Repeal the Second Amendment

Ex-Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens: Repeal the Second Amendment

By CRISTIANO LIMA

Former Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens said in an op-ed Tuesday that the Second Amendment should be repealed, citing the protests in response to the deadly school shooting in Parkland, Florida, as an impetus for the change.

Stevens, who retired from the high court in 2010 as one of the longest-serving justices in history, argued the Second Amendment had been warped by gun lobbyists at the National Rifle Association to extend beyond its original intent.

The former justice wrote that the movement that has emerged in the aftermath of the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, where a gunman killed 17 and injured several others, shows "broad public support for legislation to minimize the risk of mass killings of schoolchildren and others in our society."

"That support is a clear sign to lawmakers to enact legislation prohibiting civilian ownership of semiautomatic weapons, increasing the minimum age to buy a gun from 18 to 21 years old, and establishing more comprehensive background checks on all purchasers of firearms," Stevens wrote in The New York Times.

He added: "But the demonstrators should seek more effective and more lasting reform. They should demand a repeal of the Second Amendment."

Stevens wrote that the landmark 2008 District of Columbia v. Heller decision, which held that the Second Amendment protects the individual's right to bear arms even for those unaffiliated with a militia, has become a "propaganda weapon of immense power" for the NRA.

"Overturning that decision via a constitutional amendment to get rid of the Second Amendment would be simple and would do more to weaken the N.R.A.’s ability to stymie legislative debate and block constructive gun control legislation than any other available option," Stevens wrote.

Stevens, who was nominated to the high court by Republican President Gerald Ford and succeeded by Obama nominee Elena Kagan, dissented against the 2008 high court ruling, which also struck down a handgun ban in Washington, D.C.