Second Amendment
Definitions from Case Law · United States Supreme Court
Definitions from Case Law
From 307 U.S. 174 - United States v. Miller · 1939Most cited · 857 citing opinions
With obvious purpose to assure the continuation and render possible the effectiveness of such forces the declaration and guarantee of the Second Amendment were made. It must be interpreted and applied with that end in view. In the absence of any evidence tending to show that possession or use of a 'shotgun having a barrel of less than eighteen inches in length' at this time has some reasonable relationship to the preservation or efficiency of a well regulated militia, we cannot say that the Second Amendment guarantees the right to keep and bear such an instrument.
How often courts cite the case defining “Second Amendment”
Court decisions citing the opinion that defined “Second Amendment” — 851 in all, by decade. Counts are citations to the defining case as a whole, not verified uses of the term. The dip in the most recent years is a data-coverage gap, not a real trend — our corpus holds fewer opinions from the latest years.