Commentary

"The importance of this article will scarcely be doubted by any persons, who have duly reflected upon the subject. The militia is the natural defense of a free country against sudden foreign invasions, domestic insurections, and domestic usurpations of power by rulers. It is against sound policy for a free people to keep up large military establishments and standing armies in time of peace, both for the enormous expenses, with which they are attended, and the facile means, which they affiord to ambitious and unprincipled rulers, to subvert the government, or trample upon the rights of the people. The right of the citizens to keep and bear arms has justly been considered, as the palladium of the libirties of a republic; since it offers a strong moral check against the usurpation and arbitrary power of the rulers; and will generally, even if these are succesful in the first instance, enable the people to resist and triumph over them." Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States, 1833.