On Warren E. Burger's "The Right to Bear Arms"

In the January 14, 1990 issue of Parade magazine, the former chief justice, Warren Burger, argues that our constitutional right to bear arms is based on reasoning that doesn't hold up in today's world. He explains that in the times during which the Constitution and the Bill of Rights were drawn up, the world was a much different place. People in those times had to worry about defending themselves from foreign armies. He also mentions that much of the population relied on hunting foreign game for sustenance. He declares that the founding fathers implied that this right was a necessity because the people required a militia, or "state army."

Warren compares life then, with life now, where most food for sustenance comes from stocked store shelves and almost every militia has been replaced by the National Guard. Warren admits that Americans still need to protect their homes, and that we cannot expect people to give up the riffles they use for hunting game. His argument is that modern day citizens shouldn't have the right to bear arms without regulation by the state. He compares owning guns to owning automobiles and motorboats, both of which are heavily regulated by the state.

He seems to be writing to all Americans of voting age as he raises statistics about how the number of gun related homicides is increasing as the years go by. He further supports his claim - that guns should be regulated by the state, which would have the right to deny a person their right to own a gun based on criminal history, mental health, and even whether or not the person is employed - by informing us that fully automatic weapons are not required for hunting.

However, Warren, perhaps unintentionally, spends much space providing evidence and reasons why his warrant - that all dangerous weapons should be regulated by the state - should in fact be regarded with a suspicious mind. He mentions James Madison's saying that, whenever governments mean to invade the civil rights and liberties of the people, they start by taking away their weapons. Warren indicates that early Americans wanted protection from the new "monster" national government growing up all around them. How has this changed over time? I don't see that it has.

With more and more occurrences of local, state, and federal governments violating the civil and even human rights of its citizens, why should the people as whole not feel entitled to their constitutional right to bear the arms that could be used to defend themselves? Warren seems to have slept through the 1999 WTO meeting in Seattle, Washington, where the local and state police wantonly and openly attacked the unarmed, non-combative citizens (both those that were and were not exercising their constitutional right to freedom of assembly), even using military vehicles against them. He seems to have not heard about how the same happened in Miami, Florida when the people tried to protest about the FTAA. Perhaps Warren hasn't heard or seen the countless occurrences of police brutality, home-invasion, sexual-harassment, rape, assault, and even murder that are committed by the very people that are supposed to be protecting us from these crimes. Warren argues that we don't need weapons to arm a militia to protect ourselves anymore because we are protected by the standing army, the National Guard, and the police. But who is going to protect us from them in the cases when they turn sour? Warren neglects these points altogether.

Warren's argument raises more questions than it answers, and as such I don't think it is a very strong argument. He should have better anticipated his audience's questions (especially ones he raises directly, then forgets about), asked them (rhetorically), in his argument, and then provided an answer for them. Despite all this, his tone was not offensive, and his use of words avoided invoking any feelings of alienation. In this regard I do think Warren's essay was easy to read.