The gun lobby and other conservatives have grossly misled the American people about what the Second Amendment really means.
In order to reduce gun violence — and reduce the power of the gun lobby — decent people must change the public’s misconceptions about it.
The U.S. Constitution’s Second Amendment says: “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.”
Some years ago Warren Burger, the Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court (who happened to be conservative) understood the reality and wrote this:
“The Gun Lobby’s interpretation of the Second Amendment is one of the greatest pieces of fraud, I repeat the word fraud, on the American People by special interest groups that I have ever seen in my lifetime. The real purpose of the Second Amendment was to ensure that state armies – the militia – would be maintained for the defense of the state. The very language of the Second Amendment refutes any argument that it was intended to guarantee every citizen an unfettered right to any kind of weapon he or she desires.”
