Thirty years ago, a former Supreme Court chief justice had his own solution for the nation’s gun debate. Warren Burger would have dropped the Second Amendment from the Bill of Rights if given the chance. Burger explained his frustrations with the amendment and how it was used by special interests in a 1991 interview with Charlayne Hunter-Gault on The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour.
“This has been the subject of one of the greatest pieces of fraud — I repeat the word ‘fraud’ — on the American public by special interest groups that I have ever seen in my lifetime,” he said.
He then referred to his tiny copy of the constitution and read the Second Amendment aloud, which states that “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.”
“If the militia, which was going to be the state army, was going to be well-regulated,” Burger asked, “why shouldn’t 16 and 17 and 18, or any other age, persons be regulated in the use of arms the way an automobile is regulated?”
This post was produced and edited by Joshua Barajas, Dan Cooney, Tim McPhillips, Erica R. Hendry, Travis Daub, Julia Griffin and Yasmeen Alamiri.
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