clear on this point.
Although we recognized in Claybrook v. Slater, 111 F.3d 904
(D.C. Cir. 1997), that it was not necessary for a plaintiff to
 11

demonstrate that he or she would prevail on the merits in order
to have Article III standing, the rest of our discussion seems
somewhat in tension with that proposition. We did recognize
that in Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife, 504 U.S. 555, 560-61
(1992), when the Supreme Court used the phrase “legally
protected interest” as an element of injury-in-fact, it made clear
it was referring only to a “cognizable interest.” Claybrook, 111
F.3d at 906-07. The Court in Lujan concluded that plaintiffs had
a “cognizable interest” in observing animal species without
considering whether the plaintiffs had a legal right to do so. Id.
(citing Lujan, 504 U.S. at 562-63). We think it plain the Lujan
Court did not mean to suggest a return to the old “legal right”
theory of standing rejected in Association of Data Processing
Service Organizations, Inc. v. Camp, 397 U.S. 150, 153-54
(1970), because it cited Warth, inter alia, as precedent for the
sentence which included the phrase “legally protected interest.”
Lujan, 504 U.S. at 560. Rather, the cognizable interest to which
the Court referred would distinguish, to pick one example, a
desire to observe certain aspects of the environment from a
generalized wish to see the Constitution and laws obeyed.
Indeed, in Judicial Watch, Inc. v. United States Senate, 432 F.3d
359 (D.C. Cir. 2005), Judge Williams wrote an extensive
concurring opinion (not inconsistent with the majority opinion)
in which he persuasively explains that the term “legally
protected interest,” as used in Lujan, could not have been
intended to deviate from Warth’s general proposition that we
assume the merits when evaluating standing. Id. at 363-66.

In Claybrook, we went on to say, quite inconsistently, that
“if the plaintiff’s claim has no foundation in law, he has no
legally protected interest and thus no standing to sue.”
Claybrook, 111 F.3d at 907. We concluded that plaintiff lacked
standing, however, because the government agency in that case
had unfettered discretion to take the action it did, and therefore
there was “no law to apply.” Id. at 908. Thus the decision in
 12

Claybrook was actually based on a separate jurisdictional
ground—reviewability under the Administrative Procedure
Act—and federal courts may choose any ground to deny
jurisdiction, e.g., Article III standing, prudential standing, or
subject matter jurisdiction. See Judicial Watch, 432 F.3d at 366
(Williams, J., concurring) (noting that Claybrook is hard to
classify as a standing opinion). There is no hierarchy which
obliges a court to decide Article III standing issues before other
jurisdictional questions. In re Papandreou, 139 F.3d 247, 255-
56 (D.C. Cir. 1998). Therefore, we do not read Claybrook to
stand for the proposition, contra Warth, that we must evaluate
the existence vel non of appellants’ Second Amendment claim
as a standing question.2

In sum, we conclude that Heller has standing to raise his
§ 1983 challenge to specific provisions of the District’s gun
control laws.

III

As we noted, the Second Amendment provides:

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the
security of a free State, the right of the people to keep
and bear Arms shall not be infringed.

U.S. CONST. amend. II.

2
Admittedly, in Taylor v. F.D.I.C., 132 F.3d 753, 767 (D.C. Cir.
1997), we observed that the causation requirement of standing could
coincide with the causal element in a cause of action. But cf. id. at 770
(Rogers, J., concurring). Whether that was correct or not, we
concluded that even in that unique situation, not present here, we had
discretion to decide the case on the merits or on standing grounds. Id.
at 767-68.
 13

The provision’s second comma divides the Amendment into
two clauses; the first is prefatory, and the second operative.
Appellants’ argument is focused on their reading of the Second
Amendment’s operative clause. According to appellants, the
Amendment’s language flat out guarantees an individual right
“to keep and bear Arms.” Appellants concede that the prefatory
clause expresses a civic purpose, but argue that this purpose,
while it may inform the meaning of an ambiguous term like
“Arms,” does not qualify the right guaranteed by the operative
portion of the Amendment.

The District of Columbia argues that the prefatory clause
declares the Amendment’s only purpose—to shield the state
militias from federal encroachment—and that the operative
clause, even when read in isolation, speaks solely to military
affairs and guarantees a civic, rather than an individual, right.
In other words, according to the District, the operative clause is
not just limited by the prefatory clause, but instead both clauses
share an explicitly civic character. The District claims that the
Second Amendment “protects private possession of weapons
only in connection with performance of civic duties as part of a
well-regulated citizens militia organized for the security of a
free state.” Individuals may be able to enforce the Second
Amendment right, but only if the law in question “will impair
their participation in common defense and law enforcement
when called to serve in the militia.” But because the District
reads “a well regulated Militia” to signify only the organized
militias of the founding era—institutions that the District
implicitly argues are no longer in existence today—invocation
of the Second Amendment right is conditioned upon service in
a defunct institution. Tellingly, we think, the District did not
suggest what sort of law, if any, would violate the Second
Amendment today—in fact, at oral argument, appellees’ counsel
asserted that it would be constitutional for the District to ban all
 14

firearms outright. In short, we take the District’s position to be
that the Second Amendment is a dead letter.

We are told by the District that the Second Amendment was
written in response to fears that the new federal government
would disarm the state militias by preventing men from bearing
arms while in actual militia service, or by preventing them from
keeping arms at home in preparation for such service. Thus the
Amendment should be understood to check federal power to
regulate firearms only when federal legislation was directed at
the abolition of state militias, because the Amendment’s
exclusive concern was the preservation of those entities. At first
blush, it seems passing strange that the able lawyers and
statesmen in the First Congress (including James Madison)
would have expressed a sole concern for state militias with the
language of the Second Amendment. Surely there was a more
direct locution, such as “Congress shall make no law disarming
the state militias” or “States have a right to a well-regulated
militia.”

The District’s argument—as strained as it seems to us—is
hardly an isolated view. In the Second Amendment debate,
there are two camps. On one side are the collective right
theorists who argue that the Amendment protects only a right of
the various state governments to preserve and arm their militias.
So understood, the right amounts to an expression of militant
federalism, prohibiting the federal government from denuding
the states of their armed fighting forces. On the other side of the
debate are those who argue that the Second Amendment protects
a right of individuals to possess arms for private use. To these
individual right theorists, the Amendment guarantees personal
liberty analogous to the First Amendment’s protection of free
speech, or the Fourth Amendment’s right to be free from
unreasonable searches and seizures. However, some
 15

entrepreneurial scholars purport to occupy a middle ground
between the individual and collective right models.

The most prominent in-between theory developed by
academics has been named the “sophisticated collective right”
model.3 The sophisticated collective right label describes
several variations on the collective right theme. All versions of
this model share two traits: They (1) acknowledge individuals
could, theoretically, raise Second Amendment claims against the
federal government, but (2) define the Second Amendment as a
purely civic provision that offers no protection for the private
use and ownership of arms.

The District advances this sort of theory and suggests that
the ability of individuals to raise Second Amendment claims
serves to distinguish it from the pure collective right model. But
when seen in terms of its practical consequences, the fact that
individuals have standing to invoke the Second Amendment is,
in our view, a distinction without a difference. But cf. United
States v. Emerson, 270 F.3d 203, 218-21 (5th Cir. 2001)
(treating the sophisticated collective right model as distinct from
the collective right theory). Both the collective and
sophisticated collective theories assert that the Second
Amendment was written for the exclusive purpose of preserving
state militias, and both theories deny that individuals qua
individuals can avail themselves of the Second Amendment
today. The latter point is true either because, as the District
appears to argue, the “Militia” is no longer in existence, or, as

3
See United States v. Parker, 362 F.3d 1279, 1284 (10th Cir.
2004); United States v. Price, 328 F.3d 958, 961 (7th Cir. 2003);
United States v. Emerson, 270 F.3d 203, 219 (5th Cir. 2001); Seegars
v. Aschcroft, 297 F. Supp. 2d 201, 218 (D.D.C. 2004); see also Robert
J. Cottrol & Raymond T. Diamond, The Fifth Auxiliary Right, 104
YALE L.J. 995, 1003-04 (1995).
 16

others argue, because the militia’s modern analogue, the
National Guard, is fully equipped by the federal government,
creating no need for individual ownership of firearms. It
appears to us that for all its nuance, the sophisticated collective
right model amounts to the old collective right theory giving a
tip of the hat to the problematic (because ostensibly individual)
text of the Second Amendment.

The lower courts are divided between these competing
interpretations. Federal appellate courts have largely adopted
the collective right model.4 Only the Fifth Circuit has
interpreted the Second Amendment to protect an individual
right.5 State appellate courts, whose interpretations of the U.S.

4
See Silveira, 312 F.3d at 1092; Gillespie v. City of Indianapolis,
185 F.3d 693, 710 (7th Cir. 1999); United States v. Wright, 117 F.3d
1265, 1273-74 (11th Cir. 1997); United States v. Rybar, 103 F.3d 273,
286 (3d Cir. 1996); Love v. Pepersack, 47 F.3d 120, 122 (4th Cir.
1995); United States v. Hale, 978 F.2d 1016, 1019-20 (8th Cir. 1992);
United States v. Oakes, 564 F.2d 384, 387 (10th Cir. 1977); United
States v. Warin, 530 F.2d 103, 106 (6th Cir. 1976); Cases v. United
States, 131 F.2d 916, 921-23 (1st Cir. 1942).

The District cites a decision in the Second Circuit, United States
v. Toner, 728 F.2d 115 (2d Cir. 1984), as holding that the Second
Amendment protects only a right related to “civic purposes.” The
District’s reliance on this case is plainly wrong. In Toner, the court
stated only that the Second Amendment right was not “fundamental.”
Id. at 128. The opinion in no way addressed the question whether the
Second Amendment requires that use and possession of a weapon be
for civic purposes. We are not aware of any Second Circuit decision
that directly addresses the collective versus individual nature of the
Second Amendment right. See Silveira, 312 F.3d at 1063 n.11 (noting
that only the Second and D.C. Circuits had yet to decide nature of
Second Amendment right).
5
Emerson, 270 F.3d at 264-65.
 17

Constitution are no less authoritative than those of our sister
circuits, offer a more balanced picture.6 And the United States
Department of Justice has recently adopted the individual right
model. See Op. Off. of Legal Counsel, “Whether the Second
Amendment Secures an Individual Right” (2004) available at
http://www.usdoj.gov/olc/secondamendment2.pdf; see also
Memorandum from John Ashcroft, Attorney General, to All
United States’ Attorneys (Nov. 9, 2001), reprinted in Br. for the
United States in Opposition at 26, Emerson, 536 U.S. 907 (No.
01-8780). The great legal treatises of the nineteenth century
support the individual right interpretation, see Silveira v.
Lockyer, 328 F.3d 567, 583-85 (9th Cir. 2003) (Kleinfeld, J.,
dissenting from denial of rehearing en banc); Emerson, 270 F.3d

6
Of the state appellate courts that have examined the question, at
least seven have held that the Second Amendment protects an
individual right, see Hilberg v. F.W. Woolworth Co., 761 P.2d 236,
240 (Colo. Ct. App. 1988); Brewer v. Commonwealth, 206 S.W.3d
343, 347 & n.5 (Ky. 2006); State v. Blanchard, 776 So. 2d 1165, 1168
(La. 2001); State v. Nickerson, 247 P.2d 188, 192 (Mont. 1952);
Stillwell v. Stillwell, 2001 WL 862620, at *4 (Tenn. Ct. App. July 30,
2001); State v. Anderson, 2000 WL 122218, at *7 n.3 (Tenn. Crim.
App. Jan. 26, 2000); State v. Williams, 148 P.3d 993, 998 (Wash.
2006); Rohrbaugh v. State, 607 S.E.2d 404, 412 (W. Va. 2004),
whereas at least ten state appellate courts (including the District of
Columbia) have endorsed the collective right position, see United
States v. Sandidge, 520 A.2d 1057, 1058 (D.C. 1987); Commonwealth
v. Davis, 343 N.E.2d 847, 850 (Mass. 1976); In re Atkinson, 291
N.W.2d 396, 398 n.1 (Minn. 1980); Harris v. State, 432 P.2d 929, 930
(Nev. 1967); Burton v. Sills, 248 A.2d 521, 526 (N.J. 1968); In re
Cassidy, 51 N.Y.S.2d 202, 205 (N.Y. App. Div. 1944); State v.
Fennell, 382 S.E.2d 231, 232 (N.C. Ct. App. 1989); Mosher v. City of
Dayton, 358 N.E.2d 540, 543 (Ohio 1976); Master v. State, 653
S.W.2d 944, 945 (Tex. App. 1983); State v. Vlacil, 645 P.2d 677, 679
(Utah 1982); see also Kalodimos v. Village of Morton Grove, 470
N.E.2d 266, 269 (Ill. 1984) (stating in dicta that Second Amendment
protects collective right).
 18

at 236, 255-59, as does Professor Laurence Tribe’s leading
treatise on constitutional law.7 Because we have no direct
precedent—either in this court or the Supreme Court—that
provides us with a square holding on the question, we turn first
to the text of the Amendment.

A

We start by considering the competing claims about the
meaning of the Second Amendment’s operative clause: “the
right of the people to keep and bear Arms shall not be
infringed.” Appellants contend that “the right of the people”
clearly contemplates an individual right and that “keep and bear
Arms” necessarily implies private use and ownership. The
District’s primary argument is that “keep and bear Arms” is best
read in a military sense, and, as a consequence, the entire
operative clause should be understood as granting only a
collective right. The District also argues that “the right of the
people” is ambiguous as to whether the right protects civic or
private ownership and use of weapons.

In determining whether the Second Amendment’s guarantee
is an individual one, or some sort of collective right, the most
important word is the one the drafters chose to describe the
holders of the right—“the people.” That term is found in the
First, Second, Fourth, Ninth, and Tenth Amendments. It has
never been doubted that these provisions were designed to
protect the interests of individuals against government intrusion,
interference, or usurpation. We also note that the Tenth

7
See 1 LAURENCE TRIBE, AMERICAN CONSTITUTIONAL LAW 902
& n.221 (3d ed. 2000). Professor Tribe was not always of this view.
See Sanford Levinson, The Embarrassing Second Amendment, 99
YALE L.J. 637, 640 (1989) (critiquing Tribe’s earlier collective right
position).
 19

Amendment—“The powers not delegated to the United States
by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are
reserved to the states respectively, or to the people”—indicates
that the authors of the Bill of Rights were perfectly capable of
distinguishing between “the people,” on the one hand, and “the
states,” on the other. The natural reading of “the right of the
people” in the Second Amendment would accord with usage
elsewhere in the Bill of Rights.

The District’s argument, on the other hand, asks us to read
“the people” to mean some subset of individuals such as “the
organized militia” or “the people who are engaged in militia
service,” or perhaps not any individuals at all—e.g., “the states.”
See Emerson, 270 F.3d at 227. These strained interpretations of
“the people” simply cannot be squared with the uniform
construction of our other Bill of Rights provisions. Indeed, the
Supreme Court has recently endorsed a uniform reading of “the
people” across the Bill of Rights. In United States v. Verdugo-
Urquidez, 494 U.S. 259 (1990), the Court looked specifically at
the Constitution and Bill of Rights’ use of “people” in the course
of holding that the Fourth Amendment did not protect the rights
of non-citizens on foreign soil:

“[T]he people” seems to have been a term of art
employed in select parts of the Constitution. The
Preamble declares that the Constitution is ordained and
established by “the People of the United States.” The
Second Amendment protects “the right of the people to
keep and bear Arms,” and the Ninth and Tenth
Amendments provide that certain rights and powers are
retained by and reserved to “the people.” See also U.S.
CONST., amdt. 1; Art. I, § 2, cl. 1. While this textual
exegesis is by no means conclusive, it suggests that
“the people” protected by the Fourth Amendment, and
by the First and Second Amendments, and to whom
 20

rights and powers are reserved in the Ninth and Tenth
Amendments, refers to a class of persons who are part
of a national community or who have otherwise
developed sufficient connection with this country to be
considered part of that community.

Id. at 265. It seems unlikely that the Supreme Court would have
lumped these provisions together without comment if it were of
the view that the Second Amendment protects only a collective
right. The Court’s discussion certainly indicates—if it does not
definitively determine—that we should not regard “the people”
in the Second Amendment as somehow restricted to a small
subset of “the people” meriting protection under the other
Amendments’ use of that same term.

In sum, the phrase “the right of the people,” when read
intratextually and in light of Supreme Court precedent, leads us
to conclude that the right in question is individual. This
proposition is true even though “the people” at the time of the
founding was not as inclusive a concept as “the people” today.
See Robert E. Shallope, To Keep and Bear Arms in the Early
Republic, 16 CONST. COMMENT. 269, 280-81 (1999). To the
extent that non-whites, women, and the propertyless were
excluded from the protections afforded to “the people,” the
Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment is
understood to have corrected that initial constitutional
shortcoming.

The wording of the operative clause also indicates that the
right to keep and bear arms was not created by government, but
rather preserved by it. See Thomas B. McAffee & Michael J.
Quinlan, Bringing Forward the Right to Keep and Bear Arms:
Do Text, History, or Precedent Stand in the Way?, 75 N.C. L.
REV. 781, 890 (1997). Hence, the Amendment acknowledges
“the right . . . to keep and bear Arms,” a right that pre-existed
 21

the Constitution like “the freedom of speech.” Because the right
to arms existed prior to the formation of the new government,
see Robertson v. Baldwin, 165 U.S. 275, 280 (1897) (describing
the origin of the Bill of Rights in English law), the Second
Amendment only guarantees that the right “shall not be
infringed.” Thomas Cooley, in his influential treatise, observed
that the Second Amendment had its origins in the struggle with
the Stuart monarchs in late-seventeenth-century England. See
THOMAS M. COOLEY, THE GENERAL PRINCIPLES OF
CONSTITUTIONAL LAW IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 270-
72 (Rothman & Co. 1981) (1880).8

8
Indeed, England’s Bill of Rights of 1689 guaranteed “[t]hat the
Subjects, which are Protestants, may have Arms for their Defence,
suitable to their conditions, as allowed by law.” 1 W. & M., Sess. 2,
c. 2. Here too, however, the right was not newly created, but rather
recognized as part of the common law tradition. The ancient origin of
the right in England was affirmed almost a century later, in the
aftermath of the anti-Catholic Gordon riots of 1780, when the
Recorder of London, who was the foremost legal advisor to the city as
well as the chief judge of the Old Bailey, gave the following opinion
on the legality of private organizations armed for defense against
rioters:

The right of His majesty’s Protestant subjects, to have arms for
their own defence, and to use them for lawful purposes, is most
clear and undeniable. It seems, indeed, to be considered, by the
ancient laws of the Kingdom, not only as a right, but as a duty;
for all the subjects of the realm, who are able to bear arms, are
bound to be ready, at all times, to assist the sheriff, and other
civil magistrates, in the execution of the laws and the
preservation of the public peace. And that right which every
Protestant most unquestionably possesses, individually, may, and
in many cases must, be exercised collectively, is likewise a point
which I conceive to be most clearly established by the authority
of judicial decisions and ancient acts of parliament, as well as by
reason and common sense.
 22

To determine what interests this pre-existing right
protected, we look to the lawful, private purposes for which
people of the time owned and used arms. The correspondence
and political dialogue of the founding era indicate that arms
were kept for lawful use in self-defense and hunting. See
Emerson, 270 F.3d at 251-55 (collecting historical materials);
Robert E. Shallope, The Ideological Origins of the Second
Amendment, 69 J. AM. HIST. 599, 602-14 (1982); see also PA.
CONST. sec. 43 (Sept. 28, 1776) (“The inhabitants of this state
shall have liberty to fowl and hunt in seasonable times on the
lands they hold, and on all other lands therein not enclosed
. . . .”).

The pre-existing right to keep and bear arms was premised
on the commonplace assumption that individuals would use
them for these private purposes, in addition to whatever militia
service they would be obligated to perform for the state. The
premise that private arms would be used for self-defense accords
with Blackstone’s observation, which had influenced thinking
in the American colonies, that the people’s right to arms was
auxiliary to the natural right of self-preservation. See WILLIAM
BLACKSTONE, 1 COMMENTARIES *136, *139; see also Silveira,
328 F.3d at 583-85 (Kleinfeld, J.); Kasler v. Lockyer, 2 P.3d
581, 602 (Cal. 2000) (Brown, J., concurring). The right of self-
preservation, in turn, was understood as the right to defend
oneself against attacks by lawless individuals, or, if absolutely
necessary, to resist and throw off a tyrannical government. See
Silveira, 328 F.3d at 583-85 (Kleinfeld, J.); see also id. at 569-

Opinion on the Legality of the London Military Foot Association,
reprinted in WILLIAM BLIZZARD, DESULTORY REFLECTIONS ON
POLICE 59-60 (1785). For further examination of the Second
Amendment’s English origins, see generally JOYCE LEE MALCOLM,
TO KEEP AND BEAR ARMS (1994).
 23

70 (Kozinski, J., dissenting from the denial of rehearing en
banc); Kasler, 2 P.3d at 605 (Brown, J., concurring).9

When we look at the Bill of Rights as a whole, the setting
of the Second Amendment reinforces its individual nature. The
Bill of Rights was almost entirely a declaration of individual
rights, and the Second Amendment’s inclusion therein strongly
indicates that it, too, was intended to protect personal liberty.
The collective right advocates ask us to imagine that the First
Congress situated a sui generis states’ right among a catalogue

9
The importance of the private right of self-defense is hardly
surprising when one remembers that most Americans lacked a
professional police force until the middle of the nineteenth century,
see Levinson, supra, at 646 & n.46, and that many Americans lived in
backcountry such as the Northwest Territory.

With respect to the right to defend oneself against tyranny and
oppression, some have argued that the Second Amendment is utterly
irrelevant because the arms it protects, even if commonly owned,
would be of no use when opposed to the arsenal of the modern state.
But as Judge Kozinski has noted, incidents such as the Warsaw ghetto
uprising of 1943 provide rather dramatic evidence to the contrary. See
Silveira, 328 F.3d at 569-70 (dissenting from the denial of rehearing
en banc). The deterrent effect of a well-armed populace is surely
more important than the probability of overall success in a full-out
armed conflict. Thus could Madison write to the people of New York
in 1788:

Notwithstanding the military establishments in the several
kingdoms of Europe, which are carried as far as public resources
will bear, the governments are afraid to trust the people with
arms. And it is not certain that with this aid alone they would not
be able to shake off their yokes.

THE FEDERALIST NO. 46, at 299-300 (James Madison) (Clinton
Rossiter ed., 1961).
 24

of cherished individual liberties without comment. We believe
the canon of construction known as noscitur a sociis applies
here. Just as we would read an ambiguous statutory term in
light of its context, we should read any supposed ambiguities in
the Second Amendment in light of its context. Every other
provision of the Bill of Rights, excepting the Tenth, which
speaks explicitly about the allocation of governmental power,
protects rights enjoyed by citizens in their individual capacity.
The Second Amendment would be an inexplicable aberration if
it were not read to protect individual rights as well.

The District insists that the phrase “keep and bear Arms”
should be read as purely military language, and thus indicative
of a civic, rather than private, guarantee. The term “bear Arms”
is obviously susceptible to a military construction. But it is not
accurate to construe it exclusively so. First, the word “bear” in
this context is simply a more formal synonym for “carry,” i.e.,
“Beware of Greeks bearing gifts.” The Oxford English
Dictionary and the original Webster’s list the primary meaning
of “bear” as “to support” or “to carry.” See Silveira, 328 F.3d
at 573 (Kleinfeld, J.). Dr. Johnson’s Dictionary—which the
Supreme Court often relies upon to ascertain the founding-era
understanding of text, see, e.g., Eldred v. Ashcroft, 537 U.S.
186, 199 (2003)—is in accord. The first three definitions for
“bear” are “to carry as a burden,” “to convey or carry,” and “to
carry as a mark of authority.” See JOHNSON’S AND WALKER’S
ENGLISH DICTIONARIES COMBINED 126 (J.E. Worcester ed.,
1830) [hereinafter Johnson].

Historical usage, as gleaned from the O.E.D. and Webster’s,
supports the notion that “bear arms” was sometimes used as an
idiom signifying the use of weaponry in conjunction with
military service. However, these sources also confirm that the
idiomatic usage was not absolute. Silveira, 328 F.3d at 573
(Kleinfeld, J.); Emerson, 270 F.3d at 229-32. Just as it is clear
 25

that the phrase “to bear arms” was in common use as a byword
for soldiering in the founding era, see, e.g., Gary Wills, To Keep
and Bear Arms, N.Y. REV. OF BOOKS, Sept. 21, 1995, at 62-73,
it is equally evident from a survey of late eighteenth- and early
nineteenth-century state constitutional provisions that the public
understanding of “bear Arms” also encompassed the carrying of
arms for private purposes such as self-defense. See Emerson,
270 F.3d at 230 n.29 (collecting state constitutional provisions
referring to the people’s right to “bear arms in defence of
themselves and the State” among other formulations). Thus, it
would hardly have been unusual for a writer at the time (or now)
to have said that, after an attack on a house by thieves, the men
set out to find them “bearing arms.”

The District relies heavily on the use of “bearing arms” in
a conscientious objector clause that formed part of Madison’s
initial draft of the Second Amendment. The purpose of this
clause, which was later dropped from the Amendment’s text,
was to excuse those “religiously scrupulous of bearing arms”
from being forced “to render military service in person.” THE
COMPLETE BILL OF RIGHTS 169 (Neil H. Cogan ed. 1997). The
District argues that the conscientious objector clause thus
equates “bearing arms” with military service. The Quakers,
Mennonites, and other pacifist sects that were to benefit by the
conscientious objector clause had scruples against soldiering,
but not necessarily hunting, which, like soldiering, involved the
carrying of arms. And if “bearing arms” only meant “carrying
arms,” it is argued, the phrase would not have been used in the
conscientious objector clause because Quakers were not
religiously scrupulous of carrying arms generally; it was
carrying arms for militant purposes that the Friends truly
abhorred (although many Quakers certainly frowned on hunting
as the wanton infliction of cruelty upon animals). See THOMAS
CLARKSON, A PORTRAITURE OF QUAKERISM, VOL. I. That
Madison’s conscientious objector clause appears to use “bearing
 26

arms” in a strictly military sense does at least suggest that “bear
Arms” in the Second Amendment’s operative clause includes
the carrying of arms for military purposes. However, there are
too many instances of “bear arms” indicating private use to
conclude that the drafters intended only a military sense.

In addition to the state constitutional provisions collected in
Emerson, there is the following statement in the report issued by
the dissenting delegates at the Pennsylvania ratification
convention:

That the people have a right to bear arms for the
defence of themselves and their own state, or the
United States, or for the purpose of killing game . . . .

THE ADDRESS AND REASONS OF DISSENT OF THE MINORITY OF
THE CONVENTION OF PENNSYLVANIA TO THEIR CONSTITUENTS,
reprinted in 3 THE COMPLETE ANTI-FEDERALIST 145, 151
(Herbert J. Storing ed., 1981). These dissenting Antifederalists,
writing in December 1787, were clearly using “bear arms” to
include uses of weaponry outside the militia setting—e.g., one
may “bear arms . . . for the purpose of killing game.”10

10
To be sure, collective right theorists have correctly observed
that the Pennsylvania dissenters were not speaking for anyone but
themselves—that is, they lost in their attempt to defeat ratification of
the Constitution, and lacked the clout to have their suggested
amendments sent to the First Congress, unlike the Antifederalist
delegates in other state conventions. See Jack N. Rakove, The Second
Amendment: The Highest Stage of Originalism, 76 CHI.-KENT L. REV.
103, 134-35 (2000). But that the dissenting delegates were political
losers does not undercut their status as competent users of late-
eighteenth-century English.
 27

We also note that at least three current members (and one
former member) of the Supreme Court have read “bear Arms”
in the Second Amendment to have meaning beyond mere
soldiering: “Surely a most familiar meaning [of ‘carries a
firearm’] is, as the Constitution’s Second Amendment (‘keep
and bear Arms’) and Black’s Law Dictionary . . . indicate:
‘wear, bear, or carry . . . upon the person or in the clothing or in
a pocket, for the purpose . . . of being armed and ready for
offensive or defensive action in a case of conflict with another
person.” Muscarello v. United States, 524 U.S. 125, 143 (1998)
(Ginsburg, J., dissenting, joined by Rehnquist, C.J., Scalia, J.,
and Souter, J.) (emphasis in original). Based on the foregoing,
we think the operative clause includes a private meaning for
“bear Arms.”

In contrast to the collective right theorists’ extensive efforts
to tease out the meaning of “bear,” the conjoined, preceding
verb “keep” has been almost entirely neglected. In that
tradition, the District offers a cursory and largely dismissive
analysis of the verb. The District appears to claim that “keep
and bear” is a unitary term and that the individual word “keep”
should be given no independent significance. This suggestion
is somewhat risible in light of the District’s admonishment,
earlier in its brief, that when interpreting constitutional text
“every word must have its due force, and appropriate meaning;
. . . no word was unnecessarily used or needlessly added.”
Appellees’ Br. at 23 (quoting Holmes v. Jennison, 39 U.S. (14
Pet.) 540, 570-71 (1840)). Even if “keep” and “bear” are not
read as a unitary term, we are told, the meaning of “keep”
cannot be broader than “bear” because the Second Amendment
only protects the use of arms in the course of militia service. Id.
at 26-27. But this proposition assumes its conclusion, and we do
not take it seriously.
 28

One authority cited by the District has attempted to equate
“keep” with “keep up,” a term that had been used in phrases
such as “keep up a standing army” or, as in the Articles of
Confederation, “every state shall keep up a well regulated and
disciplined militia . . . .” See Wills, supra, at 66. The argument
that “keep” as used in “the right of the people to keep . . . Arms”
shares a military meaning with “keep up” as used in “every state
shall keep up a well regulated militia” mocks usage, syntax, and
common sense. Such outlandish views are likely advanced
because the plain meaning of “keep” strikes a mortal blow to the
collective right theory. Turning again to Dr. Johnson’s
Dictionary, we see that the first three definitions of “keep” are
“to retain; not to lose,” “to have in custody,” “to preserve; not to
let go.” Johnson, supra, at 540. We think “keep” is a
straightforward term that implies ownership or possession of a
functioning weapon by an individual for private use. Emerson,
270 F.3d at 231 & n.31; accord Silveira, 328 F.3d at 573-74
(Kleinfeld, J.). The term “bear arms,” when viewed in isolation,
might be thought ambiguous; it could have a military cast. But
since “the people” and “keep” have obvious individual and
private meanings, we think those words resolve any supposed
ambiguity in the term “bear arms.”

***

The parties generally agree that the prefatory clause, to
which we now turn, declares the Second Amendment’s civic
purpose—i.e., insuring the continuance of the militia
system—and only disagree over whether that purpose was
exclusive. The parties do attribute dramatically different
meanings to “a well regulated Militia.” Appellants argue that
the militia referenced in the Second Amendment’s prefatory
clause was “practically synonymous” with “the people”
referenced in the operative clause. The District advances a
much more limited definition. According to the District, the
 29

militia was a body of adult men regulated and organized by state
law as a civilian fighting force. The crucial distinction between
the parties’ views then goes to the nature of the militia:
Appellants claim no organization was required, whereas the
District claims a militia did not exist unless it was subject to
state discipline and leadership. As we have already noted, the
District claims that “the Framers’ militia has faded into
insignificance.”

The parties draw on United States v. Miller, 307 U.S. 174
(1939), to support their differing definitions. Miller, a rare
Second Amendment precedent in the Supreme Court, the
holding of which we discuss below, described the militia in the
following terms:

The Militia which the States were expected to
maintain and train is set in contrast with Troops which
they were forbidden to keep without the consent of
Congress. The sentiment of the time strongly
disfavored standing armies; the common view was that
adequate defense of country and laws could be secured
through the Militia—civilians primarily, soldiers on
occasion.

The signification attributed to the term Militia
appears from the debates in the Convention, the history
and legislation of Colonies and States, and the writings
of approved commentators. These show plainly enough
that the Militia comprised all males physically capable
of acting in concert for the common defense. “A body
of citizens enrolled for military discipline.” And
further, that ordinarily when called for service these
men were expected to appear bearing arms supplied by
themselves and of the kind in common use at the time.
 30

Id. at 178-79.

The District claims that Miller’s historical account of the
“Militia” supports its position. Yet according to Miller, the
militia included “all males physically capable of acting in
concert for the common defence” who were “enrolled for
military discipline.” And Miller’s expansive definition of the
militia—qualitatively different from the District’s concept—is
in accord with the second Militia Act of 1792, passed by the
Second Congress.11 Act of May 8, 1792, ch. XXXIII, 1 Stat.
271. Of course, many of the members of the Second Congress
were also members of the First, which had drafted the Bill of
Rights. But more importantly, they were conversant with the
common understanding of both the First Congress and the
ratifying state legislatures as to what was meant by “Militia” in
the Second Amendment. The second Militia Act placed specific
and extensive requirements on the citizens who were to
constitute the militia:

Be it enacted . . . [t]hat each and every free able-bodied
white male citizen of the respective 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, by the captain or

11
The second Militia Act was passed on May 8, 1792. On May
2, 1792, Congress had enacted a Militia Act “providing for the
authority of the President to call out the Militia.” Act of May 2, 1792,
ch. XXVIII, 1 Stat. 264. The first Militia Act gave the President
power to call forth the Militia in cases of invasion by a foreign nation
or Indian tribe, and also in cases of internal rebellion. If the militia of
the state wherein the rebellion was taking place either was unable to
suppress it or refused to be called up, the first Militia Act gave the
President authority to use militia from other states.
 31

commanding officer of the company, within whose
bounds such citizen shall reside, and that within twelve
months after the passing of this Act. And . . . every
such captain or commanding officer of a company . . .
shall without delay notify such citizen of the said
enrollment . . . . That every citizen, so enrolled and
notified, shall, within six months thereafter, provide
himself with a good musket or firelock, a sufficient
bayonet and belt, two spare flints, and a knapsack, a
pouch, with a box therein, to contain not less than
twenty four cartridges, suited to the bore of his musket
or firelock, each cartridge to contain a proper quantity
of powder and ball: or with a good rifle, knapsack,
shot-pouch, and powder-horn, twenty balls suited to
the bore of his rifle, and a quarter of a pound of
powder; and shall appear so armed, accoutred and
provided, when called out to exercise, or into service.

Id. (emphasis added).12

The reader will note that the Act’s first requirement is that
the “free able-bodied white male” population between eighteen
and forty-five enroll in the militia. And enrollment was quite
distinct from the various other regulations prescribed by
Congress, which included the type of weaponry members of the
militia must own. Becoming “enrolled” in the militia appears to

12
Congress enacted this provision pursuant to its Article I, Section
8 powers over the militia: “The Congress shall have the power . . . [t]o
provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the militia, and for
governing such part of them as may be employed in the service of the
United States, reserving to the states respectively, the appointment of
the officers, and the authority of training the militia according to the
discipline prescribed by Congress . . . .” U.S. CONST., art. I., sec. 8.
 32

have involved providing one’s name and whereabouts to a local
militia officer—somewhat analogous to our nation’s current
practice of requiring young men to register under the Selective
Service Act. Silveira, 328 F.3d at 578 (Kleinfeld, J.). Thus
when read in light of the second Militia Act, Miller defines the
militia as having only two primary characteristics: It was all
free, white, able-bodied men of a certain age who had given
their names to the local militia officers as eligible for militia
service. Contrary to the District’s view, there was no
organizational condition precedent to the existence of the
“Militia.” Congress went on in the second Militia Act to
prescribe a number of rules for organizing the militia. But the
militia itself was the raw material from which an organized
fighting force was to be created. Thus, the second Militia Act
reads:

And be it further enacted, That out of the militia
enrolled as is herein directed, there shall be formed for
each battalion at least one company of grenadiers, light
infantry or riflemen; and that to each division there
shall be at least one company of artillery, and one troop
of horse: There shall be to each company of artillery,
one captain, two lieutenants, four sergeants, four
corporals, six gunners, six bombardiers, one drummer,
and one fifer.

Id. at 272 (emphasis added).

The crucial point is that the existence of the militia
preceded its organization by Congress, and it preceded the
implementation of Congress’s organizing plan by the states.
The District’s definition of the militia is just too narrow. The
militia was a large segment of the population—not quite
synonymous with “the people,” as appellants contend—but
certainly not the organized “divisions, brigades, regiments,
 33

battalions, and companies” mentioned in the second Militia Act.
Id. at 272.

The current congressional definition of the “Militia”
accords with original usage: “The militia of the United States
consists of all able-bodied males at least 17 years of age and . . .
under 45 years of age who are, or who have made a declaration
of intention to become, citizens of the United States and of
female citizens of the United States who are members of the
National Guard.” 10 U.S.C. § 311. The statute then
distinguishes between the “organized militia,” which consists of
the National Guard and Naval Militia, and the “unorganized
militia,” which consists of every member of the militia who is
not a member of the National Guard or Naval Militia. Id. Just
as in the 1792 enactment, Congress defined the militia broadly,
and, more explicitly than in its founding-era counterpart,
Congress provided that a large portion of the militia would
remain unorganized. The District has a similar structure for its
own militia: “Every able-bodied male citizen resident within the
District of Columbia, of the age of 18 years and under the age of
45 years, excepting . . . idiots, lunatics, common drunkards,
vagabonds, paupers, and persons convicted of any infamous
crime, shall be enrolled in the militia.” D.C. Code § 49-401.

The District argues that the modifier “well regulated”
means that “[t]he militia was not individuals acting on their
own; one cannot be a one-person militia.” We quite agree that
the militia was a collective body designed to act in concert. But
we disagree with the District that the use of “well regulated” in
the constitutional text somehow turns the popular militia
embodied in the 1792 Act into a “select” militia that consisted
of semi-professional soldiers like our current National Guard.
Contemporaneous legislation once again provides us with
guidance in reading ambiguous constitutional text. See Op. at
30; see also Silveira, 328 F.3d at 579-80 (Kleinfeld, J.).
 34

The second Militia Act provides a detailed list of directions
to both individuals and states that we take as an indication of
what the drafters of the Second Amendment contemplated as a
“well regulated Militia.” It will be recalled, the second Militia
Act requires that eligible citizens enroll in the militia and, within
six months, arm themselves accordingly. Subsequent to
enrollment, arming oneself became the first duty of all
militiamen. See Silveira, 328 F.3d at 581 (Kleinfeld, J.). The
Act goes on to require of the states that the militiamen be
notified of their enrollment; that within one year, the states pass
laws to arrange the militia into divisions, brigades, regiments,
battalions, and companies, as well as appoint various militia
officers; that there be an Adjutant General appointed in each
state to distribute all orders for the Commander in Chief of the
State to the several corps, and so on.

The statute thus makes clear that these requirements were
independent of each other, i.e., militiamen were obligated to arm
themselves regardless of the organization provided by the states,
and the states were obligated to organize the militia, regardless
of whether individuals had armed themselves in accordance with
the statute. We take these dual requirements—that citizens were
properly supplied with arms and subject to organization by the
states (as distinct from actually organized)—to be a clear
indication of what the authors of the Second Amendment
contemplated as a “well regulated Militia.”

Another aspect of “well regulated” implicit in the second
Militia Act is the exclusion of certain persons from militia
service. For instance, the Act exempts from militia duty “the
Vice President of the United States, [executive branch officers
and judges], Congressmen, custom house officers, . . . post
officers, . . . all Ferrymen employed at any ferry on the post
road, . . . all pilots, all mariners actually employed in the sea
service of any citizen or merchant within the United States; and
 35

all persons who now are or may be hereafter exempted by the
laws of the respective states.” Act of May 8, 1792, ch. XXXIII,
1 Stat. 271. Thus, even after the founding-era militia became
“well regulated,” it did not lose its popular character. The
militia still included the majority of adult men (albeit, at the
time, “free able-bodied white male[s]”), who were to arm
themselves, and whom the states were expected to organize into
fighting units. Quite unlike today’s National Guard,
participation was widespread and mandatory.

As the foregoing makes clear, the “well regulated Militia”
was not an elite or select body. See Silveira, 328 F.3d at 577-78
(Kleinfeld, J.). While some of the founding fathers, including
George Washington and Alexander Hamilton, favored such
organizations over a popular militia, see THE ORIGIN OF THE
SECOND AMENDMENT at xlvii (David E. Young ed., 2d ed.
1995), the Second Congress unambiguously required popular
participation. The important point, of course, is that the popular
nature of the militia is consistent with an individual right to keep
and bear arms: Preserving an individual right was the best way
to ensure that the militia could serve when called.

***

As we observed, the District argues that even if one reads
the operative clause in isolation, it supports the collective right
interpretation of the Second Amendment. Alternatively, the
District contends that the operative clause should not, in fact, be
read in isolation, and that it is imbued with the civic character of
the prefatory clause when the Amendment is read, correctly, as
two interactive clauses. The District points to the singular
nature of the Second Amendment’s preamble as an indication
that the operative clause must be restricted or conditioned in
some way by the prefatory language. Compare Eugene Volokh,
The Commonplace Second Amendment, 73 N.Y.U. L. REV. 793
 36

(1998), with Michael C. Dorf, What Does the Second
Amendment Mean Today?, 76 CHI.-KENT L. REV. 291 (2000).
However, the structure of the Second Amendment turns out to
be not so unusual when we examine state constitutional
provisions guaranteeing rights or restricting governmental
power. It was quite common for prefatory language to state a
principle of good government that was narrower than the
operative language used to achieve it. Volokh, supra, at 801-07.

We think the Second Amendment was similarly structured.
The prefatory language announcing the desirability of a well-
regulated militia—even bearing in mind the breadth of the
concept of a militia—is narrower than the guarantee of an
individual right to keep and bear arms. The Amendment does
not protect “the right of militiamen to keep and bear arms,” but
rather “the right of the people.” The operative clause, properly
read, protects the ownership and use of weaponry beyond that
needed to preserve the state militias. Again, we point out that if
the competent drafters of the Second Amendment had meant the
right to be limited to the protection of state militias, it is hard to
imagine that they would have chosen the language they did. We
therefore take it as an expression of the drafters’ view that the
people possessed a natural right to keep and bear arms, and that
the preservation of the militia was the right’s most salient
political benefit—and thus the most appropriate to express in a
political document.

That the Amendment’s civic purpose was placed in a
preamble makes perfect sense given the then-recent ratification
controversy, wherein Antifederalist opponents of the 1787
Constitution agitated for greater assurance that the militia
system would remain robust so that standing armies, which were
thought by many at the time to be the bane of liberty, would not
be necessary. See BERNARD BAILYN, THE IDEOLOGICAL
ORIGINS OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION 338-60 (Enlarged ed.
 37

1992). The Federalists who dominated the First Congress
offered the Second Amendment’s preamble to palliate
Antifederalist concerns about the continued existence of the
popular militia. But neither the Federalists nor the
Antifederalists thought the federal government had the power to
disarm the people. This is evident from the ratification debates,
where the Federalists relied on the existence of an armed
populace to deflect Antifederalist criticism that a strong federal
government would lead to oppression and tyranny.
Antifederalists acknowledged the argument, but insisted that an
armed populace was not enough, and that the existence of a
popular militia should also be guaranteed. Compare THE
FEDERALIST Nos. 8, 28, 59 (Alexander Hamilton), No. 46
(James Madison) (arguing that an armed populace constitutes a
check on the potential abuses of the federal government) with
MELANCTON SMITH [Federal Farmer], OBSERVATIONS TO A FAIR
EXAMINATION OF THE SYSTEM OF GOVERNMENT PROPOSED BY
THE LATE CONVENTION, AND TO SEVERAL ESSENTIAL AND
NECESSARY ALTERATIONS IN IT (Nov. 8, 1787), reprinted in THE
ORIGIN OF THE SECOND AMENDMENT, supra, at 89, 91 (despite
the fact that the “yeomanry of the country . . . possess arms” for
defense, the federal government could undermine the regular
militia and render the armed populace of no importance).

To be sure, as the District argues, the Miller Court did draw
upon the prefatory clause to interpret the term “Arms” in the
operative clause. As we note below, interpreting “Arms” in
light of the Second Amendment’s militia purpose makes sense
because “Arms” is an open-ended term that appears but once in
the Constitution and Bill of Rights. But Miller does not
command that we limit perfectly sensible constitutional text
such as “the right of the people” in a manner inconsistent with
other constitutional provisions. Similarly, the Second
Amendment’s use of “keep” does not need to be recast in
artificially military terms in order to conform to Miller.
 38

We note that when interpreting the text of a constitutional
amendment it is common for courts to look for guidance in the
proceedings of the Congress that authored the provision.
Unfortunately, the Second Amendment’s drafting history is
relatively scant and inconclusive. Emerson, 270 F.3d at 245-51.
The recorded debates in the First Congress do not reference the
operative clause, a likely indication that the drafters took its
individual guarantee as rather uncontroversial. There is
certainly nothing in this history to substantiate the strained
reading of the Second Amendment offered by the District.

B

We have noted that there is no unequivocal precedent that
dictates the outcome of this case. This Court has never decided
whether the Second Amendment protects an individual or
collective right to keep and bear arms. On one occasion we
anticipated an argument about the scope of the Second
Amendment, but because the issue had not been properly raised
by appellants, we assumed the applicability of the collective
right interpretation then urged by the federal government.
Fraternal Order of Police v. United States (F.O.P. II), 173 F.3d
898, 906 (D.C. Cir. 1999). The Supreme Court has not decided
this issue either. See id. As we have said, the leading Second
Amendment case in the Supreme Court is United States v.
Miller. While Miller is our best guide, the Supreme Court’s
other statements on the Second Amendment warrant mention.

In Dred Scott v. Sandford, 60 U.S. 393 (1857), the Court
asserted the applicability of the Bill of Rights to the territories
in the following terms:

[N]o one . . . will contend that Congress can make any
law in a Territory respecting the establishment of
religion, or the free exercise thereof, or abridging the
 39

freedom of speech or of the press, or the right of the
people of the Territory peaceably to assemble, and to
petition the Government for the redress of grievances
. . . [n]or can Congress deny to the people the right to
keep and bear arms, nor the right to trial by jury, nor
compel any one to be a witness against himself in a
criminal proceeding . . . . These powers . . . in relation
to rights of person . . . are, in express and positive
terms, denied to the General Government.

Id. at 450 (emphasis added). Although Dred Scott is as
infamous as it was erroneous in holding that African-Americans
are not citizens, this passage expresses the view, albeit in
passing, that the Second Amendment contains a personal right.
It is included among other individual rights, such as the right to
trial by jury and the privilege against self-incrimination. The
other Second Amendment cases of the mid-nineteenth century
did not touch upon the individual versus collective nature of the
Amendment’s guarantee.13

13
In United States v. Cruikshank, 92 U.S. 542, 551 (1876), and
Presser v. Illinois, 116 U.S. 252, 264-66 (1886), the Court held that
the Second Amendment constrained only federal government action
and did not apply to the actions of state governments. This holding
was reiterated in Maxwell v. Dow, 176 U.S. 581, 597 (1900), and
Twining v. New Jersey, 211 U.S. 78, 98 (1908). Indeed, the Second
Amendment is one of the few Bill of Rights provisions that has not yet
been held to be incorporated through the Fourteenth Amendment.
While the status of the Second Amendment within the twentieth-
century incorporation debate is a matter of importance for the many
challenges to state gun control laws, it is an issue that we need not
decide. The District of Columbia is a Federal District, ultimately
controlled by Congress. Although subject to § 1983 suits by federal
law, see An Act to Permit Civil Suits Under [42 U.S.C. § 1983]
Against Any Person Acting Under Color of Any Law or Custom of the
District of Columbia, Pub. L. No. 96-170, 93 Stat. 1284 (1979), the
 40

In Robertson v. Baldwin, 165 U.S. 275 (1897), the Court
addressed the scope of the term “involuntary servitude” in the
Thirteenth Amendment. In discussing limitations inherent in
that constitutional provision, the Court said the following:

The law is perfectly well settled that the first 10
amendments to the constitution, commonly known as
the “Bill of Rights,” were not intended to lay down any
novel principles of government, but simply to embody
certain guaranties and immunities which we had
inherited from our English ancestors, and which had,
from time immemorial, been subject to certain well-
recognized exceptions, arising from the necessities of
the case. . . .

Thus, the freedom of speech and of the press
(article 1) does not permit the publication of libels,
blasphemous or indecent articles, or other publications
injurious to public morals or private reputation; the
right of the people to keep and bear arms (article 2) is
not infringed by laws prohibiting the carrying of
concealed weapons; the provision that no person shall
be twice put in jeopardy (article 5) does not prevent a
second trial, if upon the first trial the jury failed to
agree, or if the verdict was set aside upon the
defendant’s motion; nor does the provision of the same
article that no one shall be a witness against himself
impair his obligation to testify, if a prosecution against
him be barred by the lapse of time, a pardon, or by
statutory enactment.

District is directly constrained by the entire Bill of Rights, without
need for the intermediary of incorporation. See, e.g., Pernell v.
Southall Realty, 416 U.S. 363, 369-80 (1974) (applying Seventh
Amendment to local legislation for the District).
 41

165 U.S. at 281-82 (emphasis added). Just as in Dred Scott, the
Second Amendment right is mentioned in a catalogue of other
well-known individual right provisions, and, in the Supreme
Court’s thin Second Amendment jurisprudence, Robertson has
the virtue of straightforwardly suggesting one permissible form
of regulatory limitation on the right to keep and bear arms. The
decision does not discuss whether the right is individual or
collective. Still, Robertson tends to cut against any version of
the collective right argument. If the right to keep and bear arms
offered no protection to individuals, the Court would not likely
pick as a noteworthy exception to the right a prohibition on
concealed weapons. The individual nature of the permitted
regulation suggests that the underlying right, too, concerned
personal ownership of firearms.

Few decisions of Second Amendment relevance arose in the
early decades of the twentieth century. Then came Miller, the
Supreme Court’s most thorough analysis of the Second
Amendment to date, and a decision that both sides of the current
gun control debate have claimed as their own. We agree with
the Emerson court (and the dissenting judges in the Ninth
Circuit) that Miller does not lend support to the collective right
model. See Silveira, 328 F.3d at 586-87 (Kleinfeld, J.);
Emerson, 270 F.3d at 226-27. Nor does it support the District’s
quasi-collective position. Although Miller did not explicitly
accept the individual right position, the decision implicitly
assumes that interpretation.

Miller involved a Second Amendment challenge by
criminal defendants to section 11 of the National Firearms Act
(then codified at 26 U.S.C. §§ 1132 et seq.), which prohibited
interstate transportation of certain firearms without a registration
or stamped order. The defendants had been indicted for
transporting a short-barreled shotgun from Oklahoma to
Arkansas in contravention of the Act. The district court
 42

sustained defendants’ demurrer challenging their indictment on
Second Amendment grounds. The government appealed. The
defendants submitted no brief and made no appearance in the
Supreme Court. Miller, 307 U.S. at 175-77. Hearing the case
on direct appeal, the Court reversed and remanded. Id. at 183.

On the question whether the Second Amendment protects
an individual or collective right, the Court’s opinion in Miller is
most notable for what it omits. The government’s first argument
in its Miller brief was that “the right secured by [the Second
Amendment] to the people to keep and bear arms is not one
which may be utilized for private purposes but only one which
exists where the arms are borne in the militia or some other
military organization provided for by law and intended for the
protection of the state.” Appellant’s Br. at 15, 307 U.S. 704
(No. 696). This is a version of the collective right model. Like
the Fifth Circuit, we think it is significant that the Court did not
decide the case on this, the government’s primary argument.
Emerson, 270 F.3d at 222. Rather, the Court followed the logic
of the government’s secondary position, which was that a short-
barreled shotgun was not within the scope of the term “Arms”
in the Second Amendment.

The government had argued that even those courts that had
adopted an individual right theory of the Second Amendment14
had held that the term “Arms,” as used in both the Federal and
various state constitutions, referred “only to those weapons
which are ordinarily used for military or public defense purposes
and does not relate to those weapons which are commonly used
by criminals.” Appellant’s Br. at 18, 307 U.S. 704 (No. 696).

14
Here the brief for the United States cites two state court
decisions interpreting state constitutional provisions: People v.
Brown, 253 Mich. 537 (1931); State v. Duke, 42 Tex. 455 (1875). See
Appellant’s Br. at 18, 307 U.S. 704 (No. 696).
 43

The government then proceeded to quote at length from a
Tennessee state court case interpreting “Arms” in the Tennessee
Bill of Rights to mean weapons “such as are usually employed
in civilized warfare, and that constitute the ordinary military
equipment.” Id. (quoting Aymette v. State, 20 Tenn. (1 Hum.)
154, 157 (1840)). The government’s weapons-based argument
provided the Miller Court with an alternative means to uphold
the National Firearms Act even if the Court disagreed with the
government’s collective right argument. The Miller Court’s
holding is based on the government’s alternative position:

In the absence of any evidence tending to show
that possession or use of a “shotgun having a barrel of
less than eighteen inches in length” at this time has
some reasonable relationship to the preservation or
efficiency of a well regulated militia, we cannot say
that the Second Amendment guarantees the right to
keep and bear such an instrument. Certainly it is not
within judicial notice that this weapon is any part of
the ordinary military equipment or that its use could
contribute to the common defense. Aymette v. State, 2
Humphreys (Tenn.) 154, 158.

Miller, 307 U.S. at 178 (emphasis added). The quotation makes
apparent that the Court was focused only on what arms are
protected by the Second Amendment, see Emerson, 270 F.3d at
224, and not the collective or individual nature of the right. If
the Miller Court intended to endorse the government’s first
argument, i.e., the collective right view, it would have
undoubtedly pointed out that the two defendants were not
affiliated with a state militia or other local military organization.
Id.

To be sure, the Miller Court linked the Second
Amendment’s language to the Constitution’s militia clause:
 44

“With obvious purpose to assure the continuation and render
possible the effectiveness of such forces [i.e., the militia] the
declaration and guarantee of the Second Amendment were
made. It must be interpreted and applied with that end in view.”
307 U.S. at 178. We take the “declaration and guarantee”
referred to by the Miller Court to mean the Second
Amendment’s prefatory clause (which declares the necessity of
a “well regulated Militia”) and its operative clause (which
guarantees the preservation of a right) respectively.

The District would have us read this passage as recognizing
a limitation on the Second Amendment right based on the
individual’s connection (or lack thereof) to an organized
functioning militia. We disagree. As already discussed, the
Miller court was examining the relationship between the weapon
in question—a short-barreled shotgun—and the preservation of
the militia system, which was the Amendment’s politically
relevant purpose. The term “Arms” was quite indefinite, but it
would have been peculiar, to say the least, if it were designed to
ensure that people had an individual right to keep weapons
capable of mass destruction—e.g., cannons. Thus the Miller
Court limited the term “Arms”—interpreting it in a manner
consistent with the Amendment’s underlying civic purpose.
Only “Arms” whose “use or possession . . . has some reasonable
relationship to the preservation or efficiency of a well regulated
militia,” id. at 177, would qualify for protection.

Essential, then, to understanding what weapons qualify as
Second Amendment “Arms” is an awareness of how the
founding-era militia functioned. The Court explained its
understanding of what the Framers had in mind when they spoke
of the militia in terms we have discussed above. The members
of the militia were to be “civilians primarily, soldiers on
occasion.” Id. at 179. When called up by either the state or the
federal government, “these men were expected to appear
 45

bearing arms supplied by themselves and of the kind in common
use at the time.” Id. (emphasis added).

As we noted above, the “Militia” was vast, including all
free, white, able-bodied men who were properly enrolled with
a local militia officer. By contrast, the Ninth Circuit has
recently (and we think erroneously) read “Militia” to mean a
“state-created and state-organized fighting force” that excludes
the unorganized populace. Silveira, 312 F.3d at 1069. As Judge
Kleinfeld noted, the Ninth Circuit’s decision entirely ignores
Miller’s controlling definition of the militia. 328 F.3d at 578
(dissenting from denial of rehearing en banc). The Ninth
Circuit’s interpretation of “Militia” also fails to account for the
second Militia Act of 1792, id. at 578-82, as well as local
federal militia units such as those provided for by the Northwest
Ordinance, see Act of Aug. 7, 1789, ch. VIII, 1 Stat. 50, or for
the District of Columbia in 1803, Act of March 3, 1803, ch. XX,
2 Stat. 215.

Miller’s definition of the “Militia,” then, offers further
support for the individual right interpretation of the Second
Amendment. Attempting to draw a line between the ownership
and use of “Arms” for private purposes and the ownership and
use of “Arms” for militia purposes would have been an
extremely silly exercise on the part of the First Congress if
indeed the very survival of the militia depended on men who
would bring their commonplace, private arms with them to
muster. A ban on the use and ownership of weapons for private
purposes, if allowed, would undoubtedly have had a deleterious,
if not catastrophic, effect on the readiness of the militia for
action. We do not see how one could believe that the First
Congress, when crafting the Second Amendment, would have
engaged in drawing such a foolish and impractical distinction,
and we think the Miller Court recognized as much.
 46

***

To summarize, we conclude that the Second Amendment
protects an individual right to keep and bear arms. That right
existed prior to the formation of the new government under the
Constitution and was premised on the private use of arms for
activities such as hunting and self-defense, the latter being
understood as resistance to either private lawlessness or the
depredations of a tyrannical government (or a threat from
abroad). In addition, the right to keep and bear arms had the
important and salutary civic purpose of helping to preserve the
citizen militia. The civic purpose was also a political expedient
for the Federalists in the First Congress as it served, in part, to
placate their Antifederalist opponents. The individual right
facilitated militia service by ensuring that citizens would not be
barred from keeping the arms they would need when called forth
for militia duty. Despite the importance of the Second
Amendment’s civic purpose, however, the activities it protects
are not limited to militia service, nor is an individual’s
enjoyment of the right contingent upon his or her continued or
intermittent enrollment in the militia.

IV

As a corollary to its collective right position, the District
argues—albeit almost as an afterthought—that it is not subject
to the restraints of the Second Amendment because it is a purely
federal entity.15 Although it has a militia statute, see D.C. Code
§ 49-401, the District argues that its militia does not implicate

15
This contention originated in a concurring opinion in the
District of Columbia Court of Appeals, see Sandidge v. United States,
520 A.2d 1057, 1059 (D.C. 1987) (Nebeker, J.), and has been
subsequently adopted by a federal district court, see Seegars v.
Aschcroft, 297 F. Supp. 2d 201, 238-39 (D.D.C. 2004).
 47

federalism concerns embodied in the Second Amendment—i.e.,
the District’s local legislation does not interfere with the
“security of a free State.”

The District does not argue, nor could it, that even if the
Second Amendment confers an individual right, that right is
enjoyed only by the residents of states (that would mean that
citizens of the United States who lived in territories, such as the
Northwest Territory, prior to their acceptance as states, did not
enjoy a constitutional right). In any event, the Supreme Court
has unambiguously held that the Constitution and Bill of Rights
are in effect in the District. See O’Donoghue v. United States,
289 U.S. 516, 539-41(1933) (quoting Downes v. Bidwell, 182
U.S. 244, 260-61 (1901)). “The mere cession of the District of
Columbia to the Federal government relinquished the authority
of the states, but it did not take it out of the United States or
from under the aegis of the Constitution. . . . If, before the
District was set off, Congress had passed an unconstitutional act
affecting its inhabitants, it would have been void. If done after
the District was created, it would have been equally void; in
other words, Congress could not do indirectly, by carving out
the District, what it could not do directly. The District still
remained a part of the United States, protected by the
Constitution.” Id. at 541. Rather, the District’s argument
amounts to an appendage of the collective right position. It is
only if one reads the prefatory language as limiting the operative
clause to a guarantee about militias that one ever arrives at the
question whether the guarantee is confined to state militias.

Our dissenting colleague recognizes this point; her opinion
begins with an acceptance of the collective right interpretation
of the Second Amendment. Dissent at 2-7. It is therefore not
clear to us that it is even relevant to discuss the meaning of “a
 48

free State”—language upon which the dissent heavily relies.16
Still, taking the argument as presented, we think it wrong on
several grounds. First, the dissent (and the District) mistakenly
reads “a free State” to mean an actual political unit of the United
States, such as New York, etc., rather than a hypothetical polity.
In fact, Madison’s initial proposal to the First Congress stated
that a well-regulated militia was “the best security of a free
country.” THE COMPLETE BILL OF RIGHTS, supra, at 169. The
House committee then substituted “State” for “country” when it
initially altered Madison’s proposal. We have no record of the
House committee’s proceedings, but it is not credible to
conclude that a profound shift was intended in the change from
“country” to “State,” particularly as there was no subsequent
comment on the change.

The record of the debates in the First Congress relied upon
by our dissenting colleague only further undermines the reading
of “a free State” as meaning an individual state of the union. As
she points out, Elbridge Gerry, an Antifederalist Representative
from Massachusetts, criticized an initial formulation of the
Second Amendment as follows: “A well regulated militia being
the best security of a free state, admitted an idea that a standing
army was a secondary one.” Dissent at 9 n.10. Gerry’s obvious
fear was that a standing army would be erected as an auxiliary
defense of “a free State,” and that eventually such an army
would entirely displace the militia. That Gerry worried a
standing army would be understood as the “secondary” security
of a free state, however, indicates that he understood “a free
State” to mean the new country as a whole. After all, no one

16
The dissent suggests that our opinion consists largely of dicta.
Dissent at 1. But dictum refers to reasoning that does not support the
holding of a case. We think all of our reasoning (whether correct or
not) directly supports our holding. By contrast, the dissent’s “free
State” discussion might be thought superfluous.
 49

contended that a standing federal army would be used to protect
individual states. It was the entire nation, including the District
of Columbia, that a standing army would be erected to defend,
and thus if a standing army were to supplant the militia in
securing “a free State,” the “State” in question would
undoubtedly have been the United States.

The use of both the indefinite article and the modifier “free”
with the word “state,” moreover, is unique to the Second
Amendment. Elsewhere the Constitution refers to “the states”
or “each state” when unambiguously denoting the domestic
political entities such as Virginia, etc. With “a free State,” we
understand the framers to have been referring to republican
government generally. The entire purpose of making the militia
subject to the authority of the national government was that a
standing army would not be necessary. The District’s militia,
organized by Congress in 1803, see Act of March 3, 1803, ch.
XX, 2 Stat. 215, was no less integral to that national function
than its state counterparts. That the D.C. militia is not a state
militia does not make it any less necessary to the “security of a
free State.”

The dissent notes a Supreme Court statement in Perpich v.
Department of Defense, 496 U.S. 334 (1990), that “there was a
widespread fear that a national standing Army posed an
intolerable threat to individual liberty and to the sovereignty of
the separate States.” Id. at 340 (emphasis added in dissent).
However, the dissent overlooks the other concern with standing
armies—that they would pose a threat to individual liberty. The
language from Perpich is entirely consistent, then, with the view
that the American people at large (including the residents of the
District) would be equally threatened by the presence of a
standing army. And it directly contradicts the dissent’s position
that the Second Amendment was concerned exclusively with the
preservation of state power.
 50

Our dissenting colleague—in order to give a meaning to
“the people” in the Second Amendment consistent with her
interpretation—analogizes to “the people” in the Tenth
Amendment. Dissent at 5 n.5. Contrary to her suggestion,
however, the Tenth Amendment does not limit “the people” to
state citizens. Rather, the Tenth Amendment reserves powers to
“the States respectively, or to the people.” The dissent provides
no case holding that “the people,” as used in the Tenth
Amendment, are distinct from “the people” referred to
elsewhere in the Bill of Rights. The one case relied upon, Lee
v. Flintkote, 593 F.2d 1275, 1278 n.14 (D.C. Cir. 1979), is
inapposite. That case merely contrasts the District, on the one
hand, with the states, on the other; the meaning of “the people”
as used in the Tenth Amendment was not at issue. Indeed,
Verdugo-Urquidez, 494 U.S. at 265, directly contradicts the
dissent’s reading of “the people” in the Tenth Amendment, just
as it contradicts the restrictive reading of “the people” in the
Second.

V

The third alternative argument the District presents is that,
even if the Second Amendment protects an individual right and
applies to the District, it does not bar the District’s regulation,
indeed its virtual prohibition, of handgun ownership.

The District contends that modern handguns are not the sort
of weapons covered by the Second Amendment. But the
District’s claim runs afoul of Miller’s discussion of “Arms.”
The Miller Court concluded that the defendants, who did not
appear in the Supreme Court, provided no showing that short-
barreled (or sawed-off) shotguns—banned by federal
statute—bore “some reasonable relationship to the preservation
or efficiency of a well regulated militia.” Miller, 307 U.S. at
 51

178. However, the Court also observed that militiamen were
expected to bring their private arms with them when called up
for service. Those weapons would be “of the kind in common
use at the time.” Id. at 179. There can be no question that most
handguns (those in common use) fit that description then and
now. See Emerson, 270 F.3d at 227 n.22 (assuming that a
Beretta pistol passed the Miller test).

By the terms of the second Militia Act of 1792, all
militiamen were given six months from the date of their
enrollment to outfit themselves with “a good musket or firelock,
a sufficient bayonet and belt, two spare flints, and a knapsack,
a pouch, with a box therein, to contain not less than twenty four
cartridges, suited to the bore of his musket or firelock, each
cartridge to contain a proper quantity of powder and ball: or
with a good rifle, knapsack, shot-pouch, and powder-horn,
twenty balls suited to the bore of his rifle, and a quarter of a
pound of powder . . . .” Act of May 8, 1792, ch. XXXIII, 1 Stat.
271 (emphasis added).

Commissioned officers had somewhat more onerous
requirements. The Act demanded that, in addition to the
foregoing, they “shall severally be armed with a sword or hanger
and espontoon . . . .” Id. at 271-72. Still further demands were
placed on the artillery officers, who were to be “armed with a
sword or hanger, a fusee, bayonet and belt, with a cartridge-box
to contain twelve cartridges . . . .” Id. at 272. But
commissioned cavalry officers and dragoons had to assume an
even greater expense, perhaps due to the fact that these were
volunteer positions reserved for the well-off. The cavalry
officers were required to procure “good horses of at least
fourteen hands and a half high, and to be armed with a sword
and pair of pistols, the holsters of which to be covered with
bearskin caps.” The dragoon had it even worse, being required
to furnish himself “a serviceable horse, at least fourteen hands
 52

and a half high, a good saddle, bridle, mailpillion and valise,
holsters, and a breast-plate and crupper, a pair of boots and
spurs, a pair of pistols, a sabre, and a cartouch-box, to contain
twelve cartridges for pistols.” Id. at 272 (emphasis added).

These items were not mere antiques to be hung above the
mantle. Immediately following the list of required weapons
purchases, the Act provided that militiamen “shall appear so
armed, accoutred and provided, when called out to exercise, or
into service . . . .” Id. (emphasis added). The statute even
planned phased-in upgrades in the quality of the militia’s
firearms: “[F]rom and after five years from the passing of this
act, all muskets for arming the militia as herein required, shall
be of bores sufficient for balls of the eighteenth part of a
pound.” Id. at 271-72.

It follows that the weapons described in the Act were in
“common use” at the time, particularly when one considers the
widespread nature of militia duty. Included among these militia
weapons were long guns (i.e., muskets and rifles) and pistols.
Moreover, the Act distinguishes between the weapons citizens
were required to furnish themselves and those that were to be
supplied by the government. For instance, with respect to an
artillery private (or “matross”), the Act provides that he should
“furnish himself with all the equipments of a private in the
infantry, until proper ordnance and field artillery is provided.”
Id. at 272. The Act required militiamen to acquire weapons that
were in common circulation and that individual men would be
able to employ, such as muskets, rifles, pistols, sabres, hangers,
etc., but not cumbersome, expensive, or rare equipment such as
cannons. We take the outfitting requirements of the second
Militia Act to list precisely those weapons that would have
satisfied the two prongs of the Miller arms test. They bore a
“reasonable relationship to the preservation or efficiency of a
well regulated militia,” because they were the very arms needed
 53

for militia service. And by the terms of the Act, they were to be
personally owned and “of the kind in common use at the time.”

The modern handgun—and for that matter the rifle and
long-barreled shotgun—is undoubtedly quite improved over its
colonial-era predecessor, but it is, after all, a lineal descendant
of that founding-era weapon, and it passes Miller’s standards.
Pistols certainly bear “some reasonable relationship to the
preservation or efficiency of a well regulated militia.” They are
also in “common use” today, and probably far more so than in
1789. Nevertheless, it has been suggested by some that only
colonial-era firearms (e.g., single-shot pistols) are covered by
the Second Amendment. But just as the First Amendment free
speech clause covers modern communication devices unknown
to the founding generation, e.g., radio and television, and the
Fourth Amendment protects telephonic conversation from a
“search,” the Second Amendment protects the possession of the
modern-day equivalents of the colonial pistol. See, e.g., Kyllo
v. United States, 533 U.S. 27, 31-41 (2001) (applying Fourth
Amendment standards to thermal imaging search).

That is not to suggest that the government is absolutely
barred from regulating the use and ownership of pistols. The
protections of the Second Amendment are subject to the same
sort of reasonable restrictions that have been recognized as
limiting, for instance, the First Amendment. See Ward v. Rock
Against Racism, 491 U.S. 781, 791 (1989) (“[G]overnment may
impose reasonable restrictions on the time, place, or manner of
protected speech . . . .”). Indeed, the right to keep and bear
arms—which we have explained pre-existed, and therefore was
preserved by, the Second Amendment—was subject to
restrictions at common law. We take these to be the sort of
reasonable regulations contemplated by the drafters of the
Second Amendment. For instance, it is presumably reasonable
“to prohibit the carrying of weapons when under the influence
 54

of intoxicating drink, or to a church, polling place, or public
assembly, or in a manner calculated to inspire terror . . . .” State
v. Kerner, 107 S.E. 222, 225 (N.C. 1921). And as we have
noted, the United States Supreme Court has observed that
prohibiting the carrying of concealed weapons does not offend
the Second Amendment. Robertson, 165 U.S. at 281-82.
Similarly, the Court also appears to have held that convicted
felons may be deprived of their right to keep and bear arms. See
Lewis v. United States, 445 U.S. 55, 65 n.8 (1980) (citing Miller,
307 U.S. at 178). These regulations promote the government’s
interest in public safety consistent with our common law
tradition. Just as importantly, however, they do not impair the
core conduct upon which the right was premised.

Reasonable restrictions also might be thought consistent
with a “well regulated Militia.” The registration of firearms
gives the government information as to how many people would
be armed for militia service if called up. Reasonable firearm
proficiency testing would both promote public safety and
produce better candidates for military service. Personal
characteristics, such as insanity or felonious conduct, that make
gun ownership dangerous to society also make someone
unsuitable for service in the militia. Cf. D.C. Code § 49-401
(excluding “idiots, lunatics, common drunkards, vagabonds,
paupers, and persons convicted of any infamous crime” from
militia duty). On the other hand, it does not follow that a person
who is unsuitable for militia service has no right to keep and
bear arms. A physically disabled person, for instance, might not
be able to participate in even the most rudimentary organized
militia. But this person would still have the right to keep and
bear arms, just as men over the age of forty-five and women
would have that right, even though our nation has traditionally
excluded them from membership in the militia. As we have
 55

explained, the right is broader than its civic purpose. See
Volokh, supra, at 801-07.17

D.C. Code § 7-2502.0218 prohibits the registration of a
pistol not registered in the District by the applicant prior to
1976.19 The District contends that since it only bans one type of
firearm, “residents still have access to hundreds more,” and thus

17
Of course, the District’s virtual ban on handgun ownership is
not based on any militia purpose. It is justified solely as a measure to
protect public safety. As amici point out, and as D.C. judges are well
aware, the black market for handguns in the District is so strong that
handguns are readily available (probably at little premium) to
criminals. It is asserted, therefore, that the D.C. gun control laws
irrationally prevent only law abiding citizens from owning handguns.
It is unnecessary to consider that point, for we think the D.C. laws
impermissibly deny Second Amendment rights.
18
The relevant text of the provision reads as follows:

(a) A registration certificate shall not be issued for a:

...

(4) Pistol not validly registered to the current registrant in the
District prior to September 24, 1976, except that the provisions
of this section shall not apply to any organization that employs at
least 1 commissioned special police officer or other employee
licensed to carry a firearm and that arms the employee with a
firearm during the employee's duty hours or to a police officer
who has retired from the Metropolitan Police Department.

D.C. Code § 7-2502.02.
19
Although not relevant here, there is also an exception to the
registration restriction for retired police officers of the Metropolitan
Police Department. See D.C. Code § 7-2502.02(b) .
 56

its prohibition does not implicate the Second Amendment
because it does not threaten total disarmament. We think that
argument frivolous. It could be similarly contended that all
firearms may be banned so long as sabers were permitted. Once
it is determined—as we have done—that handguns are “Arms”
referred to in the Second Amendment, it is not open to the
District to ban them. See Kerner, 107 S.E. at 225 (“To exclude
all pistols . . . is not a regulation, but a prohibition, of . . . ‘arms’
which the people are entitled to bear.”). Indeed, the pistol is the
most preferred firearm in the nation to “keep” and use for
protection of one’s home and family. See Gary Kleck & Marc
Gertz, Armed Resistance to Crime: The Prevalence and Nature
of Self-Defense with a Gun, 86 J. CRIM. L. & CRIMINOLOGY 150,
182-83 (1995). And, as we have noted, the Second
Amendment’s premise is that guns would be kept by citizens for
self-protection (and hunting).

D.C. Code § 22-450420 restricts separately the carrying of

20
The relevant text of the provision reads as follows:

(a) No person shall carry within the District of Columbia either
openly or concealed on or about their person, a pistol, without a
license issued pursuant to District of Columbia law, or any
deadly or dangerous weapon capable of being so concealed.
Whoever violates this section shall be punished as provided in §
22-4515, except that:

(1) A person who violates this section by carrying a pistol,
without a license issued pursuant to District of Columbia law, or
any deadly or dangerous weapon, in a place other than the
person’s dwelling place, place of business, or on other land
possessed by the person, shall be fined not more than $5,000 or
imprisoned for not more than 5 years, or both . . . .

D.C. Code § 22-4504.
 57

a pistol. Appellant Heller challenges this provision and a
companion provision, § 22-4506, insofar as they appear to ban
moving a handgun from room to room in one’s own house, even
if one has lawfully registered the firearm (an interpretation the
District does not dispute). In order to carry a pistol anywhere in
the District (inside or outside the home), one must apply for and
obtain an additional license from the Chief of Police, whom the
Code gives complete discretion to deny license applications.
Heller does not claim a legal right to carry a handgun outside his
home, so we need not consider the more difficult issue whether
the District can ban the carrying of handguns in public, or in
automobiles. It is sufficient for us to conclude that just as the
District may not flatly ban the keeping of a handgun in the
home, obviously it may not prevent it from being moved
throughout one’s house. Such a restriction would negate the
lawful use upon which the right was premised—i.e, self-defense.

Finally, there is the District’s requirement under D.C. Code
§ 7-2507.02 that a registered firearm be kept “unloaded and
disassembled or bound by trigger lock or similar device, unless
such firearm is kept at [a] place of business, or while being used
for lawful recreational purposes within the District of
Columbia.” This provision bars Heller from lawfully using a
handgun for self protection in the home because the statute
allows only for use of a firearm during recreational activities.
As appellants accurately point out, § 7-2507.02 would reduce a
pistol to a useless hunk of “metal and springs.” Heller does not
appear to challenge the requirement that a gun ordinarily be kept
unloaded or even that a trigger lock be attached under some
circumstances. He simply contends that he is entitled to the
possession of a “functional” firearm to be employed in case of
a threat to life or limb. The District responds that,
notwithstanding the broad language of the Code, a judge would
likely give the statute a narrowing construction when confronted
with a self-defense justification. That might be so, but judicial
 58

lenity cannot make up for the unreasonable restriction of a
constitutional right. Section 7-2507.02, like the bar on carrying
a pistol within the home, amounts to a complete prohibition on
the lawful use of handguns for self-defense. As such, we hold
it unconstitutional.

VI

For the foregoing reasons, the judgment of the district court
is reversed and the case is remanded. Since there are no
material questions of fact in dispute, the district court is ordered
to grant summary judgment to Heller consistent with the prayer
for relief contained in appellants’ complaint.
KAREN LECRAFT HENDERSON, Circuit Judge, dissenting:
As has been noted by Fifth Circuit Judge Robert M. Parker
in United States v. Emerson, 270 F.3d 203, 272 (2001) (“The
fact that the 84 pages of dicta contained in [the majority
opinion] are interesting, scholarly, and well written does not
change the fact that they are dicta and amount to at best an
advisory treatise on this long-running debate.”) (Parker, J.,
concurring), exhaustive opinions on the origin, purpose and
scope of the Second Amendment to the United States
Constitution have proven to be irresistible to the federal
judiciary. See, e.g., Silveira v. Lockyer, 312 F.3d 1052, 1060-87
(9th Cir. 2003) (as amended); Emerson, 270 F.3d at 218-72.
The result has often been page after page of “dueling
dicta”—each side of the debate offering law review articles and
obscure historical texts to support an outcome it deems proper.
Today the majority adds another fifty-plus pages to the pile.1 Its
superfluity is even more pronounced, however, because the
meaning of the Second Amendment in the District of Columbia
(District) is purely academic. Why? As Judge Walton declared
in Seegars v. Ashcroft, 297 F. Supp. 2d 201, 239 (D.D.C. 2004),
aff’d in part, rev’d in part sub nom. Seegars v. Gonzales, 396

1
In declaring the District’s challenged firearms ordinances
unconstitutional, the majority takes over 45 pages, Maj. Op. at 12-58,
explaining that the Second Amendment establishes an unrestricted
individual right to keep and bear arms, see id. at 46. Its analysis can
be summarized as follows: The Second Amendment’s guarantee
clause—“the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be
infringed”—endows “the people” with a right analogous to the
individual rights guaranteed in the First and Fourth Amendments. Id.
at 18-21 (citing United States v. Verdugo-Urquidez, 494 U.S. 259, 265
(1990)). That right is unrestricted by the prefatory clause—“A well
regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free
State”—which simply enunciates the Amendment’s “civic purpose,”
Maj. Op. at 46, and modifies only the word “Arms” in the operative
clause, id. at 37-38 (citing United States v. Miller, 307 U.S. 174
(1939)).
 2

F.3d 1248, reh’g en banc denied, 413 F.3d 1 (2005), “the
District of Columbia is not a state within the meaning of the
Second Amendment and therefore the Second Amendment’s
reach does not extend to it.” For the following reasons, I
respectfully dissent.
I.
As our court has recognized, the United States Supreme
Court’s guidance on the Second Amendment is “notoriously
scant.” Fraternal Order of Police v. United States, 173 F.3d 898,
906 (D.C. Cir. 1999) (FOP). While scant it may be, it is, at least
to me, unmistakable in one respect. And in that one respect, it
dooms appellant Heller’s challenge.2
In United States v. Miller, 307 U.S. 174 (1939), the only
twentieth-century United States Supreme Court decision that
analyzes the scope of the Second Amendment, the Government
appealed the district court’s quashing of an indictment that
charged Miller (and one other) with a violation of section 11 of

2
The other five appellants lack standing, see Seegars v. Gonzalez,
396 F.3d 1248 (D.C. Cir. 2005), and Heller has standing to challenge
only D.C. Code § 7-2502.02(a)(4), under which he applied for, and
was denied, a pistol permit. The only difference between the standing
of the appellants in this case and that of the Seegars appellants relates
to Heller’s permit denial. That is, none of the appellants here,
including Heller, faces imminent injury from D.C. Code § 7-2507.02,
which requires that any registered firearm be kept unloaded and
disassembled or bound by a trigger lock or similar device, or section
22-4504, which prohibits carrying an unregistered pistol. They
“allege no prior threats against them [based on those provisions] or
any characteristics indicating an especially high probability of
enforcement [of those provisions] against them.” Seegars, 396 F.3d
at 1255. Although the appellants lack an administrative remedy with
respect to the trigger lock provision, we have already decided “its
absence is not enough to render [their] claim[s] justiciable if the
imminence of the threatened injury is inadequate.” Id. at 1256.
 3

the National Firearms Act, Pub. L. No. 474, 48 Stat. 1236, 26
U.S.C. §§ 1132 et seq. (1934), by transporting in interstate
commerce an unregistered, short-barreled shotgun. Miller, 307
U.S. at 175 & n.1. The district court had quashed the indictment
because it concluded that section 11 of the National Firearms
Act violated the Second Amendment. Id. at 177. The High
Court disagreed, declaring:
In the absence of any evidence tending to show that
possession or use of a ‘shotgun having a barrel of less
than eighteen inches in length’ at this time has some
reasonable relationship to the preservation or efficiency
of a well regulated militia, we cannot say that the
Second Amendment guarantees the right to keep and
bear such an instrument. Certainly it is not within
judicial notice that this weapon is any part of the
ordinary military equipment or that its use could
contribute to the common defense.
Id. at 178 (emphases added). Then, quoting Article I, § 8 of the
Constitution,3 the Court succinctly—but unambiguously—set
down its understanding of the Second Amendment: “With

3
Article I, section 8 of the Constitution provides:
The Congress shall have Power . . .
To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the
Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel
Invasions;
To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the
Militia, and for governing such Part of them as may be
employed in the Service of the United States, reserving to the
States respectively, the Appointment of the Officers, and the
Authority of training the Militia according to the discipline
prescribed by Congress.
U.S. Const., Art. I, § 8, cls. 15-16.
 4

obvious purpose to assure the continuation and render possible
the effectiveness of such forces the declaration and guarantee
of the Second Amendment were made. It must be interpreted
and applied with that end in view.” Id. (emphases added). By
these words, it emphatically declared that the entire Second
Amendment—both its “declaration” and its “guarantee”—“must
be interpreted and applied” together. Id.4 Construing its two

4
Nine of our sister circuits have noted that the declaratory clause
modifies the guarantee clause. See Silveira, 312 F.3d at 1066 (“The
amendment protects the people’s right to maintain an effective state
militia, and does not establish an individual right to own or possess
firearms for personal or other use.”); Gillespie v. City of Indianapolis,
185 F.3d 693, 711 (7th Cir. 1999) (“Because Gillespie has no
reasonable prospect of being able to demonstrate . . . a nexus between
the firearms disability imposed by the statute and the operation of state
militias, [the district court judge] was right to dismiss his Second
Amendment claim.”); United States v. Wright, 117 F.3d 1265, 1273
(11th Cir. 1997) (“[T]he Miller Court understood the Second
Amendment to protect only the possession or use of weapons that is
reasonably related to a militia actively maintained and trained by the
states.”); United States v. Rybar, 103 F.3d 273, 286 (3d Cir. 1996)
(“[T]he Miller Court assigned no special importance to the character
of the weapon itself, but instead demanded a reasonable relationship
between its ‘possession or use’ and militia-related activity.”(quoting
Miller, 307 U.S. at 178)); Love v. Pepersack, 47 F.3d 120, 124 (4th
Cir. 1995) (“The courts have consistently held that the Second
Amendment only confers a collective right of keeping and bearing
arms which must bear a ‘reasonable relationship to the preservation or
efficiency of a well-regulated militia.’” (quoting Miller, 307 U.S. at
178)); United States v. Hale, 978 F.2d 1016, 1020 (8th Cir. 1992)
(“Whether the ‘right to bear arms’ for militia purposes is ‘individual’
or ‘collective’ in nature is irrelevant where, as here, the individual’s
possession of arms is not related to the preservation or efficiency of a
militia.”); United States v. Oakes, 564 F.2d 384, 387 (10th Cir. 1977)
(“The purpose of the second amendment as stated by the Supreme
Court in United States v. Miller . . . was to preserve the effectiveness
 5

clauses together so that, as Miller declares, the right of the
people5 to keep and bear arms relates to those Militia whose

and assure the continuation of the state militia. The Court stated that
the amendment must be interpreted and applied with that purpose in
view.”); United States v. Warin, 530 F.2d 103, 106 (6th Cir. 1976)
(“[T]he Second Amendment right ‘to keep and bear Arms’ applies
only to the right of the State to maintain a militia and not to the
individual’s right to bear arms . . . .” (internal quotation omitted));
Cases v. United States, 131 F.2d 916, 923 (1st Cir. 1942) (“[T]here is
no evidence that the appellant was or ever had been a member of any
military organization or that his use of the weapon under the
circumstances disclosed was in preparation for a military career.”). In
Cases, the First Circuit considered, inter alia, a Puerto Rican criminal
defendant’s Second Amendment challenge to the Federal Firearms
Act. Significantly, the court qualified its Second Amendment analysis
as follows:
The applicability of the restriction imposed by the Second
Amendment upon the power of Congress to legislate for
Puerto Rico, or for that matter any territory, raises questions
of no little complexity. However, we do not feel called upon
to consider them because we take the view that the Federal
Firearms Act does not unconstitutionally infringe the
appellant’s right, if any one in a territory has any right at all,
to keep and bear arms.
Cases, 131 F.2d at 920.
5
I have not overlooked the language in United States v. Verdugo-
Urquidez, 494 U.S. 259, 265 (1990), to the effect that “the people” as
used in various of the first Ten Amendments refers to “a class of
persons who are part of a national community or who have otherwise
developed sufficient connection with this country to be considered
part of that community.” But just as the Tenth Amendment ties the
rights reserved thereunder to “the people” of the individual “States,”
thereby excluding “the people” of the District, cf. Lee v. Flintkote Co.,
593 F.2d 1275, 1278 n.14 (D.C. Cir. 1979) (“[T]he District, unlike the
states, has no reserved power to be guaranteed by the Tenth
 6

continued vitality is required to safeguard the individual States,
I believe that, under Miller, the District is inescapably excluded
from the Second Amendment because it is not a State.6 However
the Second Amendment right has been subsequently labeled by
others—whether collective, individual or a modified version of
either—Miller’s label is the only one that matters.7 And until
and unless the Supreme Court revisits Miller, its reading of the
Second Amendment is the one we are obliged to follow. See
Welch v. Tex. Dep’t of Highways & Pub. Transp., 483 U.S. 468,

Amendment.”), the Second Amendment similarly limits “the people”
to those of the States, cf. Adams v. Clinton, 90 F. Supp. 2d 35, 45
(D.D.C. 2000) (“Although standing alone the phrase ‘people of the
several States’ [in Article I, § 2, cl.1] could be read as meaning all the
people of the ‘United States’ and not simply those who are citizens of
individual states, [Article I’s] subsequent and repeated references to
‘state[s]’ . . . make clear that the former was not intended.”); see also
Verdugo-Urquidez, 494 U.S. at 265 (citing U.S. Const. Art. I, § 2, cl.
1).
6
Nor do the Militia Clauses (U.S. Const. Art. I, § 8, cls. 15,16)
conflict with the view that the “Militia” of the Second Amendment
means those of the States. As used in the Militia Clauses, “Militia” is
plural. Indeed, Article I, section 8, clause 16 states that the Congress
shall have the power “[t]o provide for organizing, arming, and
disciplining, the Militia, and for governing such Part of them.”
(emphasis added). Article II, section 2 also indicates the Militia
Clauses refer to “the Militia of the several States.” U.S. Const. Art. II,
§ 2, cl. 1 (emphasis added); cf. Oxford English Dictionary 768 (2d ed.
1989) (“Militia” “4. spec. a. Orig., the distinctive name of a branch of
the British military service, forming, together with the volunteers,
what are known as ‘the auxiliary forces’ as distinguished from the
regular army. . . . (Construed either as sing. or plural.)”).
7
Our court has previously “assume[d]” the Miller “test” to mean
that the guarantee must be read in light of the declaration. See FOP,
173 F.3d at 906.
 7

478-79 (1987) (“The rule of law depends in large part on
adherence to the doctrine of stare decisis.”); United States v.
Rybar, 103 F.3d 273, 286 (3d Cir. 1996) (“As one of the inferior
federal courts subject to the Supreme Court’s precedents, we
have neither the license nor the inclination to engage in such
freewheeling presumptuousness.” (responding to argument that
Miller is “wrong in its superficial (and one-sided) analysis of the
Second Amendment” (internal quotation omitted))).8

8
One nineteenth-century Supreme Court precedent, United States
v. Cruikshank, 92 U.S. 542 (1875), is included in almost every
discussion of the Second Amendment. Miller, however, does not cite
Cruikshank, and for good reason. In that case, several criminal
defendants challenged their convictions under the Enforcement Act of
1870 making it unlawful to threaten or intimidate “‘any citizen, with
intent to prevent or hinder his free exercise and enjoyment of any right
or privilege granted or secured to him by the constitution or laws of
the United States.’” Id. at 548 (quoting 16 Stat. 141). In setting aside
their convictions, the Supreme Court declared:
[The right to bear arms for any lawful purpose] is not a right
granted by the Constitution. Neither is it in any manner
dependent upon that instrument for its existence. The second
amendment declares that it shall not be infringed; but this, as
has been seen, means no more than that it shall not be
infringed by Congress.
Id. at 553. This language does not conflict with Miller—as I read
Miller—because it does not define the right but simply recognizes that
the right, whatever its content, cannot be infringed by the federal
government. More interesting is the nineteenth-century case Miller
does cite, Presser v. Illinois, 92 U.S. 542 (1886). There, the Court
upheld state legislation against a Second Amendment challenge,
relying on Cruikshank’s holding that the Second Amendment
constrains the national government only. The Court then included the
following language:
[T]he states cannot, even laying the constitutional provision
in question out of view, prohibit the people from keeping and
 8

II.
The Supreme Court has long held that “State” as used in the
Constitution refers to one of the States of the Union. Chief
Justice John Marshall, in rejecting the argument that the District
constitutes a “State” under Article III, section 2 of the
Constitution and, derivatively, the Judiciary Act of 1789,
explained:
[I]t has been urged that Columbia is a distinct political
society; and is therefore “a state” according to the
definitions of writers on general law. This is true. But
as the act of congress obviously uses the word “state” in
reference to that term as used in the constitution, it
becomes necessary to inquire whether Columbia is a
state in the sense of that instrument. The result of that
examination is a conviction that the members of the
American confederacy only are the states contemplated
in the constitution. . . . [T]he word state is used in the
constitution as designating a member of the union, and
excludes from the term the signification attached to it by
writers on the law of nations.
Hepburn & Dundas v. Ellzey, 6 U.S. 445, 452-53 (1805)
(emphasis added); see also De Geofroy v. Riggs, 133 U.S. 258,
269 (1890). In fact, the Constitution uses “State” or “States”
119 times apart from the Second Amendment and in 116 of the

bearing arms, so as to deprive the United States of their
rightful resource for maintaining the public security, and
disable the people from performing their duty to the general
government.
Id. at 584.
 9

119, the term unambiguously refers to the States of the Union.9
U.S. Const., passim. Accepted statutory construction directs
that we give “State” the same meaning throughout the
Constitution. Cf. Sorenson v. Sec’y of the Treasury, 475 U.S.
851, 860 (1986) (“The normal rule of statutory construction
assumes that identical words used in different parts of the same
act are intended to have the same meaning.” (internal quotations
omitted)).10

9
In three instances the Constitution refers to a “foreign State,” see
U.S. Const. Art. I, § 9, cl. 8; id. Art. III, § 2, cl. 1; id. amend. XI.
“State” with a plainly different meaning also appears in reference to
the President’s “State of the Union.” Id. Art. II, § 3, cl. 1. The
Constitution refers to “a” State five times. See id. Art. III, § 2, cls. 1,
2; id. amend. XXIII, § 1, cl. 2. A descriptive adjective precedes
“State” two times. See id. Art. IV, § 3, cl. 1 (“no new State”); id.
amend. XXIII, § 1, cl. 2 (“the least populous State”).
10
The legislative history of the Second Amendment also supports
the interpretation of “State” as one of the States of the Union. In the
First Congress, James Madison proposed language that a well-
regulated militia was “the best security of a free country.” David
Yassky, The Second Amendment: Structure, History, and
Constitutional Change, 99 Mich. L. Rev. 588, 610 (2000) (citing
Creating the Bill of Rights: The Documentary Record from the First
Federal Congress 12 (Helen E. Veit, Kenneth R. Bowling & Charlene
Bangs Bickford eds., 1991) (Documentary Record)) (emphasis added).
After the proposal was submitted to an eleven-member House of
Representatives committee (including Madison), however, “country”
was changed to “State.” Id. (citing Documentary Record, supra, at
30). As Judge Walton noted:
Anti-Federalist Elbridge Gerry explained that changing the
language to “necessary to the security of a free State”
emphasized the primacy of the state militia over the federal
standing army: “A well-regulated militia being the best
security of a free state, admitted an idea that a standing army
was a secondary one.”
 10

Although “the Constitution is in effect . . . in the District,”
O’Donoghue v. United States, 289 U.S. 516, 541 (1933) , as it
is in the States, “[a] citizen of the district of Columbia is not a
citizen of a state within the meaning of the constitution.”
Hepburn, 6 U.S. at 445 (emphasis in original). Accordingly,
both the Supreme Court and this court have consistently held
that several constitutional provisions explicitly referring to
citizens of “States” do not apply to citizens of the District. See
id. at 452-53; see also Bolling v. Sharpe, 347 U.S. 497, 498-99
(1954) (District not “State” under Fourteenth Amendment);
Adams v. Clinton, 531 U.S. 941 (2000), aff’g 90 F. Supp. 2d 35
(D.D.C. 2000) (three-judge district court held that Constitution
does not guarantee District citizens right to vote for members of
Congress because District does not constitute “State” within
Constitution’s voting clauses11); LaShawn v. Barry, 87 F.3d
1389, 1394 n.4 (D.C. Cir. 1996) (“The District of Columbia is
not a state. It is the seat of our national government . . . . Thus,
[the Eleventh Amendment] has no application here.”); Lee v.
Flintkote Co., 593 F.2d 1275, 1278 n.14 (D.C. Cir. 1979)
(“[T]he District, unlike the states, has no reserved power to be
guaranteed by the Tenth Amendment.”). On the other hand, the
Supreme Court and this court have held that the District can

Seegars, 297 F. Supp. 2d at 229 (internal quotation omitted) (citing
Yassky, supra (quoting The Congressional Register, August 17,
1789)). Indeed, in light of the meaning of “State” as used throughout
the Constitution, see supra p. 5, and the care the drafters are presumed
to have taken in selecting specific language, see Holmes v. Jennison,
39 U.S. 540, 570-71 (1840) (“Every word [in the Constitution]
appears to have been weighed with the utmost deliberation, and its
force and effect to have been fully understood.”), the change plainly
suggests that the drafters intended to clarify that the right established
in the Second Amendment was intended to protect the “free[dom]” of
the “State[s]” of the Union rather than the “country.”
11
U.S. Const. Art. I, §§ 2-4.
 11

parallel a “State” within the meaning of some constitutional
provisions. Loughran v. Loughran, 292 U.S. 216, 228 (1934)
(Full Faith and Credit Clause binds “courts of the District . . .
equally with courts of the states”); Milton S. Kronheim & Co. v.
District of Columbia, 91 F.3d 193, 198-99 (D.C. Cir. 1996)
(while “D.C. is not a state,” Commerce Clause and Twenty-first
Amendment apply to District). Ultimately, “[w]hether the
District of Columbia constitutes a ‘State or Territory’ within the
meaning of any particular statutory or constitutional provision
depends upon the character and aim of the specific provision
involved.” District of Columbia v. Carter, 409 U.S. 418, 419-20
(1973) (emphasis added).
The Second Amendment’s “character and aim” does not
require that we treat the District as a State. The Amendment
was drafted in response to the perceived threat to the
“free[dom]” of the “State[s]” posed by a national standing army
controlled by the federal government. See, e.g., Emerson, 270
F.3d at 237-40, 259; Silveira, 312 F.3d at 1076. In Miller, the
Supreme Court explained that “[t]he sentiment of the time [of
the Amendment’s drafting] strongly disfavored standing armies;
the common view was that adequate defense of country and laws
could be secured through the Militia” composed of men who
“were expected to appear bearing arms supplied by themselves.”
307 U.S. at 179. Indeed, at the time of the Constitutional
Convention, “there was a widespread fear that a national
standing Army posed an intolerable threat to individual liberty
and to the sovereignty of the separate States.” Perpich v. Dep’t
of Defense, 496 U.S. 334, 340 (1990) (emphasis added). The
Second Amendment, then, “aimed” to secure a military balance
of power between the States on the one hand and the federal
 12

government on the other.12 Unlike the States, the District
had—and has—no need to protect itself from the federal
government because it is a federal entity created as the seat of
that government.
[T]he Second Amendment was included in the Bill of
Rights to ensure that the people would have the ability
to defend themselves against a potentially oppressive
federal government, which had just been given the
authority to maintain a national standing army in Article
I of the Constitution. But, the drafters of the
Constitution having provided for a ‘District . . . [to]

12
As noted in Seegars:
[I]n his efforts to convince the people of the advantages of the
Constitution in The Federalist Papers, James Madison noted
that although the federal government had a standing army, the
people would have the use of militias, stating:
Let a regular army, fully equal to the resources of the
country, be formed; and let it be entirely at the
devotion of the federal government: still it would not
be going too far to say that the State governments
with the people on their side would be able to repel
the danger. . . . Besides the advantage of being
armed, which the Americans possess over the people
of almost every other nation, the existence of
subordinate governments, to which the people are
attached and by which the militia officers are
appointed, forms a barrier against the enterprises of
ambition, more insurmountable than any which a
simple government of any form can admit of.
Seegars, 297 F. Supp. 2d at 235 (internal quotation omitted) (quoting
The Federalist No. 46, at 267 (Clinton Rossiter ed., 1961)).
 13

become the Seat of the Government of the United
States,’ and having given Congress ‘exclusive’ authority
both to legislate over this District and to exercise control
over ‘the Erection of Forts, Magazines, [and] Arsenals
. . . ,’ surely it was not intended for the protection
afforded by the Second Amendment to apply to an entity
that had been created to house the national seat of
government. In other words, there is no reason to
believe that the First Congress thought that the federal
seat of government needed to be protected from itself
when the Second Amendment was adopted.
Seegars, 297 F. Supp. 2d at 238-39 (internal citations omitted)
(emphasis and alterations in original);13 see also Sandidge v.

13
Even if the District were to be considered a “State” under the
Second Amendment, I do not believe D.C. Code § 7-2502.02(a)(4)
could be challenged thereunder. When adopted, the Bill of Rights
protected individuals only against the federal government. See, e.g.,
Barron v. City of Baltimore, 32 U.S. 243, 247 (1833). Under the
“incorporation” doctrine, however, “many of the rights guaranteed by
the first eight Amendments to the Constitution have been held [by the
Supreme Court] to be protected against state action by the Due Process
Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.” Duncan v. Louisiana, 391
U.S. 145, 149 (1968) (Sixth Amendment right to jury trial in criminal
case protected against state action); see also Benton v. Maryland, 395
U.S. 784, 795 (1969) (“Once it is decided that a particular Bill of
Rights guarantee is fundamental to the American scheme of justice,
the same constitutional standards apply against both the State and
Federal Governments.” (internal quotation and citation omitted)). But
the Supreme Court has never held that the Second Amendment has
been incorporated. Cf. United States v. Cruikshank, 92 U.S. 542, 553
(1875) (“[The Second Amendment] is one of the amendments that has
no other effect than to restrict the powers of the national government
. . . .”); see also Love, 47 F.3d at 123 (“The Second Amendment does
 14

United States, 520 A.2d 1057, 1058 (D.C. 1987) (“assuming the
second amendment applies to the District of Columbia,”
majority holds “the Second Amendment guarantees a collective
rather than an individual right” (internal quotation omitted)); see
also id. at 1059 (Nebeker, J., concurring) (“I conclude first that
[the Second Amendment] does not apply to the Seat of the
Government of the United States.”).
III.
In its origin and operation, moreover, the District is plainly
not a “State” of the Union. It is, instead, “an exceptional
community,” District of Columbia v. Murphy, 314 U.S. 441, 452
(1941), that “[u]nlike either the States or Territories, . . . is truly
sui generis in our governmental structure.” Carter, 409 U.S. at

not apply to the states.” (citing Cruikshank, 92 U.S. 542)); Cases, 131
F.2d at 921-22 (“Whatever rights . . . the people may have [under the
Second Amendment] depend upon local legislation; the only function
of the Second Amendment being to prevent the federal government
and the federal government only from infringing that right.” (citing
Cruikshank, 92 U.S. at 553)). Thus, the Amendment does not apply
to gun laws enacted by the States. Because the Second Amendment
“was specifically included by the drafters of the Bill of Rights to
protect the states against a potentially oppressive federal government,”
Seegars, 297 F. Supp. 2d at 230, it would make little sense to
incorporate the Amendment. Although the District is a federal
enclave and thus the Second Amendment might seem to apply without
regard to incorporation, to hold that the District constitutes a “State”
under the Amendment and yet, at the same time, to treat its laws as
federal is a self-contradiction. In other words, either the District, as a
federal enclave, enacts federal law, including D.C. Code § 7-
2502.02(a)(4), or the District is a “State” and D.C. Code § 7-
2502.02(a)(4) is state legislation to which the unincorporated Second
Amendment does not apply.
 15

432. The Constitution provides for the creation of the District
in Article I, granting the Congress the power “[t]o exercise
exclusive Legislation in all Cases whatsoever, over such District
(not exceeding ten Miles square) as may, by Cession of
particular States, and the Acceptance of Congress, become the
Seat of the Government of the United States.” U.S. Const. Art.
I, § 8, cl. 17. As the Supreme Court explained in O’Donoghue,
“The object of the grant of exclusive legislation over the district
was . . . national in the highest sense, and the city organized
under the grant became the city, not of a state, not of a district,
but of a nation.” 289 U.S. at 539-40 (internal quotations and
citations omitted). In other words, the District is “the
capital—the very heart—of the Union itself . . . within which the
immense powers of the general government were destined to be
exercised for the great and expanding population of forty-eight
states.” Id. at 539.
The Congress possesses plenary power over the District and
its officers. Id. “Indeed, ‘[t]he power of Congress over the
District of Columbia includes all the legislative powers which a
state may exercise over its affairs.’” Carter, 409 U.S. at 429
(quoting Berman v. Parker, 348 U.S. 26, 31 (1954)). Although
the Congress delegated certain authority to the District’s local
government in the Home Rule Act of 1973, D.C. Code §§ 1-
201.01 et seq., it reserved the authority to enact legislation “on
any subject,” D.C. Code § 1-206.01, and to repeal legislation
enacted by the local government, id. § 1-206.02(c)(1). See
Bliley v. Kelly, 23 F.3d 507, 508 (D.C. Cir. 1994) (describing
Home Rule Act).
As do the States, the District maintains a “militia” of
“[e]very able-bodied male citizen . . . of the age 18 years and
under the age of 45 years ” residing in the District, D.C. Code §
49-401, which includes an “organized” division that is
 16

“designated the National Guard of the District of Columbia,”
D.C. Code § 49-406. Nevertheless, the District is again unique
in that its militia “is essentially a component of the federal
government.” Seegars, 297 F. Supp. 2d at 241. That is, it is
controlled by the federal government and acts only on the order
of the President.14 Executive Order 11,485 authorizes the
Secretary of the United States Department of Defense to
“supervise, administer and control” the District’s National
Guard “while in militia status” and to “order out the National
Guard . . . to aid the civil authorities of the District of
Columbia.” Exec. Order No. 11,485, 34 Fed. Reg. 15,411 § 1
(Oct. 1, 1969). The Executive Order also provides that the
“Commanding General and the Adjutant General of the National
Guard will be appointed by the President,” id. § 3, and that the
Commanding General “shall report to the Secretary of Defense,”
id. § 1; see also D.C. Code § 49-301(a)-(b) (“There shall be
appointed and commissioned by the President of the United
States a Commanding General of the militia of the District of
Columbia . . . . [T]he Commanding General of the militia of the
District of Columbia shall be considered to be an employee of
the Department of Defense.”). Unlike a State Governor who can

14
“The President of the United States shall be the Commander-in-
Chief of the militia of the District of Columbia.” D.C. Code § 49-409
(emphasis added); see also id. § 49-404 (“The enrolled militia shall
not be subject to any duty except when called into the service of the
United States, or to aid the civil authorities in the execution of the
laws or suppression of riots.”); id. § 49-405 (“Whenever it shall be
necessary to call out any portion of the enrolled militia the
Commander-in-Chief shall order out, by draft or otherwise, or accept
as volunteers as many as required.”).
 17

mobilize the State militia during civil unrest,15 the Mayor of the
District must request the President to mobilize the District’s
militia. D.C. Code § 49-103 (“[I]t shall be lawful for the Mayor
of the District of Columbia . . . to call on the Commander-in-
Chief to aid . . . in suppressing . . . violence and enforcing the
laws; the Commander-in-Chief shall thereupon order out so
much and such portion of the militia as he may deem necessary
to suppress the same . . . .”). See generally Seegars, 297 F.
Supp. 2d at 240-41 (discussing structure of District’s militia).
To sum up, there is no dispute that the Constitution, case law
and applicable statutes all establish that the District is not a State
within the meaning of the Second Amendment. Under United
States v. Miller, 307 U.S. at 178, the Second Amendment’s
declaration and guarantee that “the right of the people to keep
and bear Arms, shall not be infringed” relates to the Militia of
the States only. That the Second Amendment does not apply to
the District, then, is, to me, an unavoidable conclusion.
For the foregoing reasons, I would affirm the district court’s
dismissal of Heller’s Second Amendment challenge to section
7-2502.02(a)(4) for failure to state a claim for relief under
Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6). I would affirm its
dismissal of the other five appellants’ claims as well as Heller’s
other claims for lack of standing under Federal Rule of Civil
Procedure 12(b)(1). Accordingly, I respectfully dissent.

15
See, e.g., 4 Pa. Code § 7.211(a) (“The Governor will retain
command of State peacekeeping forces during a civil disorder.”)
(emphasis added), (d) (“In the event of disorder, . . . [w]eapons carried
by the National Guard will not be loaded nor will bayonets be fixed
without the specific order of the Governor.”) (emphasis added).