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"The Second Amendment protects an individual right to possess a firearm
unconnected with service in a militia, and to use that arm for traditionally
lawful purposes, such as self-defense within the home," and "that the District’s
ban on handgun possession in the home violates the Second Amendment, as does its
prohibition against rendering any lawful firearm in the home operable for the
purpose of immediate self-defense."

Significantly with respect to the meaning of the amendment, the court found that
the Second Amendment prohibited the national government from infringing on the
right of individuals "to bear arms for a lawful purpose".

Ulysses S. Grant
who stated, in an address to the Congress on April 19, 1872,
that "to deprive colored citizens of the right to bear arms" was among the goals
of the Ku Klux Klan.^[78]

The right to bear arms was addressed by President
Ulysses
S. Grant

who
stated, in an address to the Congress on

April
19

,

1872

,

that "to
deprive colored citizens of the right to bear arms" was among the goals


of the

Ku

I am enamour'd of growing out-doors,
Of men that live among cattle or taste
of the ocean or woods,
Of the builders and steerers of ships and the
wielders of axes and
mauls, and the drivers of horses,
I can eat and
sleep with them week in and week out.

The pure contralto sings in the organ loft,
The carpenter dresses his plank,
the tongue of his foreplane
whistles its wild ascending lisp,
The
married and unmarried children ride home to their Thanksgiving
dinner,

The pilot seizes the king-pin, he heaves down with a strong arm,
The
mate stands braced in the whale-boat, lance and harpoon are
ready,
The
duck-shooter walks by silent and cautious stretches,
The deacons are
ordain'd with cross'd hands at the altar,
The spinning-girl retreats and
advances to the hum of the big wheel,
The farmer stops by the bars as he
walks on a First-day loafe and
looks at the oats and rye,
The lunatic is
carried at last to the asylum a confirm'd case,
(He will never sleep any
more as he did in the cot in his mother's
bed-room;)
The jour printer
with gray head and gaunt jaws works at his case,
He turns his quid of
tobacco while his eyes blurr with the
manuscript;
The malform'd limbs
are tied to the surgeon's table,
What is removed drops horribly in a pail;

The quadroon girl is sold at the auction-stand, the drunkard nods by
the
bar-room stove,
The machinist rolls up his sleeves, the policeman travels
his beat,
the gate-keeper marks who pass,
The young fellow drives the
express-wagon, (I love him, though I do
not know him;)

The half-breed straps on his light boots to compete in the race,
The western
turkey-shooting draws old and young, some lean on their
rifles, some sit on
logs,
Out from the crowd steps the marksman, takes his position, levels

his piece;
The groups of newly-come immigrants cover the wharf or levee,

As the woolly-pates hoe in the sugar-field, the overseer views them
from
his saddle,
The bugle calls in the ball-room, the gentlemen run for their

partners, the dancers bow to each other,
The youth lies awake in the
cedar-roof'd garret and harks to the
musical rain,
The Wolverine sets
traps on the creek that helps fill the Huron,
The squaw wrapt in her
yellow-hemm'd cloth is offering moccasins and
bead-bags for sale,
The
connoisseur peers along the exhibition-gallery with half-shut
eyes bent
sideways,
As the deck-hands make fast the steamboat the plank is thrown for

the shore-going passengers,
The young sister holds out the skein while
the elder sister winds it
off in a ball, and stops now and then for the
knots,
The one-year wife is recovering and happy having a week ago borne

her first child,
The clean-hair'd Yankee girl works with her
sewing-machine or in the
factory or mill,
The paving-man leans on his
two-handed rammer, the reporter's lead
flies swiftly over the note-book, the
sign-painter is lettering
with blue and gold,

The canal boy trots on the tow-path, the book-keeper counts at his
desk, the
shoemaker waxes his thread,
The conductor beats time for the band and all
the performers follow
him,
The child is baptized, the convert is making
his first professions,
The regatta is spread on the bay, the race is begun,
(how the white
sails sparkle!)
The drover watching his drove sings out
to them that would stray,
The pedler sweats with his pack on his back, (the
purchaser higgling
about the odd cent;)
The bride unrumples her white
dress, the minute-hand of the clock
moves slowly,
The opium-eater
reclines with rigid head and just-open'd lips,
The prostitute draggles her
shawl, her bonnet bobs on her tipsy and
pimpled neck,
The crowd laugh at
her blackguard oaths, the men jeer and wink to
each other,
(Miserable! I
do not laugh at your oaths nor jeer you;)
The President holding a cabinet
council is surrounded by the great
Secretaries,
On the piazza walk three
matrons stately and friendly with twined
arms,

The crew of the fish-smack pack repeated layers of halibut in the
hold,

The Missourian crosses the plains toting his wares and his cattle,
As
the fare-collector goes through the train he gives notice by the
jingling of
loose change,
The floor-men are laying the floor, the tinners are tinning
the
roof, the masons are calling for mortar,
In single file each
shouldering his hod pass onward the laborers;
Seasons pursuing each other
the indescribable crowd is gather'd, it
is the fourth of Seventh-month,
(what salutes of cannon and
small arms!)
Seasons pursuing each other the
plougher ploughs, the mower mows,
and the winter-grain falls in the ground;

Off on the lakes the pike-fisher watches and waits by the hole in
the
frozen surface,
The stumps stand thick round the clearing, the squatter
strikes deep
with his axe,
Flatboatmen make fast towards dusk near the
cotton-wood or
pecan-trees,
Coon-seekers go through the regions of the
Red river or through
those drain'd by the Tennessee, or through those of the
Arkansas,
Torches shine in the dark that hangs on the Chattahooche or

Altamahaw,
Patriarchs sit at supper with sons and grandsons and
great-grandsons
around them,
In walls of adobie, in canvas tents, rest
hunters and trappers after
their day's sport,
The city sleeps and the
country sleeps,
The living sleep for their time, the dead sleep for their
time,
The old husband sleeps by his wife and the young husband sleeps by

his wife;
And these tend inward to me, and I tend outward to them,

And such as it is to be of these more or less I am,
And of these one and
all I weave the song of myself.

I exist as I am, that is enough,
If no other in the world be aware I sit
content,
And if each and all be aware I sit content.

I am the poet of the Body and I am the poet of the Soul,
The pleasures of
heaven are with me and the pains of hell are with
me,
The first I graft
and increase upon myself, the latter I translate
into new tongue.