"a manner consistent with natural rights--as, for example, in defence of life, liberty, chastity"

[Pg. 66]
   "The second amendment to the constitution declares that "the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed."
   "This right "to keep and bear arms" implies the right to use them--as much as a provision securing to the people the right to buy and keep food, would imply their right also to eat it. But this implied right to use arms, is only a right to use them in a manner consistent with natural rights--as, for example, in defence of life, liberty, chastity, &c. Here is an innocent and just meaning, of which the words are susceptible; and such is therefore the extent of their legal meaning. If the courts could go beyond the innocent and necessary meaning of the words, and imply or infer from them an authority for anything contrary to natural right, they could imply a constitutional authority in the people to use arms, not merely for the just and innocent purposes of defence, but also for the criminal purposes of aggression--for purposes of murder, robbery, or any other acts of wrong to which arms are capable of being applied. The mere verbal implication would as much authorize the people to use arms for unjust, as for just, purposes. But the legal implication gives only an authority for their innocent use. And why? Simply because justice is the end of all law--the legitimate end of all compacts of government. It is itself law; and there is no right or power among men to destroy its obligation."

[Pg. 98]
""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 he infringed."

"These provisions obviously recognize the natural right of all men "to keep and bear arms" for their personal defence; and prohibit both Congress and the State governments from infringing the right of "the people"--that is, of any of the people to do so; and more especially of any whom Congress have power to include in their militia. This right of a man "to keep and bear arms" is a right palpably inconsistent with the idea of his being a slave."--Lysander Spooner, [The unconstitutionality of slavery:Iincluding Parts First and Second. Boston: Published by Bela Marsh, No. 25 Cornhill. 1847. (Lysander Spooner (January 19, 1808 – May 14, 1887) was an American individualist anarchist, political philosopher, Deist, Unitarian abolitionist, and supporter of the labor movement, legal theorist, and entrepreneur of the 19th century. He is also competed with the U.S. Post Office, with his American Letter Mail Co., which was forced out of business by the United States government).