Repealing the Second Amendment would be the best way to “weaken the NRA” and help the students to protested around their country achieve their goal…
Repealing the Second Amendment would be the best way to “weaken the NRA” and help the students to protested around their country achieve their goal of sweeping gun control, retired Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens wrote on Tuesday.
In his New York Times op-ed, Stevens said the National Rifle Association uses, “a propaganda weapon with immense power.”
The former justice points to a 2008 case in which the Supreme Court ruled the Second Amendment protects an individual’s right to bear arms — unconnected with service in a militia. Stevens was on the losing end of that ruling and wrote the primary dissenting opinion.
“That decision — which I remain convinced was wrong and certainly debatable — has provided the NRA with a propaganda weapon of immense power,” Stevens writes in the Times. “Overturning that decision via a constitutional amendment to get rid of the Second Amendment would be simple and would do more to weaken the NRA…,” he adds.
Stevens also commended the thousands who demonstrated for gun control nationwide in Saturday’s “ March for Our Lives .”
“Rarely in my lifetime have I seen the type of civic engagement schoolchildren and their supporters demonstrated…,” the 97-year-old wrote. “They reveal the broad public support for legislation to minimize the risk of mass killings of schoolchildren and others in our society.”
Stevens said the marches were “a clear sign” for lawmakers to pass legislation including: prohibiting civilian ownership of weapons like AR-15’s, raising the minimum age to buy a gun to 21 and implementing comprehensive background checks.
But one thing that’ll be more effective? Abolishing the Second Amendment.
“The demonstrators should seek more effective and more lasting reform. They should demand a repeal of the Second Amendment,” Stevens writes.
Stevens argues the “simple but dramatic action” would advance Saturday’s marchers “closer to their objective than any other possible reform.”
Taking steps to overturn the 2008 decision and repealing the Second Amendment would: “make our schoolchildren safer than they have been since 2008 and honor the memories of the many, indeed far too many, victims of recent gun violence,” Stevens concludes.
Appointed by Republican President Gerald Ford in 1975, Stevens retired after 35 years on the bench in 2010, making him the third-longest serving justice.
