Full opinion text
Opinion for the Court filed by Senior Circuit Judge SILBERMAN. Dissenting opinion filed by Circuit Judge HENDERSON. SILBERMAN, Senior Circuit Judge. Appellants contest the district court’s dismissal of their complaint alleging that the District of Columbia’s gun control laws violate their Second Amendment rights. The court held that the Second Amendment (“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”) does not bestow any rights on individuals except, perhaps, when an individual serves in an organized militia such as today’s National Guard. We reverse. I Appellants, six residents of the District, challenge D.C.Code § 7-2502.02(a)(4), which generally bars the registration of handguns (with an exception for retired D.C. police officers); D.C.Code § 22-4504, which prohibits carrying a pistol without a license, insofar as that provision would prevent a registrant from moving a gun from one room to another within his or her home; and D.C.Code § 7-2507.02, requiring that all lawfully owned firearms be kept unloaded and disassembled or bound by a trigger lock or similar device. Shelly Parker, Tracey Ambeau, Tom G. Palmer, and George Lyon want to possess handguns in their respective homes for self-defense. Gillian St. Lawrence owns a registered shotgun, but wishes to keep it assembled and unhindered by a trigger lock or similar device. Finally, Dick Heller, who is a District of Columbia special police officer permitted to carry a handgun on duty as a guard at the Federal Judicial Center, wishes to possess one at his home. Heller applied for and was denied a registration certificate to own a handgun. The District, in refusing his request, explicitly relied on. D.C.Code § 7-2502.02(a)(4). Essentially, the appellants claim a right to possess what they describe as “functional firearms,” by which they mean ones that could be “readily accessible to be used effectively when necessary” for self-defense in the home. They are not asserting a right to carry such weapons outside their homes. Nor are they challenging the District’s authority per se to require the registration of firearms. Appellants sought declaratory and in-junctive relief pursuant to 28 U.S.C. §§ 2201, 2202, and 42 U.S.C. § 1983, but the court below granted the District’s motion to dismiss on the grounds that the Second Amendment, at most, protects an individual’s right to “bear arms for service in the Militia.” (The court did not refer to the word “keep” in the Second Amendment.) And, by “Militia,” the court concluded the Second Amendment referred to an organized military body — such as a National Guard unit. II After the proceedings before the district judge, we decided Seegars v. Gonzales, 396 F.3d 1248 (D.C.Cir.2005). We held that plaintiffs bringing a pre-enforcement challenge to the District’s gun laws had not yet suffered an injury-in-fact and, therefore, they lacked constitutional standing. Although plaintiffs expressed an intention to violate the District’s gun control laws, prosecution was not imminent. We thought ourselves bound by our prior decision in Navegar, Inc. v. United States, 103 F.3d 994 (D.C.Cir.1997), to conclude that the District’s general threat to prosecute violations of its gun laws did not constitute an Article III injury. Navegar involved a pre-enforcement challenge by a gun manufacturer to certain provisions of the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994, which prohibited the manufacture (and possession) of semiautomatic assault weapons. We held then that the manufacturers whose products the statute listed eo nomine had standing to challenge the law in question because the effect of the statute was to single out individual firearms purveyors for prosecution. Id. at 999. However, manufacturers whose products were described solely by their characteristics had no pre-enforcement standing because the threat of prosecution was shared among the (presumably) many gun manufacturers whose products fit the statutory description, and, moreover, it was not clear how these descriptive portions of the statute would be enforced. Id. at 1001. In Navegar, then, the “factor ... most significant in our analysis” was “the statute’s own identification of particular products manufactured only by appellants” because that indicated a “special priority” for preventing specified parties from engaging in a particular type of conduct. Id. Extending Navegar’s logic to Seegars, we said the Seegars plaintiffs were required to show that the District had singled them out for prosecution, as had been the case with at least one of the manufacturer plaintiffs in Navegar. Since the Seegars plaintiffs could show nothing more than a general threat of prosecution by the District, we held their feared injury insufficiently imminent to support Article III standing. 396 F.3d at 1255-56. We recognized in Seegars that our analysis in Navegar was in tension with the Supreme Court’s treatment of a pre-en-forcement challenge to a criminal statute that allegedly threatened constitutional rights. See id. (citing Babbitt v. United Farm Workers Nat’l Union, 442 U.S. 289, 99 S.Ct. 2801, 60 L.Ed.2d 895 (1979)). In United Farm Workers, the Supreme Court addressed the subject of pre-enforcement challenges in general terms: When the plaintiff has alleged an intention to engage in a course of conduct arguably affected with a constitutional interest, but proscribed by a statute, and there exists a credible threat of prosecution thereunder, he “should not be required to await and undergo a criminal prosecution as the sole means of seeking relief.” 442 U.S. at 298, 99 S.Ct. 2301 (quoting Doe v. Bolton, 410 U.S. 179, 188, 93 S.Ct. 739, 35 L.Ed.2d 201 (1973)). The unqualified language of United Farm Workers would seem to encompass the claims raised by the Seegars plaintiffs, as well as the appellants here. Appellants’ assertions of Article III standing also find support in the Supreme Court’s decision in Virginia v. American Booksellers Ass’n, 484 U.S. 383, 108 S.Ct. 636, 98 L.Ed.2d 782 (1988), which allowed a pre-enforcement challenge to a Virginia statute criminalizing the display of certain types of sexually explicit material for commercial purposes. In that case, the Court held it sufficient for plaintiffs to allege “an actual and well-founded fear that the law will be' enforced against them,” id. at 393, 108 S.Ct. 636, without any additional requirement that the challenged statute single out particular plaintiffs by name. In both United Farm Workers and American Booksellers, the .Supreme Court took a far more relaxed stance on pre-enforcement challenges than Navegar and Seegars permit. Nevertheless, unless and until this court en banc overrules these recent precedents, we must be faithful to Seegars just as the majority in Seegars-was faithful to Nave-gar. Applying Navegar-Seegars to the standing question in this case, we are obliged to look for an allegation that appellants here have been singled out or uniquely targeted by the D.C. government for prosecution. No such allegation has been made; with one exception, appellants stand in a position almost identical to the Seegars plaintiffs. Appellants attempt to distinguish their situation from that of the Seegars plaintiffs by pointing to “actual” and “specific” threats, Appellants’ Br. at 21, lodged against appellants by D.C. during the course of the district court litigation. But this is insufficient. None of the statements cited by appellants expresses a “special priority”'for preventing these appellants from violating the gun laws, or a particular interest in punishing them for having done so. Rather, the District appears to be expressing a sentiment ubiquitous among stable governments the world over, to wit, scofflaws will be punished. The noteworthy distinction in this case — a distinction mentioned in appellants’ complaint and pressed by them on appeal — is that appellant Heller has applied for and been denied a registration certificate to own a handgun, a fact not present in Seegars. The denial of the gun license is significant; it constitutes an injury independent of the District’s prospective enforcement of its gun laws, and an injury to which the stringent requirements for pre-enforcement standing under Nave-gar and Seegars would not apply. Since D.C.Code § 22^4504 (prohibition against carrying a pistol without a license) and D.C.Code § 7-2507.02 (disassembly/trig-ger lock requirement) would amount to further conditions on the certificate Heller desires, Heller’s standing to pursue the license denial would subsume these other claims too. This is not a new proposition. We have consistently treated a license or permit denial pursuant to a state or federal administrative scheme as an Article III injury. See, e.g., Cassell v. F.C.C., 154 F.3d 478 (D.C.Cir.1998) (reviewing denial of license application to operate private land mobile radio service); Wilkett v. I.C.C., 710 F.2d 861 (D.C.Cir.1983) (reviewing denial of application for expanded trucking license); see also City of Bedford v. F.E.R.C., 718 F.2d 1164, 1168 (D.C.Cir.1983) (describing wrongful denial of a preliminary hydroelectric permit as an injury warranting review). The interests injured by an adverse licensing determination may be interests protected at common law, or they may be created by statute. And of course, a licensing decision can also trench upon constitutionally protected interests, see, e.g., Dist. Intown Props. Ltd. P’ship v. District of Columbia, 198 F.3d 874 (D.C.Cir.1999) (reviewing District of Columbia’s denial of a building permit under the Takings Clause); Berger v. Bd. of Psychologist Exam’rs, 521 F.2d 1056 (D.C.Cir.1975) (reviewing District of Columbia’s denial of a license to practice psychology under the Due Process Clause), which will also give rise to Article III injury. At oral argument, counsel for the District maintained that we should not view this as a licensing case for standing purposes because D.C.’s firearm registration system amounts to a complete prohibition on handgun ownership. The District argues that we must analyze appellants’ standing exclusively under our pre-en-forcement precedents, Seegars and Nave-gar. We disagree on both counts. The District does not completely prohibit handgun registration. See D.C.Code § 7-2502.02(a)(4) (allowing certificates for pistols already registered in the District prior to 1976); D.C.Code § 7-2502.02(b) (excluding retired police officers of the Metropolitan Police Department from the ban on pistol registration). Had Heller been a retired police officer, presumably the District would have granted him a registration certificate. The same would be true if Heller had attempted to register a long gun, as opposed to a handgun. In any event, Heller has invoked his rights under the Second Amendment to challenge the statutory classifications used to bar his ownership of a handgun under D.C. law, and the formal process of application and denial, however routine, makes the injury to Heller’s alleged constitutional interest concrete and particular. He is not asserting that his injury is only a threatened prosecution, nor is he claiming only a general right to handgun ownership; he is asserting a right to a registration certificate, the denial of which is his distinct injury. We note that the Ninth Circuit has recently dealt with a Second Amendment claim by first extensively analyzing that provision, determining that it does not provide an individual right, and then, and only then, concluding that the plaintiff lacked standing to challenge a California statute restricting the possession, use, and transfer of assault weapons. See Silveira v. Lockyer, 312 F.3d 1052, 1066-67 & n. 18 (9th Cir.2003). We think such an approach is doctrinally quite unsound. The Supreme Court has made clear that when considering whether a plaintiff has Article III standing, a federal court must assume arguendo the merits of his or her legal claim. See Warth v. Seldin, 422 U.S. 490, 501-02, 95 S.Ct. 2197, 45 L.Ed.2d 343 (1975) (assuming factual allegations and legal theory of complaint for purposes of standing analysis). We have repeatedly recognized that proposition. See Waukesha v. E.P.A., 320 F.3d 228, 235 (D.C.Cir.2003); Am. Fed’n of Gov’t Employees, AFL-CIO v. Pierce, 697 F.2d 303, 305 (D.C.Cir.1982). “Indeed, in reviewing the standing question, the court must be careful not to decide the questions on the merits for or against the plaintiff, and must therefore assume that on the merits the plaintiffs would be successful in their claims.” Waukesha, 320 F.3d at 235 (citing Warth, 422 U.S. at 502, 95 S.Ct. 2197). This is no less true when, as here, the merits involve the scope of a constitutional protection. Still, we have not always been so clear on this point. Although we recognized in Claybrook v. Slater, 111 F.3d 904 (D.C.Cir.1997), that it was not necessary for a plaintiff to demonstrate that he or she would prevail on the merits in order to have Article III standing, the rest of our discussion seems somewhat in tension with that proposition. We did recognize that in Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife, 504 U.S. 555, 560-61, 112 S.Ct. 2130, 119 L.Ed.2d 351 (1992), when the Supreme Court used the phrase “legally protected interest” as an element of injury-in-fact, it made clear it was referring only to a “cognizable interest.” Claybrook, 111 F.3d at 906-07. The Court in Lujan concluded that plaintiffs had a “cognizable interest” in observing animal species without considering whether the plaintiffs had a legal right to do so. Id. (citing Lujan, 504 U.S. at 562-63, 112 S.Ct. 2130). We think it plain the Lujan Court did not mean to suggest a return to the old “legal right” theory of standing rejected in Association of Data Processing Service Organizations, Inc. v. Camp, 397 U.S. 150, 153-54, 90 S.Ct. 827, 25 L.Ed.2d 184 (1970), because it cited Warth, inter alia, as precedent for the sentence which included the phrase “legally protected interest.” Lujan, 504 U.S. at 560, 112 S.Ct. 2130. Rather, the cognizable interest to which the Court referred would distinguish, to pick one example, a desire to observe certain aspects of the environment from a generalized wish to see the Constitution and laws obeyed. Indeed, in Judicial Watch, Inc. v. United States Senate, 432 F.3d 359 (D.C.Cir.2005), Judge Williams wrote an extensive concurring opinion (not inconsistent with the majority opinion) in which he persuasively explains that the term “legally protected interest,” as used in Lujan, could not have been intended to deviate from Warth’s general proposition that we assume the merits when evaluating standing. Id. at 363-66. In Claybrook, we went on to say, quite inconsistently, that “if the plaintiffs claim has no foundation in law, he has no legally protected interest and thus no standing to sue.” Claybrook, 111 F.3d at 907. We concluded that plaintiff lacked standing, however, because the government agency in that case had unfettered discretion to take the action it did, and therefore there was “no law to apply.” Id. at 908. Thus the decision in Claybrook was actually based. on a separate jurisdictional ground — reviewability under the Administrative Procedure Act- — -and federal courts may choose any ground to deny jurisdiction, e.g., Article III standing, prudential standing, or subject matter jurisdiction. See Judicial Watch, 432 F.3d at 366 (Williams, J., concurring) (noting that Claybrook is hard to classify as a standing opinion). There is no hierarchy which obliges a court to decide Article III standing issues before other jurisdictional questions. In re Papandreou, 139 F.3d 247, 255-56 (D.C.Cir.1998). Therefore, we do not read Claybrook to stand for the proposition, contra Warth, that we must evaluate the existence vel non of appellants’ Second Amendment claim as a standing question. In sum, we conclude that Heller has standing to raise his § 1983 challenge to specific provisions of the District’s gun control laws. Ill As we noted, the Second Amendment provides: 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. U.S. Const, amend. II. The provision’s second comma divides the Amendment into two clauses; the first is prefatory, and the second operative. Appellants’ argument is focused on their reading of the Second Amendment’s operative clause. According to appellants, the Amendment’s language flat out guarantees an individual right “to keep and bear Arms.” Appellants concede that the prefatory clause expresses a civic purpose, but argue that this purpose, while it may inform the meaning of an ambiguous term like “Arms,” does not qualify the right guaranteed by the operative portion of the Amendment. The District of Columbia argues that the prefatory clause declares the Amendment’s only purpose — to shield the state militias from federal encroachment — and that the operative clause, even when read in isolation, speaks solely to military affairs and guarantees a civic, rather than an individual, right. In other words, according to the District, the operative clause is not just limited by the prefatory clause, but instead both clauses share an explicitly civic character. The District claims that the Second Amendment “protects private possession of weapons only in connection with performance of civic duties as part of a well-regulated citizens militia organized for the security of a free state.” Individuals may be able to enforce the Second Amendment right, but only if the law in question “will impair their participation in common defense and law enforcement when called to serve in the militia.” But because the District reads “a well regulated Militia” to signify only the organized militias of the founding era — institutions that the District implicitly argues are no longer in existence today — invocation of the Second Amendment right is conditioned upon service in a defunct institution. Tellingly, we think, the District did not suggest what sort of law, if any, would violate the Second Amendment today — in fact, at oral argument, appellees’ counsel asserted that it would be constitutional for the District to ban all firearms outright. In short, we take the District’s position to be that the Second Amendment is a dead letter. We are told by the District that the Second Amendment was written in response to fears that the new federal government would disarm the state militias by preventing men from bearing arms while in actual militia service, or by preventing them from keeping arms at home in preparation for such service. Thus the Amendment should be understood to check federal power to regulate firearms only when federal legislation was directed at the abolition of state militias, because the Amendment’s exclusive concern was the preservation of those entities. At first blush, it seems passing strange that the able lawyers and statesmen in the First Congress (including James Madison) would have expressed a sole concern for state militias with the language of the Second Amendment. Surely there was a more direct locution, such as “Congress shall make no law disarming the state militias” or “States have a right to a well-regulated militia.” The District’s argument — as strained as it seems to us — is hardly an isolated view. In the Second Amendment debate, there are two camps. On one side are the collective right theorists who argue that the Amendment protects only a right of the various state governments to preserve and arm their militias. So understood, the right amounts to an expression of militant federalism, prohibiting the federal government from denuding the states of their armed fighting forces. On the other side of the debate are those who argue that the Second Amendment protects a right of individuals to possess arms for private use. To these individual right theorists, the Amendment guarantees personal liberty analogous to the First Amendment’s protection of free speech, or the Fourth Amendment’s right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures. However, some entrepreneurial scholars purport to occupy a middle ground between the individual and collective right models. The most prominent in-between theory developed by academics has been named the “sophisticated collective right” model. The sophisticated collective right label describes several variations on the collective right theme. All versions of this model share two traits: They (1) acknowledge individuals could, theoretically, raise Second Amendment claims against the federal government,- but (2) define the Second Amendment as a purely civic provision that offers no protection for the private use and ownership of arms. The District advances this sort of theory and suggests that the ability of individuals to raise Second Amendment claims serves to distinguish it from the pure collective right model. But when seen in terms of its practical consequences, the fact that individuals have standing to invoke the Second Amendment is, in our view, a distinction without a difference. But cf. United States v. Emerson, 270 F.3d 203, 218-21 (5th Cir.2001) (treating the sophisticated collective right model as distinct from the collective right theory). Both the collective and sophisticated collective theories assert that the Second Amendment was written for the exclusive purpose of preserving state militias, and both theories deny that individuals qua individuals can avail themselves of the Second Amendment today. The latter point is true either because, as the District appears to argue, the “Militia” is no longer in existence, or, as others argue, because the militia’s modern analogue, the National Guard, is fully equipped by the federal government, creating no need for individual ownership of firearms. It appears to us that for all its nuance, the sophisticated collective right model amounts to the old collective right theory giving a tip of the hat to the problematic (because ostensibly individual) text of the Second Amendment. The lower courts are divided between these competing interpretations. Federal appellate courts have largely adopted the collective right model. Only the Fifth Circuit has interpreted the Second Amendment to protect an individual right. State appellate courts, whose interpretations of the U.S. Constitution are no less authoritative than those of our sister circuits, offer a more balanced picture. And the United States Department of Justice has recently adopted the individual right model. See Op. Off. of Legal Counsel, “Whether the Second Amendment Secures an Individual Right” (2004) available at http://www. usdoj.gov/olc/secondamendment2.pdf; see also Memorandum from John Ashcroft, Attorney General, to All United States’ Attorneys (Nov. 9, 2001), reprinted in Br. for the United States in Opposition at 26, Emerson, 536 U.S. 907, 122 S.Ct. 2362, 153 L.Ed.2d 184. The great legal treatises of the nineteenth century support the individual right interpretation, see Silveira v. Lockyer, 328 F.3d 567, 583-85 (9th Cir.2003) (Kleinfeld, J., dissenting from denial of rehearing en banc); Emerson, 270 F.3d at 236, 255-59, as does Professor Laurence Tribe’s leading treatise on constitutional law. Because we have no direct precedent — either in this court or the Supreme CourD — that provides us with a square holding on the question, we turn first to the text of the Amendment. A We start by considering the competing claims about the meaning of the Second Amendment’s operative clause: “the right of the people to keep and bear Arms shall not be infringed.” Appellants contend that “the right of the people” clearly contemplates an individual right and that “keep and bear Arms” necessarily implies private use and ownership. The District’s primary argument is that “keep and bear Arms” is best read in a military sense, and, as a consequence, the entire operative clause should be understood as granting only a collective right. The District also argues that “the right of the people” is ambiguous as to whether the right protects civic or private ownership and use of weapons. In determining whether the Second Amendment’s guarantee is an individual one, or some sort of collective right, the most important word is the one the drafters chose to describe the holders of the right — “the people.” That term is found in the First, Second, Fourth, Ninth, and Tenth Amendments. It has never been doubted that these provisions were designed to protect the interests of individuals against government intrusion, interference, or usurpation. We also note that the Tenth Amendment — “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people” — indicates that the authors of the Bill of Rights were perfectly capable of distinguishing between “the people,” on the one hand, and “the states,” on the other. The natural reading of “the right of the people” in the Second Amendment would accord with usage elsewhere in the Bill of Rights. The District’s argument, on the other hand, asks us to read “the people” to mean some subset of individuals such as “the organized militia” or “the people who are engaged in militia service,” or perhaps not any individuals at all — e.g., “the states.” See Emerson, 270 F.3d at 227. These strained interpretations of “the people” simply cannot be squared with the uniform construction of our other Bill of Rights provisions. Indeed, the Supreme Court has recently endorsed a uniform reading of “the people” across the Bill of Rights. In United States v. Verdugo-Urquidez, 494 U.S. 259, 110 S.Ct. 1056, 108 L.Ed.2d 222 (1990), the Court looked specifically at the Constitution and Bill of Rights’ use of “people” in the course of holding that the Fourth Amendment did not protect the rights of non-citizens on foreign soil: “[T]he people” seems to have been a term of art employed in select parts of the Constitution. The Preamble declares that the Constitution is ordained and established by “the People of the United States.” The Second Amendment protects “the right of the people to keep and bear Arms,” and the Ninth and Tenth Amendments provide that certain rights and powers are retained by and reserved to “the people.” See also U.S. Const., amdt. 1; Art. I, § 2, cl. 1. While this textual exegesis is by no means conclusive, it suggests that “the people” protected by the Fourth Amendment, and by the First and Second Amendments, and to whom rights and powers are reserved in the Ninth and Tenth Amendments, refers to a class of persons who are part of a national community or who have otherwise developed sufficient connection with this country to be considered part of that community. Id. at 265, 110 S.Ct. 1056. It seems unlikely that the Supreme Court would have lumped these, provisions together without comment if it were of the view that the Second Amendment protects only a collective right. The Court’s discussion certainly indicates — if it does not definitively determine — that we should not regard “the people” in the Second Amendment as somehow restricted to a small subset of “the people” meriting protection under the other Amendments’ use of that same term. In sum, the phrase “the right of the people,” when read intratextually and in light of Supreme Court precedent, leads us to conclude that the right in question is individual. This proposition is true even though “the people” at the time of the founding was not as inclusive a concept as “the people” today. See Robert E. Shal-lope, To Keep and Bear Ams in the Early Republic, 16 Const. Comment. 269, 280-81 (1999). To the extent that non-whites, women, and the propertyless were excluded from the protections afforded to “the people,” the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment is understood to have corrected that initial constitutional shortcoming. The wording of the operative clause also indicates that the right to keep and bear arms was not created by government, but rather preserved by it. See Thomas B. McAffee & Michael J. Quinlan, Bringing Forward the Right to Keep and Bear Arms: Do Text, History, or Precedent Stand in the Way?, 75 N.C. L. Rev. 781, 890 (1997). Hence, the Amendment acknowledges “the right ... to keep and bear Arms,” a right that pre-existed the Constitution like “the freedom of speech.” Because the right to arms existed prior to the formation of the new government, see Robertson v. Baldwin, 165 U.S. 275, 280, 17 S.Ct. 326, 41 L.Ed. 715 (1897) (describing the origin of the Bill of Rights in English law), the Second Amendment only guarantees that the right “shall not be infringed.” Thomas Cooley, in his influential treatise, observed that the Second Amendment had its origins in the struggle with the Stuart monarehs in late-seventeenth-century England. See Thomas M. Cooley, The GeneRal PRINCIPLES Op Constitutional Law In The United States Of AMERICA 270-72 (Rothman & Co.1981) (1880). To determine what interests this preexisting right protected, we look to the lawful, private purposes for which people of the time owned and used arms. The correspondence and political dialogue of the founding era indicate that arms were kept for lawful use in self-defense and hunting. See Emerson, 270 F.3d at 251-55 (collecting historical materials); Robert E. Shallope, The Ideological Origins of the Second Amendment, 69 J. Am. Hist. 599, 602-14 (1982); see also Pa. Const, sec. 43 (Sept. 28, 1776) (“The inhabitants of this state shall have liberty to fowl and hunt in seasonable times on the lands they hold, and on all other lands therein not enclosed ....”)• The pre-existing right to keep and bear arms was premised on the commonplace assumption that individuals would use them for these private purposes, in addition to whatever militia service they would be obligated to perform for the state. The premise that private arms would be used for self-defense accords with Blackstone’s observation, which had influenced thinking in the American colonies, that the people’s right to arms was auxiliary to the natural right of self-preservation. See William BlACKSTONE, 1 COMMENTARIES *136, *139; see also Silveira, 328 F.3d at 583-85 (Kleinfeld, J.); Kasler v. Lockyer, 23 Cal.4th 472, 97 Cal.Rptr.2d.334, 2 P.3d 581, 602 (2000) (Brown, J., concurring). The right of self-preservation, in turn, was understood as the right to defend oneself against attacks by lawless individuals, or, if absolutely necessary, to resist and throw off a tyrannical government. See Silveira, 328 F.3d at 583-85 (Kleinfeld, J.); see also id. at 569-70 (Kozinski, J., dissenting from the denial of rehearing en banc); Kasler, 97 Cal.Rptr.2d 334, 2 P.3d at 605 (Brown, J., concurring). When we look at the Bill of Rights as a whole, the setting of the Second Amendment reinforces its individual nature. The Bill of Rights was almost entirely a declaration of individual rights, and the Second Amendment’s inclusion therein strongly indicates that it, too, was intended to protect personal liberty. The collective right advocates ask us to imagine that the First Congress situated a .sui generis states’ right among a catalogue of cherished individual liberties without comment. We believe the canon of construction known as noscitur a sociis applies here. Just as we would read an ambiguous statutory term in light of its context, we should read any supposéd ambiguities in the Second Amendment in light of its context. Every other provision of the Bill of Rights, excepting the Tenth, which speaks explicitly about the allocation of governmental power, protects rights enjoyed by citizens in their individual capacity. The Second Amendment would be an inexplicable aberration if it were not read to protect individual rights as well. The District insists that the phrase “keep and bear Arms” should be read as purely military language, and thus indicative of a civic, rather than private, guarantee. The term “bear Arms” is obviously susceptible to a military construction. But it is not accurate to construe it exclusively so. First, the word “bear” in this context is simply a more formal synonym for “carry,” i.e., “Beware of Greeks bearing gifts.” The Oxford English Dictionary and the original Webster’s list the primary meaning of “bear” as “to support” or “to carry.” See Silveira, 328 F.3d at 573 (Kleinfeld, J.). Dr. Johnson’s Dictionary — which the Supreme Court often relies upon to ascertain the founding-era understanding of text, see, e.g., Eldred v. Ashcroft, 537 U.S. 186, 199, 123 S.Ct. 769, 154 L.Ed.2d 683 (2003) — is in accord. The first three definitions for “bear” are “to carry as a burden,” “to convey or carry,” and “to carry as a mark of authority.” See Johnson’s AND WalkeR’s English Dictionaeies Combined 126 (J.E. Worcester ed., 1830) [hereinafter Johnson]. Historical usage, as gleaned from the O.E.D. and Webster’s, supports the notion that “bear arms” was sometimes used as an idiom signifying the use of weaponry in conjunction with military service. However, these sources also confirm that the idiomatic usage was not absolute. Silveira, 328 F.3d at 573 (Kleinfeld, J.); Emerson, 270 F.3d at 229-32. Just as it is clear that the phrase “to bear arms” was in common use as a byword for soldiering in the founding era, see, e.g., Gary Wills, To Keep and Bear Arms, N.Y. Rev. Op Books, Sept. 21, 1995, at 62-73, it is equally evident from a survey of late eighteenth— and early nineteenth-century state constitutional provisions that the public understanding of “bear Arms” also encompassed the carrying of arms for private purposes such as self-defense. See Emerson, 270 F.3d at 230 n. 29 (collecting state constitutional provisions referring to the people’s right to “bear arms in defence of themselves and the State” among other formulations). Thus, it would hardly have been unusual for a writer at the time (or now) to have said that, after an attack on a house by thieves, the men set out to find them “bearing arms.” The District relies heavily on the use of “bearing arms” in a conscientious objector clause that formed part of Madison’s initial draft of the Second Amendment. The purpose of this clause, which was later dropped from the Amendment’s text, was to excuse those “religiously scrupulous of bearing arms” from being forced “to render military service in person.” The Complete Bill Of Rights 169 (Neil H. Cogan ed.1997). The District argues that the conscientious objector clause thus equates “bearing arms” with military service. The Quakers, Mennonites, and other pacifist sects that were to benefit by the conscientious objector clause had scruples against soldiering, but not necessarily hunting, which, like soldiering, involved the carrying of arms. And if “bearing arms” only meant “carrying arms,” it is argued, the phrase would not have been used in the conscientious objector clause because Quakers were not religiously scrupulous of carrying arms generally; it was carrying arms for militant purposes that the Friends truly abhorred (although many Quakers certainly frowned on hunting as the wanton infliction of cruelty upon animals). See Thomas Clakkson, A Portraiture Op Quajkerism, Vol. I. That Madison’s conscientious objector clause appears to use “bearing arms” in a strictly military sense does at least suggest that “bear Arms” in the Second Amendment’s operative clause includes the carrying of arms for military purposes. However, there are too many instances of “bear arms” indicating private use to conclude that the drafters intended only a military sense. In addition to the state constitutional provisions collected in Emerson, there is the following statement in the report issued by the dissenting delegates at the Pennsylvania ratification convention: That the people have a right to bear arms for the defence of themselves and their own state, or the United States, or for the purpose of killing game The Address And Reasons Of Dissent Of The Minority Of The Convention Of PENNSYLVANIA To Theie Constituents, reprinted in 8 The Complete Anti-Federalist 145, 151 (Herbert J. Storing ed., 1981). These dissenting Antifederalists, writing in December 1787, were clearly using “bear arms” to include uses of weaponry outside the militia setting — e.g., one may “bear arms ... for the purpose of killing game.” We also note that at least three current members (and one former member) of the Supreme Court have read “bear Arms” in the Second Amendment to have meaning beyond mere soldiering: “Surely a most familiar meaning [of ‘carries a firearm’] is, as the Constitution’s Second Amendment (‘keep and bear Arms’) and Black’s Law Dictionary ... indicate: ‘wear, bear, or carry ... upon the person or in the clothing or in a pocket, for the purpose ... of being armed and ready for offensive or defensive action in a case of conflict with another person.” Muscarello v. United States, 524 U.S. 125, 143, 118 S.Ct. 1911, 141 L.Ed.2d 111 (1998) (Ginsburg, J., dissenting, joined by Rehnquist, C.J., Scalia, J., and Souter, J.) (emphasis in original). Based on the foregoing, we think the operative clause includes a private meaning for “bear Arms.” In contrast to the collective right theorists’ extensive efforts to tease out the meáning of “bear,” the conjoined, preceding verb “keep” has been almost entirely neglected. In that tradition, the District offers a cursory and largely dismissive analysis of the verb. The District appears to claim that “keep and bear” is a unitary term and that the individual word “keep” should be given no independent significance. This suggestion is somewhat risible in light of the District’s admonishment, earlier in its brief, that when interpreting constitutional text “every word must have its due force, and appropriate meaning; ... no word was unnecessarily used or needlessly added.” Appellees’ Br. at 23 (quoting Holmes v. Jennison, 39 U.S. (14 Pet.) 540, 570-71, 10 L.Ed. 579 (1840)). Even if “keep” and “bear” are not read as a unitary term, we are told, the meaning of “keep” cannot be broader than “bear” because the Second Amendment only protects the use of arms in the course of militia service. Id. at 26-27. But this proposition assumes its conclusion, and we do not take it seriously. One authority cited by the District has attempted to equate “keep” with “keep up,” a term that had been used in phrases such as “keep up a standing army” or, as in the Articles of Confederation, “every state shall keep up a well regulated and disciplined militia .... ” See Wills, supra, at 66. The argument that “keep” as used in “the right of the people to keep ... Arms” shares a military meaning with “keep up” as used in “every state shall keep up a well regulated militia” mocks usage, syntax, and common sense. Such outlandish views are likely advanced because the plain meaning of “keep” strikes a mortal blow to the collective right theory. Turning again to Dr. Johnson’s Dictionary, we see that the first three definitions of “keep” are “to retain; not to lose,” “to have in custody,” “to preserve; not to let go.” Johnson, supra, at 540. We think “keep” is a straightforward term that implies ownership or possession of a functioning weapon by an individual for private use. Emerson, 270 F.3d at 231 & n. 31; accord Silveira, 328 F.3d at 573-74 (Klein-feld, J.). The term “bear arms,” when viewed in isolation, might be thought ambiguous; it could have a military cast. But since “the people” and “keep” have obvious individual and private meanings, we think those words resolve any supposed ambiguity in the term “bear arms.” * * ‡ ' # * * The parties generally agree that the prefatory clause, to which we now turn, declares the Second Amendment’s civic purpose — i.e., insuring the continuance of the militia system — and only disagree over whether that purpose was exclusive. The parties do attribute dramatically different meanings to “a well regulated Militia.” Appellants argue that the militia referenced in the Second Amendment’s prefatory clause was “practically synonymous” with “the people” referenced in the operative clause. The District advances a much more limited definition. According to the District, the militia was a body of adult men regulated and organized by state law as a civilian fighting force. The crucial distinction between the parties’ views then goes to the nature of the militia: Appellants claim no organization was required, whereas the District claims a militia did not exist unless it was subject to state discipline and leadership. As we have already noted, the District claims that “the Framers’ militia has faded into insignificance.” The parties draw on United States v. Miller, 307 U.S. 174, 59 S.Ct. 816, 83 L.Ed. 1206 (1939), to support their differing definitions. Miller, a rare Second Amendment precedent in the Supreme Court, the holding of which we discuss below, described the militia in the following terms: The Militia which the States were expected to maintain and train is set in contrast with Troops which they were forbidden to keep without the consent of Congress. The sentiment of the time strongly disfavored standing armies; the common view was that adequate defense of country and laws could be secured through the Militia — civilians primarily, soldiers on occasion. The signification attributed to the term Militia appears from the debates in the Convention, the history and legislation of Colonies and States, and the writings of approved commentators. These show plainly enough that the Militia comprised all males physically capable of acting in concert for the common defense. “A body of citizens enrolled for military discipline.” And further, that ordinarily when called for service these men were expected to appear bearing arms supplied by themselves and of the kind in common use at the time. Id. at 178-79, 59 S.Ct. 816. The District claims that Miller’s historical account of the “Militia” supports its position. Yet according to Miller, the militia included “all males physically capable of acting in concert for the common de-fence ” who were “enrolled for military discipline.” And Miller’s expansive definition of the militia — qualitatively different from the District’s concept — is in accord with the second Militia Act of 1792, passed by the Second Congress. Act of May 8, 1792, ch. XXXIII, 1 Stat. 271. Of course, many of the members of the Second Congress were also members of the First, which had drafted the Bill of Rights. But more importantly, they were conversant with the common understanding of both the First Congress and the ratifying state legislatures as to what was meant by “Militia” in the Second Amendment. The second Militia Act placed specific and extensive requirements on the citizens who were to constitute the militia: Be it enacted ... [t]hat each and every free able-bodied white male citizen of the respective states, resident therein, who is or shall be of the age of eighteen years, and under the age of forty-five years (except as is herein after excepted) shall severally and respectively be enrolled in the militia, by the captain or commanding officer of the company, within whose bounds such citizen shall reside, and that within twelve months after the passing of- this Act. And ... every such captain or commanding officer of a company ... shall without delay notify such citizen of the said enrollment .... That every citizen, so enrolled and notified, shall, within six months thereafter, provide himself with a good musket or firelock, a sufficient bayonet and belt, two spare flints, and a knapsack, a pouch, with a box therein, to contain not less than twenty four cartridges, suited to the bore of his musket or firelock, each cartridge to contain a proper quantity of powder and ball: or with a good rifle, knapsack, shot-pouch, and powder-horn, twenty balls suited to the bore of his rifle, and a quarter of a pound of powder; and shall appear so armed, accoutred and provided, when called out to exercise, or into service. Id. (emphasis added). The reader will note that the Act’s first requirement is that the “free able-bodied white male” population between eighteen and forty-five enroll in the militia. And enrollment was quite distinct from the various other regulations prescribed by Congress, which included the type of weaponry members of the militia must own. Becoming “enrolled” in the militia appears to have involved providing one’s name and whereabouts to a local militia officer— somewhat analogous to our nation’s current practice of requiring young men to register under the Selective Service Act. Silveira, 328 F.3d at 578 (Kleinfeld, J.). Thus when read in light of the second Militia Act, Miller defines the militia as having only two primary characteristics: It was all free, white, able-bodied men of a certain age who had given their names to the local militia officers as eligible for militia service. Contrary to the District’s view, there was no organizational condition precedent to the existence of the “Militia.” Congress went on in the second Militia Act to prescribe a number of rules for organizing the militia. But the militia itself was the raw material from which an organized fighting force was to be created. Thus, the second Militia Act reads: And be it further enacted, That out of the militia enrolled as is herein directed, there shall be formed for each battalion at least one company of grenadiers, light infantry or riflemen; and that to each division there shall be at least one company of artillery, and one troop of horse: There shall be to each company of artillery, one captain, two lieutenants, four sergeants, four corporals, six gunners, six bombardiers, one drummer, and one fifer. Id. at 272, 59 S.Ct. 816 (emphasis added). The crucial point is that the existence of the militia preceded its organization by Congress, and it preceded the implementation of Congress’s organizing plan by the states. The District’s definition of the militia is just too narrow. The militia was a large segment of the population — not quite synonymous with “the people,” as appellants contend — but certainly not the organized “divisions, brigades, regiments, battalions, and companies” mentioned in the second Militia Act. Id. at 272, 59 S.Ct. 816. The current congressional definition of the “Militia” accords with original usage: “The militia of the United States consists of all able-bodied males at least 17 years of age and ... under 45 years of age who are, or who have made a declaration of intention to become, citizens of the United States and of female citizens of the United States who are members of the National Guard.” 10 U.S.C. § 311. The statute then distinguishes between the “organized militia,” which consists of the National Guard and Naval Militia, and the “unorganized militia,” which consists of every member of the militia who is not a member of the National Guard or Naval Militia. Id. Just as in the 1792 enactment, Congress defined the militia broadly, and, more explicitly than in its founding-era counterpart, Congress provided that a large portion of the militia would remain unorganized. The District has a similar structure for its own militia: “Every able-bodied male citizen resident within the District of Columbia, of the age of 18 years and under the age of 45 years, excepting ... idiots, lunatics, common drunkards, vagabonds, paupers, and persons convicted of any infamous crime, shall be enrolled in the militia.” D.C.Code § 49-401. The District argues that the modifier “well regulated” means that “[t]he militia was not individuals acting on their own; one cannot be a one-person militia.” We quite agree that the militia was a collective body designed to act in concert. But we disagree with the District that the use of “well regulated” in the constitutional text somehow turns the popular militia embodied in the 1792 Act into a “select” militia that consisted of semi-professional soldiers like our current National Guard. Contemporaneous legislation once again provides us with guidance in reading ambiguous constitutional text. See Op. at 30; see also Silveira, 328 F.3d at 579-80 (Kleinfeld, J.). The second Militia Act provides a detailed list of directions to both individuals and states that we take as an indication of what the drafters of the Second Amendment contemplated as a “well regulated Militia.” It will be recalled, the second Militia Act requires that eligible citizens enroll in the militia and, within six months, arm themselves accordingly. Subsequent to enrollment, arming oneself became the first duty of all militiamen. See Silveira, 328 F.3d at 581 (Kleinfeld, J.). The Act goes on to require of the states that the militiamen be notified of their enrollment; that within one year, the states pass laws to arrange the militia into divisions, brigades, regiments, battalions, and companies, as well as appoint various militia officers; that there be an Adjutant General appointed in each state to distribute all orders for the Commander in Chief of the State to the several corps, and so on. The statute thus makes clear that these requirements were independent of each other, i.e., militiamen were obligated to arm themselves regardless of the organization provided by the states, and the states were obligated to organize the militia, regardless of whether individuals had armed themselves in accordance with the statute. We take these dual requirements — that citizens were properly supplied with arms and subject to organization by the states (as distinct from actually organized) — to be a clear indication of what the authors of the Second Amendment contemplated as a “well regulated Militia.” Another aspect of “well regulated” implicit in the second Militia Act is the exclusion of certain persons from militia service. For instance, the Act exempts from militia duty “the Vice President of the United States, [executive branch officers and judges], Congressmen, custom house officers, ... post officers, ... all Ferrymen employed at any ferry on the post road, ... all pilots, all mariners actually employed in the sea service of any citizen or merchant within the United States; and all persons who now are or may be hereafter exempted by the laws of the respective states.” Act of May 8, 1792, ch. XXXIII, 1 Stat. 271. Thus, even after the founding-era militia became “well regulated,” it did not lose its popular character. The militia still included the majority of adult men (albeit, at the time, “free able-bodied white male[s]”), who were to arm themselves, and whom, the states were expected to organize into fighting units. Quite unlike today’s National Guard, participation was widespread and mandatory. As the foregoing makes clear, the “well regulated Militia” was not an elite or select body. See Silveira, 328 F.3d at 577-78 (Kleinfeld, J.). While some of the founding fathers, including George Washington and Alexander Hamilton, favored such organizations over a popular militia, see The ORIGIN Of The Seoond Amendment at xlvii (David E. Young ed., 2d ed.1995), the Second Congress unambiguously required popular participation. The important point, of course, is that the popular nature of the militia is consistent with an individual right to keep and bear arms: Preserving an individual right was the best way to ensure that the militia could serve when called. * * * * * # As we observed, the District argues that even if one reads the operative clause in isolation, it supports the collective right interpretation of the Second Amendment. Alternatively, the District contends that the operative clause should not, in fact, be read in isolation, and that it is imbued with the civic character of the prefatory clause when the Amendment is read, correctly, as two interactive clauses. The District points to the singular nature of the Second Amendment’s preamble as an indication that the operative clause must be restricted or conditioned in some way by the prefatory language. Compare Eugene Volokh, The Commonplace Second Amendment, 73 N.Y.U. L. Rev. 793 (1998), with Michael C. Dorf, What Does the Second Amendment Mean Today?, 76 Chi.-Kent L. Rev. 291 (2000). However, the structure of the Second Amendment turns out to be not so unusual when we examine state constitutional provisions guaranteeing rights or restricting governmental power. It was quite common for prefatory language to state a principle of good government that was narrower than the operative language used to achieve it. Volokh, supra, at 801-07. We think the Second Amendment was similarly structured. The prefatory language announcing the desirability of a well-regulated militia — even bearing in mind the breadth of the concept of a militia — is narrower than the guarantee of an individual right to keep and bear arms. The Amendment does not protect “the right of militiamen to keep and bear arms,” but rather “the right of the people.” The operative clause, properly read, protects the ownership and use of weaponry beyond that needed to preserve the state militias. Again, we point out that if the competent drafters of the Second Amendment had meant the right to be limited to the protection of state militias, it is hard to imagine that they would have chosen the language they did. We therefore take it as an expression of the drafters’ view that the people possessed a natural right to keep and bear arms, and that the preservation of the militia was the right’s most salient political benefit — and thus the most appropriate to express in a political document. That the Amendment’s civic purpose was placed in a preamble makes perfect sense given the then-recent ratification controversy, wherein Antifederalist opponents of the 1787 Constitution agitated for greater assurance that the militia system would remain robust so that standing armies, which were thought by many at the time to be the bane of liberty, would not be necessary. See BERNARD BailyN, The Ideological Origins Of The Amerioan Revolution 338-60 (Enlarged ed.1992). The Federalists who dominated the First .Congress offered the Second Amendment’s preamble to palliate Antifederalist concerns about the continued existence of the popular militia. But neither the Federalists nor the Antifederalists thought the federal government had the power to disarm the people. This is evident from the ratification debates, where the Federalists relied on the existence of an armed populace to deflect Antifederalist criticism that a strong federal government would lead to oppression and tyranny. Antifederalists acknowledged the argument, but insisted that an armed populace was not enough, and that the existence of a popular militia should also be guaranteed. Compare The Federalist Nos. 8, 28, 59 (Alexander Hamilton), No. 46 (James Madison) (arguing that an armed populace constitutes a check on the potential abuses of the federal government) with Melancton Smith [Federal Farmer], Observations To A Fair Examination Of The System Of Government Proposed By The Late Convention, And To Several Essential And Neoessary Altera-tionsin It (Nov. 8, 1787), reprinted in The Origin Of The Second Amendment, supra, at 89, 91 (despite the fact that the “yeomanry of the country ... possess arms” for defense, the federal government could undermine the regular militia and render the armed populace of no importance). To be sure, as the District argues, the Miller Court did draw upon the prefatory clause to interpret the term “Arms” in the operative clause. As we note below, interpreting “Arms” in light of the Second Amendment’s militia purpose makes sense because “Arms” is an open-ended term that appears but once in the Constitution and Bill of Rights. But Miller does not command that we limit perfectly sensible constitutional text such as “the right of the people” in a manner inconsistent with other constitutional provisions. Similarly, the Second Amendment’s use of “keep” does not need to be recast in artificially military terms in order to conform to Miller. We note that when interpreting the text of a constitutional amendment it is common for courts to look for guidance in the proceedings of the Congress that authored the provision. Unfortunately, the Second Amendment’s drafting history is relatively scant and inconclusive. Emerson, 270 F.3d at 245-51. The recorded debates in the First Congress do not reference the operative clause, a likely indication that the drafters took its individual guarantee as rather uncontroversial. There is certainly nothing in this history to substantiate the strained reading of the Second Amendment offered by the District. B We have noted that there is no unequivocal precedent that dictates the outcome of this case. This Court has never decided whether the Second Amendment protects an individual or collective right to keep and bear arms. On one occasion we anticipated an argument about the scope of the Second Amendment, but because the issue had not been properly raised by appellants, we assumed the applicability of the collective right interpretation then urged by the federal government. Fraternal Order of Police v. United States (F.O.P.II), 173 F.3d 898, 906 (D.C.Cir.1999). The Supreme Court has not decided this issue either. See id. As we have said, the leading Second Amendment case in the Supreme Court is United States v. Miller. While Miller is our best guide, the Supreme Court’s other statements on the Second Amendment warrant mention. In Dred Scott v. Sandford, 60 U.S. 393, 19 How. 393, 15 L.Ed. 691 (1857), the Court asserted the applicability of the Bill of Rights to the territories in the following terms: [N]o one ... will contend that Congress can make any law in a Territory respect- . ing the establishment of religion, or the free exercise thereof, or abridging the freedom of speech or of the press, or the right of the people of the Territory peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for the redress of grievances ... [njor can Congress deny to the people the right to keep and bear arms, nor the right to trial by jury, nor compel any one to be a witness against himself in a criminal proceeding .... These powers ... in relation to rights of person ... are, in express and positive terms, denied to the General Government. Id. at 450 (emphasis added). Although Dred Scott is as infamous as it was erroneous in holding that African-Americans are not citizens, this passage expresses the view, albeit in passing, that the Second Amendment contains a personal right. It is included among other individual rights, such as the right to trial by jury and the privilege against self-incrimination. The other Second Amendment cases of the mid-nineteenth century did not touch upon the individual versus collective nature of the Amendment’s guarantee. In Robertson v. Baldwin, 165 U.S. 275, 17 S.Ct. 326, 41 L.Ed. 715 (1897), the Court addressed the scope of the term “involuntary servitude” in the Thirteenth , Amendment. In discussing limitations inherent in that constitutional provision, the Court said the following: The law is perfectly well settled that the first 10 amendments to the constitution, commonly known as the “Bill of Rights,” were not intended to lay down any novel principles of government, but simply to embody certain guaranties and immunities which we had inherited from our English ancestors, and which had, from time immemorial, been subject to certain well-recognized exceptions, arising from the necessities of the case.... Thus, the freedom of speech and of the press (article 1) does not permit the publication of libels, blasphemous or indecent articles, or other publications injurious to public morals or private reputation; the right of the people to keep and bear arms (article 2) is not infringed by laws prohibiti