The former Justice wants to repeal the Second Amendment

John Paul Stevens for the NRA

The former Justice wants to repeal the Second Amendment.

Former Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens speaks at a lecture presented by the Clinton School of Public Service in Little Rock, Ark. in 2012. 

By 

The Editorial Board

March 27, 2018 7:15 p.m. ET

1464 COMMENTS

Critics often accuse the National Rifle Association of paranoia for arguing that gun controllers want to eliminate the Second Amendment. Well, being paranoid doesn’t mean the NRA is wrong.

Look no further than former Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens, who is arguing this week that the Parkland, Florida, students and their allies shouldn’t settle for mere restrictions on guns. They should lobby Congress and the states to abolish the Second Amendment.

“Concern that a national standing army might pose a threat to the security of the separate states led to the adoption of that amendment,” the 97-year-old former Justice wrote in an op-ed published in The New York Times Tuesday, adding, “today that concern is a relic of the 18th century.”

Apparently Justice Stevens is still sore about losing the argument in the 2008 landmark gun-rights case, D.C. v. Heller. He wrote the dissent in that case arguing that the Second Amendment was merely intended to support a militia, not the individual right to bear arms.

But he lost 5-4 as the majority held, with extensive citation from history, that the Founders intended the right for individuals. Some regulation of guns is legal under the Constitution, Justice Antonin Scalia wrote, but not restrictions that would ban guns in common use.

“That decision—which I remain convinced was wrong and certainly was debatable—has provided the N.R.A. with a propaganda weapon of immense power,” Mr. Stevens wrote in his op-ed. He added that “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.”

We’re not sure what he means by “simple” since repealing the Second Amendment would require a vote by two-thirds of Congress and ratification by three-fourths of the states. Good luck with that, since even now most Democrats in Congress won’t come out in favor of even an ban on so-called assault rifles, much less repeal of the right to bear arms.

But give credit to the former Justice for honesty about what most gun controllers believe deep in their progressive hearts: The right to own a weapon should be preserved for the state. Look for the NRA to use him as a spokesman more than it does Dana Loesch.