Gun Control & RKBA

Burger was speaking for the overwhelming majority of lawyers and judges. The Second Amendment reads: “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.” In Burger's view, the opening reference to a “well regulated Militia” suggests that the Second Amendment was meant to forbid the national government from abolishing state militias.

That view, which contrasts so sharply with the current interpretation, has a long history. In 1840, the Tennessee Supreme Court captured a widespread understanding in announcing that the real object of the right to keep and bear arms “is the defense of the public” and so refers to “military use.” It follows that a hunter “might carry his rifle every day for forty years, and yet it would never be said of him that he had borne arms.”