For the past 3 decades, all of the Supreme Court Justices appointed by Democrats have ruled or stated that the Second Amendment's "right of the people to keep and bear Arms" does not apply to individual citizens. Instead, they say it only applies to militias, which they claim are now the state National Guard units. The primary author of the Second Amendment wrote that "being armed" is an "advantage" that "Americans possess over the people of almost every other nation," and the Senator who introduced the Fourteenth Amendment stated that it would "restrain the power of the States and compel them at all times to respect" the "personal rights guaranteed and secured by the first eight amendments of the Constitution," including "the right to keep and to bear arms."