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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Fences Up at the Supreme Court

After the recent leak of Samuel Alito’s draft decision, the Supreme Court Building was surrounded by security fencing to prevent the Justices from breaking out and inflicting further damage.

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Photo by Victoria Pickering via Flickr (CC 2.0 license).

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The Supreme Court Leaks All the Time

Chief Justice of the Supreme Court John Roberts is shocked – shocked! — that a draft of the impending ruling on a Mississippi abortion case has been leaked to the press. Conservatives are calling the leak an act of treasonous insurrection, a subject they certainly know lots about.

Fact is, the leak is by no means unprecendented. Even the Roe decision, which this court seems bent on negating, was leaked. Warren Burger, then Chief Justice, demanded to know who had leaked the information and threatened to give all the Court’s clerks lie-detector tests:

“Clerks, justices, and other people with access to information have leaked about Bush v. Gore, the Affordable Healthcare Act, and—now—the overturning of Roe, just as in the 19th century, the court leaked information about its ruling in the Pennsylvania v. Wheeling and Belmont Bridge Company case. …. Despite all the Court’s august solemnity, full-time reporters covering it are able to break news about it and its inner workings—including, at times, in highly-detailed behind-the-scenes books—because people up to and including the justices leak.”

— “The Supreme Court Leaks All the Time,” Matthew Gault, Vice [links added]

Related:

“Newsmax Host Suggests Ketanji Brown Jackson, Who Isn’t On Supreme Court Yet, Leaked Draft,”
Elise Foley, HuffPost

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Top: Official US Supreme Court photo

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Supreme Court, September 24, 2020

Ruth Bader Ginsburg rests at the Supreme Court Portico.

 

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

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