The Third Amendment
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The Second Amendment: The Right to Bear Arms
This amendment consists of a single sentence: ‘‘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.’’
Although today we tend to think of the ‘‘militia’’ as the armed forces
or national guard, the original meaning of the word was ‘‘the armed citizenry.’’ One of the purposes of the Second Amendment was to prevent
Congress from disarming the State militias. The phrasing of the Amendment was directly influenced by the American Revolutionary experience.
During the initial phases of that conflict, Americans relied on the militia
to confront the British regular army. The right of each State to maintain
its own militia was thought by the founding generation to be a critical
safeguard against ‘‘standing armies’’ and tyrants, both foreign and domestic.
The Second Amendment also affirms an individual’s right to keep and
bear arms. Since the Amendment limits only Congress, the States are free
to regulate the possession and carrying of weapons in accordance with
their own constitutions and bills of rights. ‘‘The right of the citizens to
keep and bear arms,’’ observed Justice Joseph Story of the Supreme
Court in his Commentaries on the Constitution (1833), ‘‘has justly been considered as the palladium of the liberties of the republic, since it offers a
strong moral check against the usurpation and arbitrary power of rulers,
and will generally, even if these are successful in the first instance, enable
the people to resist and triumph over them.’’ Thus a disarmed population cannot easily resist or overthrow tyrannical government. The right
is not absolute, of course, and the Federal courts have upheld Federal
laws that limit the sale, possession, and transportation of certain kinds of
weapons, such as machine guns and sawed-off shotguns. To what extent
Congress can restrict the right is a matter of considerable uncertainty because the Federal courts have not attempted to define its limits.
The Third Amendment: Quartering Troops
Forbidding Congress to station soldiers in private houses without the
householders’ permission in time of peace, or without proper authori-