Bush Administration Position
U.S. Brief Filed in Support of Neither Party
The court of appeals correctly held that the SecondAmendment protects an individual right to possess firearms unrelated to militiaoperations. By its plain text, the Second Amendment secures a “right, a termthat the Constitution consistently uses to refer to individual freedoms ratherthan State prerogatives. The text also makes clear that the right is notlimited to members of a select body (like today’s National Guard) but extends to“the people generally. The Second Amendment’s placement within the Bill ofRights, and its use of a phrase (“the people) that has acquired a settledmeaning in surrounding constitutional provisions, reinforces the most naturalreading of the Amendment’s…
