USSC's Heller is FULL of Little Beauties

Inter alia, the Court rested its judgment in Heller
554 U. S. ____ (2008) upon the following:

" Congress enacted the Freedmen's Bureau Act on July 16, 1866.
Section 14 stated:
"[T]he right . . . to have full and equal benefit of all
laws and proceedings concerning personal liberty,
personal security, and the acquisition, enjoyment, and
disposition of estate, real and personal, including the
constitutional right to bear arms, shall be secured to
and enjoyed by all the citizens . . . without respect to
race or color, or previous condition of slavery. . . . "
14 Stat. 176-177.


The understanding that the Second Amendment gave
freed blacks the right to keep and bear arms was reflected
in congressional discussion of the bill, with even an opponent
of it saying that the founding generation "were for
every man bearing his arms about him and keeping them
in his house, his castle, for his own defense." Cong. Globe,
39th Cong., 1st Sess., 362, 371 (1866) (Sen. Davis).
Similar discussion attended the passage of the Civil
Rights Act of 1871 and the Fourteenth Amendment. "
[emphasis added]




David