Recently, Retired Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens published an op-ed in The New York Times, calling for a repeal of the Second Amendment. In the article, former Justice Stevens discusses the recent National School Walkout and the March for Our Lives and spoke of his great admiration for the way the younger generation has taken such an active role in politics and in trying to bring about change.
However, Stevens noted how he believes that the students will not be able to bring about the change they seek unless the Second Amendment is overturned as “it would eliminate the only legal rule that protects the seller of firearms in the United States."
While he references this solution as a “simple but dramatic action,” I believe this has much larger implications and could start a very dangerous form of rhetoric. By repealing an amendment, he is not talking about the popular term “common sense gun control" that is thrown around during these debates. The retired justice is proposing to eliminate a right that was given to us by our Constitution, he is talking about overturning over 200 years of precedent. Ultimately, Stevens believes that the Second Amendment as it was drafted by the founding fathers is a “relic."
Stevens noted that the original purpose of the Second Amendment was to maintain “a well-regulated militia, being necessary for the security of a free state.” However, his argument seems to be that it is an outdated concept. To that, I must state that as much as I would like them to be, tyrannical governments are not a relic of the 18th century. There have been countless examples in contemporary history where the first action of a tyrannical government or dictatorship was to disarm its citizens, such as Nazi Germany did to the Jews.
My second grievance with Stevens' article is that he seems to believe that certain aspects of gun ownership should be maintained and protected by the citizens, such as the right to self-defense or to use guns for hunting. In his article, he cites several measures that have been considered by Florida following the Parkland shooting, such as prohibiting civilian ownership of semi-automatic weapons or raising the minimum age from 18 to 21 years old, which would lead me to believe that he thinks to some capacity citizens do have a right to gun ownership.
However, it seems that Mr. Steven operates under the assumption that if the Second Amendment protection of gun ownership is removed that the government would not try to infringe on all forms of gun ownership.
Unfortunately, I do not operate with that same level of optimism. I believe that in our constitutional republic, it is the specific role of government to protect citizens' rights. This is why I think that the first 10 amendments that constitute the Bill of Rights were and still are so important in founding and preserving our country.
But the most prominent of my grievances about the Stevens article is a belief that it will be damaging to creating any sort of meaningful dialogue on gun control. The right has been brought to the table with the promises of common sense gun control and that this is not a deliberate effort for confiscation. Yet, action that removes the only legitimate legal protection of firearm owners and sellers does not seem like common sense; it seems like tyranny, Mr. Stevens, which would make it seem that maybe the idea of a well-regulated militia against tyranny isn’t such a relic of the past.