What is "right to keep and bear arms"

n. (context chiefly US English) The right of individuals to possess firearms and armor.

The right to keep and bear arms (often referred to as the right to bear arms) is the people's right to possess arms for their own defense, as described in the philosophical and political writings of Aristotle, Cicero, John Locke, Machiavelli, the English Whigs and others.

Inclusion of this right in a written constitution is unusual. In 1875, 17 percent of constitutions included a right to bear arms, yet, since the early twentieth century, "the proportion has been less than 10 percent and falling". In their historical survey and comparative analysis of constitutions dating back to 1789, Tom Ginsburg and colleagues "identified only 15 constitutions (in nine countries) that had ever included an explicit right to bear arms. Almost all of these constitutions have been in Latin America, and most were from the 19th century".

Generally, where modern constitutions refer to arms at all, the purpose is "to allow the government to regulate their use or to compel military service, not to provide a right to bear them". Aside from that of the United States of America, other constitutions which historically guaranteed a right to bear arms are those of Bolivia, Colombia, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Honduras, Liberia, Mexico, and Nicaragua. Nearly all of these were modelled on that of the United States. At present, out of the world’s nearly 200 constitutions, three still include a right to bear arms: Guatemala, Mexico, and the United States; of these three, only the last does not include explicit restrictive conditions.