Reply #398: Madison's intention was to place the amendment with clauses securing other individual rights.

[jmg257]

"Madison envisioned a personal right to bear arms, rather than merely a right for the states to organize militias, is evident from his desired placement of the right in the Constitution. Madison's original plan was to designate the amendments as inserts between specific sections of the existing Constitution, rather than as separate amendments added to the end of the document. Madison did not designate the right to keep and bear arms as a limitation of the militia clause of Section 8 of Article I. Rather, he placed it as part of a group of provisions (with freedom of speech and the press) to be inserted in "Article 1st, Section 9, between Clauses 3 and 4." Such a designation would have placed this right immediately following the few individual rights protected in the original constitution, dealing with the suspension of bills of attainder, habeas corpus, and ex post facto laws. Thus...

Madison aligned the right to bear arms along with the other individual rights of freedom of religion and the press, rather than with congressional power to regulate the militia. This suggested placement of the Second Amendment reflected recognition of an individual right, rather than a right dependent upon the existence of the militia.

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
Sam R Cummins 1999