Citation

Green MS. Notre Dame Law Rev. 2008; 84(1): 131-189.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2008, Notre Dame Law School)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

The Second Amendment to the United States Constitution reads: "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." Until recently, federal courts adopted a "collective-right" interpretation of the Amendment. According to this interpretation, the Second Amendment's scope is limited by its prefatory clause: the people have a right to bear arms only insofar as it contributes to a "well regulated Militia." Furthermore, the term "Militia" refers to organized state militias, whose only modern equivalent is the National Guard.

Under the collective-right interpretation, the Second Amendment protects the interests of state governments, not individuals. For this reason, only regulations of firearms that impair states' abilities to arm their militias can be unconstitutional. No challenged regulation has ever come close to this threshold.