Warren Burger on ‘2nd Amendment Fraud’

In 1991, conservative former Supreme Court Chief Justice Warren Burger said the idea that there was an individual right to bear arms was “a fraud”:

“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. Now just look at those words. There are only three lines in that amendment. “A well regulated militia”—of the militia, which was going to be the state army, was going to be well-regulated, why shouldn’t 16 and 17 and 18 or any other age persons be regulated in the use or arms the way an automobile is regulated?”

More:

“How the NRA Rewrote the Second Amendment,” Michael Waldman, Politico

“Not So Long Ago, the Second Amendment Didn’t Guarantee the Right to Own a Gun,” Ed Kilgore, New York Magazine

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Zygote Liberation Front Loses in North Dakota

On Tuesday North Dakota voters did not approve Measure One, which would have amended the State Constitution by adding one sentence: “The inalienable right to life of every human being at any stage of development must be recognized and protected.”

The North Dakota pro-life group behind this fetal personhood proposal didn’t like it called a “personhood” proposal, but that’s what it was. It would have outlawed not only abortions, but also other procedures such as in vitro fertilization. As one medical group observed, Measure One would have granted constitutional legal rights to fertilized eggs.

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Image by Mike Licht. Download a copy here. Creative Commons license; credit Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com

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