Article VI of the Articles of Confederation, drafted in 1776 and ratified in 1781, required that “every state shall always keep up a well-regulated and disciplined militia, sufficiently armed.” The Constitution, signed in Philadelphia in 1787, granted Congress the power “to provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions.” The Second Amendment, adopted in 1791 as part of the Bill of Rights, stipulated that “a well-regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms,
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