WASHINGTON, D.C. – A repeal of the Second Amendment – the right to bear arms – would cure the so-called mass-shooting epidemic in America, a retired Supreme Court Justice said this week.
According to an opinion article published in the New York Times, former Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens says repealing the Second Amendment would free up lawmakers to write new law to control guns. The move, he says, would strike a blow upon the National Rifle Association and its powerful lobby that protects the rights of Americans to own guns.
Stevens says the Second Amendment was based upon the nation’s standing army potentially posing a threat to the populace, leading to common folks needing guns to protect themselves, but now, “that concern is a relic of the 18th century.”
Stevens lauded the marches and demonstrations of young people who are taking to the streets to plead for gun control regulations to be put in place and enforced.
Citing precedent, Stevens pointed to a 1939 the Supreme Court unanimous opinion allowing Congress to legislate the prohibition of possession of a sawed-off shotgun because that weapon had no reasonable relation to the preservation or efficiency of a “well regulated militia.”
In the end, Stevens, who served on the U.S. Supreme Court between 1975 and 2010, claims “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.”