I believe he said it was the"unfettered individual right" to weapons like machine guns and Saturday night specials that he didn't agree with. Most states allowed hunting weapons, rifles, shotguns and handguns.
Sigh . . .
Burger didn't say "unfettered individual right", that was the characterization of the author of the Politico commentary you linked to, the anti-gun hack Michael Waldman.
Here is the segment of the 12/16/1991 PBS interview when Burger discusses the 2nd Amendment:
"MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Some scholars have argued that the Bill of Rights is still flawed, that some of its provisions need reconsidering, that it's over rated. How do you respond to that?
JUSTICE BURGER: That is as with anything in this life, it could be better here or there.
MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Like where, for example?
JUSTICE BURGER: Well, that's a harder one to answer. If I were writing the Bill of Rights now there wouldn't be any such thing as the Second Amendment.
MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Which says.
JUSTICE BURGER: That says a well regulated militia being necessary for the defense of the state, people's rights to bear arms. 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 to that amendment. A well regulated militia -- if 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 of arms the way an automobile is regulated? It's got to be registered, that you can't just deal with it at will. Someone asked me recently if I was for or against a bill that was pending in Congress calling for five days' waiting period. And I said, yes, I'm very much against it, it should be thirty days' waiting period so they find out why this person needs a handgun or a machine gun.
MS. HUNTER-GAULT: What about the opinion polls, finally, that suggest that the Bill of Rights would not be popularly supported if it were up for ratification today?
JUSTICE BURGER: I don't believe that at all. I don't believe that at all. In fact, I think it's a little bit ridiculous. Any poll can be manipulated by how the question is asked and if you ask some active member of the NRA if the Second Amendment should be changed, of course, he or she would go up in the air.
MS. HUNTER-GAULT: That's the National Rifle Association.
JUSTICE BURGER: Yes. I don't want to get sued for slander, but I repeat that they have misled the American people and they, I regret to say, they have had far too much influence on the Congress of the United States than as a citizen I would like to see -- and I am a gun man. I have guns. I've been a hunter ever since I was a boy.
MS. HUNTER-GAULT: But you think the poll suggesting that the public wouldn't support a Bill of Rights is just wrong?
JUSTICE BURGER: It might not be exactly the same as this one. It might have some more things in than are here. It might just, bail provisions right now to provide that if a person comes into court charged with one crime and he is now on bail from a previous crime for which he has not yet been tried that he shouldn't be released, that's a debate that's going on right now. There might be some stricter provisions about bail. But I'm not even sure of that. When we have the hysteria that we have right now, with six, eight, ten people being killed over a weekend in a small area like Washington, people get a little bit emotional. I don't think we ever want to change the Constitution or any part of it based on some immediate emotional appeal and that's why that's, of course, where the Supreme Court and all the other judges come in. And the judges will see to it that emotion doesn't dominate these things.
MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Well, Mr. Chief Justice, thank you for being with us."
Holy Christ what gall . . . First, there shouldn't be a 2ndA but since we have it, let's not bother the people and actually amending the Constitution, let's allow judges to act for emotional reasons (but without emotion) to change the Constitution.
His meandering constitutionally incoherent musings show he
knows the 2nd Amendment expressly forbids what he wants to do and that the structure of the Constitution frustrates the leftist, authoritarian usurpation he would arbitrarily force, to violate the fundamental rights of citizens.
I would be happy knowing Burger and Stevens are holding hands, roasting in Hell.
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