最高法院将于12月开庭审理维拉蒙特斯诉库克县案，该案挑战的是州和地方对AR-15半自动步枪的禁令。挑战者称，这种步枪是出于自卫等合法目的的“常用”武器。为自身枪支禁令辩护的州政府则表示，这类武器更适合战争，而非平民生活。双方都没有认识到，第二修正案对“民兵”的提及，无论从哪一方来看，都有利于保护AR-15。
The Supreme Court will soon hear arguments in December in Viramontes v. Cook County, a challenge to state and local bans on AR-15 semiautomatic rifles. The challengers say the rifles are “in common use” for lawful purposes such as self-defense. The state governments defending their gun-bans say they are weapons better suited to war than to civilian life. Neither side recognizes that the Second Amendment’s reference to the “militia” counts in favor of protecting AR-15s either way.
挑战者强调自卫，这是一种以个人为中心的关切；而政府则主张，AR-15的军事性质正是禁止它们的理由。但AR-15恰恰是历史上适合民兵使用的那类小型武器。正如我们在为卡托研究所提交的法庭之友意见书中论述的那样，这实际上才是本案的核心。步兵在历史上会持有并携带的小型武器，对第二修正案而言并非边缘问题，而是处于其核心位置。
The challengers emphasize self-defense, an individually focused concern, while the governments argue that AR-15s’ military character is a reason to ban them. But AR-15s are the sort of small arms historically suited for a militia. This is actually the heart of the case, as we argued in a friend-of-the-court brief for the Cato Institute. Small arms that an infantryman would historically have kept and borne are not marginal to the Second Amendment. Rather, they sit at its center.
该修正案为保护持有和携带武器的权利所自称的理由是，一支管理良好的民兵对于一个自由州的安全是必要的。尽管自卫也是这项权利的一个重要方面，但关于AR-15相比手枪等武器在自卫方面有多大用处——或者关于它们在现代战场上相比对付夜间入室入侵者有多大用处——的争论，都偏离了要点。第二修正案自身的文本表明，它保护一项个人权利，正是出于对民兵重要性的认识。
The amendment’s self-professed rationale for protecting the right to keep and bear arms is that a well-regulated militia is necessary to the security of a free state. Although self-defense is also an important aspect of the right, debates about how useful AR-15s are for that purpose as compared to, say, pistols — or about how useful they are on a modern battlefield versus against a nighttime home intruder — miss the point. The Second Amendment’s own text says it is protecting an individual right out of a recognition of the militia’s importance.
该条款写道：“一支管理良好的民兵，对于一个自由州的安全是必要的，人民持有和携带武器的权利，不得予以侵犯。”第二修正案的独特之处在于，它既阐明了一项社会目的，又规定了一项个人保护。
The provision reads: “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.”The Second Amendment is unique in spelling out both a social purpose and an individual protection.
枪支管制倡导者长期以来一直主张，该条款的目的限定了这项保护的范围，因此第二修正案仅保护“各州人民维持一支管理良好的民兵的权利”——这是大法官约翰·保罗·史蒂文斯在里程碑案件“哥伦比亚特区诉海勒案”异议意见中的说法。史蒂文斯重视修正案中对民兵的提及，这一点有其道理。但他的多数同僚更准确地理解了它的含义。
Advocates for gun-control have long argued that the purpose cabins the protection, such that the Second Amendment protects only “the right of the people of each of the several States to maintain a well-regulated militia,” in the words of Justice John Paul Stevens’s dissent from the landmark case District of Columbia v. Heller. Stevens had a point in taking the amendment’s reference to the militia seriously. But the majority of his colleagues better understood what it means.
在安东宁·斯卡利亚大法官撰写的意见中，他们指出，从历史上看，民兵指的是“所有体格健全的男子”，在紧急情况下政府会征召他们服役。此外，“自由州”一词指的是“一个自由的政治共同体”，而非美国境内存在的具体州政府。第二修正案的制定者认为，武装起来的人民是自由社会的保障。广义上的民兵将“有助于击退入侵和镇压叛乱”。
In an opinion by Justice Antonin Scalia, they observed that historically, the militia referred to “all able-bodied men,” who would be called into duty by the government in emergency situations. Further, the term “free State” meant “a free polity,” not the specific state governments existing within the United States. The Second Amendment’s Framers deemed an armed population a safeguard for a free society. The militia, writ large, would be “useful in repelling invasions and suppressing insurrections.”
它将阻止可能威胁共和自由的“大规模常备军”的建立。而且如果需要，“受过武器训练并有组织”的公众将“更有能力抵抗暴政”。这最后一个目标——使人们能够抵抗暴政——尤其值得强调。“人民的民兵”能够对抗暴君，从而捍卫自由。而一支完全由政府控制的民兵则做不到这一点。第二修正案保障的是一项个人权利，其目的不仅仅局限于个人层面。
It would discourage the establishment of “large standing armies” that could threaten republican liberty. And if need be, a public “trained in arms and organized” would be “better able to resist tyranny.”This last aim, enabling resistance to tyranny, deserves particular emphasis. The “people’s militia” could fight a tyrant and thus defend freedom. A militia controlled exclusively by the government could not. The Second Amendment guarantees an individual right for more than just individually focused purposes.
前言条款有可能被过度解读，海勒案多数意见特意指出，第二修正案不涵盖危险且不寻常的武器，也不保证普通民众能够有效地对抗现代军队。
It is possible to overread the prefatory clause, and the Heller majority takes care to note that the Second Amendment does not cover dangerous and unusual weapons, nor does it guarantee that the general populace will be able to effectively fight against a modern military.
法院还预判了一种反对意见：如果“在军事服务中最有用的武器——M-16步枪之类——可以被禁止，那么第二修正案权利就与前言条款完全脱节了。”政府在维拉蒙特斯案的裁决中同意这一点。第二修正案提及民兵的历史背景提供了答案。在《权利法案》颁布之时，人们被期望保有适合步兵服役的轻武器，并在被征召执行民兵任务时携带它们。
The court also anticipated an objection: If “weapons that are most useful in military service — M-16 rifles and the like — may be banned, then the Second Amendment right is completely detached from the prefatory clause.”The governments in the Viramontes ruling agree. The historical context of the Second Amendment’s reference to the militia provides the answer. At the time the Bill of Rights was enacted, men were expected to keep small arms suited to infantry service and bear them when summoned for militia duty.
他们并不被期望拖着火炮四处走，更不用说带着需要多人操作的武器出现在集合点。AR-15是一种便于携带的半自动步枪（事实上，这是区分AR-15与M-16的一个主要特征，后者能够全自动射击），它恰好属于历史上民兵成员所持有的那一类武器。这远非对其宪法保护的致命打击，反而对其有利。在裁决维拉蒙特斯案时，法院应当拒绝那种邀请，即在一类享有保护的自卫枪支与某些法院所称的不享有保护的“战争武器”之间筑起一道不符合历史的高墙。马修·卡维登是卡托研究所刑事司法项目的主任。
They were not expected to lug around artillery, much less to show up at muster with crew-manned weaponry. The AR-15, a readily portable semiautomatic rifle (indeed, this is a major feature distinguishing AR-15s from M-16s, which are capable of fully automatic fire), sits neatly within the class of arms a militia member held historically. Far from being a fatal strike against its constitutional protection, that weighs in its favor. In deciding Viramontes,the court should decline the invitation to build an ahistorical wall between guns for self-defense that enjoy protection and what some courts call “weapons of war” that lack it. Matthew Cavedon is the director of the Cato Institute’s Project on Criminal Justice.