The ratification date of the 2nd Amendment is December 15, 1791, the day Virginia became the eleventh state to approve it and pushed the amendment past the three-fourths threshold required by Article V. That same vote adopted the entire Bill of Rights. More than two centuries later, the date is no longer just a historical marker: under the Supreme Court’s current test for gun regulations, what the law looked like around 1791 helps decide what the government can regulate today.
From Proposal to Ratification
Congress proposed the amendment on September 25, 1789, as part of a package of twelve articles sent to the state legislatures.1National Archives. The Bill of Rights: A Transcription James Madison had introduced the original slate in the House on June 8, 1789, drawing heavily from changes state ratifying conventions had demanded during the fight over the Constitution.
What we now call the Second Amendment was listed as the fourth of those twelve articles. The first two proposed articles dealt with congressional apportionment and congressional pay, not individual rights. When those two fell short in the states, the original third article became the First Amendment, the fourth became the Second, and so on down the list.2New Jersey Department of State. Bill of Rights
Ratification required three-fourths of the state legislatures to approve.3Constitution Annotated. U.S. Constitution – Article V Overview With fourteen states in the Union in 1791, that meant eleven yes votes. New Jersey went first on November 20, 1789.2New Jersey Department of State. Bill of Rights Other states followed at their own pace, examining each article individually and weighing its effect on the balance between state and federal power. Virginia’s approval on December 15, 1791 crossed the line and made the Second Amendment law.1National Archives. The Bill of Rights: A Transcription
What the Amendment Says
The full text is short: “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.”4Congress.gov. U.S. Constitution – Second Amendment Twenty-seven words, ratified in a single day in December 1791, that have driven more than two centuries of legal argument over what the founding generation meant by them.
Why the 1791 Date Matters Today
For most of American history, the ratification date was mainly of interest to historians. That has changed. In New York State Rifle and Pistol Association v. Bruen (2022), the Supreme Court held that when the Second Amendment’s text covers someone’s conduct, the conduct is presumptively protected, and the government can only justify a restriction by showing it fits within “the nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation.”5Supreme Court of the United States. New York State Rifle and Pistol Association v. Bruen, No. 20-843 (2022)
That test sends judges to the founding era. Courts now routinely examine what kinds of firearms restrictions existed in the late 1700s and early 1800s to decide whether a modern law has a close enough historical analogue to survive. The ratification window around December 15, 1791 has become a legal reference point, not a piece of civic trivia.
The Court has also said the right is not unlimited. In District of Columbia v. Heller (2008), the same opinion that first recognized an individual right to keep a firearm for self-defense noted that longstanding restrictions on possession by felons, bans on carrying firearms in places like schools and government buildings, and regulations on commercial sales remain presumptively valid.6Justia Law. District of Columbia v. Heller, 554 U.S. 570 (2008) Two years later, McDonald v. City of Chicago extended that individual right to state and local governments through the Fourteenth Amendment. Together with Bruen, those decisions are what make the 1791 date do real work in courtrooms today.