New York Times – by John Paul Stevens
Rarely in my lifetime have I seen the type of civic engagement schoolchildren and their supporters demonstrated in Washington and other major cities throughout the country this past Saturday. These demonstrations demand our respect. They reveal the 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. But the demonstrators should seek more effective and more lasting reform. They should demand a repeal of 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, which provides that “a well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.” Today that concern is a relic of the 18th century.
For over 200 years after the adoption of the Second Amendment, it was uniformly understood as not placing any limit on either federal or state authority to enact gun control legislation. In 1939 the Supreme Court unanimously held that Congress could prohibit the possession of a sawed-off shotgun because that weapon had no reasonable relation to the preservation or efficiency of a “well regulated militia.”
During the years when Warren Burger was our chief justice, from 1969 to 1986, no judge, federal or state, as far as I am aware, expressed any doubt as to the limited coverage of that amendment. When organizations like the National Rifle Association disagreed with that position and began their campaign claiming that federal regulation of firearms curtailed Second Amendment rights, Chief Justice Burger publicly characterized the N.R.A. as perpetrating “one of the greatest pieces of fraud, I repeat the word fraud, on the American public by special interest groups that I have ever seen in my lifetime.”
In 2008, the Supreme Court overturned Chief Justice Burger’s and others’ long-settled understanding of the Second Amendment’s limited reach by ruling, in District of Columbia v. Heller, that there was an individual right to bear arms. I was among the four dissenters.
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. 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.
That simple but dramatic action would move Saturday’s marchers closer to their objective than any other possible reform. It would eliminate the only legal rule that protects sellers of firearms in the United States — unlike every other market in the world. It 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.
John Paul Stevens is a retired associate justice of the United States Supreme Court.
i read this opinion piece this morning with my jaw hanging open. not that his views are that shocking. it’s just that he said it in the nytimes and was on the supreme court. this is truly sad.
then again, the supreme court held that slavery was constitutional…..
This traitor is a retired justice, your going to hear a lot more of this, unfortunately. They’re trying say that the rifles made in 1775 are so different that a new amendment needs to be drafted because the newer rifles are MEANER LOOKING. A ridiculous argument on it face, like saying the rifling on the USS Missouri is less deadly than the new weapons on the current destroyers today.
This is what happens when you let old decrepid Supreme Court justices open they’re damn mouth, responding to some punk kid demonstrating for gun control.
This is great news! Why? Because I honestly believe that gun confiscation will be the only thing that gets the restoration of the Republic in motion. Everybody loves to whine and moan about how bad things are on the Internet but there is limited to no action from anyone, so let them make their final move and watch them get wiped out in short order.
They’ve got a paper trail a mile long of infringements, but their track record at actual confiscation is pitiful, at best.
They know what they’re in for.
So do we.
“….These demonstrations demand our respect. They reveal the broad public support for legislation to minimize the risk of mass killings of schoolchildren and others in our society. …”
This is laughable, and pathetic. “These demonstrations” deserve no respect, regardless of what they demand, because they do not “reveal broad public support”, but rather they’re a small gang of paid protestors and stupid kids.
NO article of the Bill of Rights can be repealed, but propagandizing Jews and their brainwashed minions who aren’t happy with how America works and what it stands for are welcome to leave before we have to toss them out of here.
We’re tired of the argument. Come and take the guns, or shut your pie-hole, Jew-boy. And yes, the entire gun control movement is a gang of Jews who are also promoting white genocide, and world communism, so I feel no guilt about my anti-Semitic comments, because it’s the same thing these subversive, treasonous, and back-stabbing KIKES have done to their host countries many times in the past.
I think, after all these years, I get it. Maybe. “a well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.” I used to think it meant for We the People, to be armed. Now I see that it means, We the People, to regulate the militia, and the only way to regulate (control) the militia, is too be armed BETTER than the militia, thus, regulating them. In other words controlling the militia, or government armies, by the people being better armed, so the government cannot commit tyranny against the people. Simply put, the government was never supposed to have an army, and if it did, too have less arms than us, the People. Right? Maybe?
Tench Coxe: “Every terrible implement of the soldier is the birthright of an American.”
You are absolutely right, Joe.
Well, Mr. Dirt, the term “well regulated” had a very different meaning in the 1700s than it does now. Rather than meaning “controlled”, well-regulated meant “functioning as expected”. (you may remember an old clock manufacturer name “Regulator” )
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From: https://bearingarms.com/bob-o/2014/06/24/well-regulated/
The following are taken from the Oxford English Dictionary, and bracket in time the writing of the 2nd amendment:
1709: “If a liberal Education has formed in us well-regulated Appetites and worthy Inclinations.”
1714: “The practice of all well-regulated courts of justice in the world.”
1812: “The equation of time … is the adjustment of the difference of time as shown by a well-regulated clock and a true sun dial.”
1848: “A remissness for which I am sure every well-regulated person will blame the Mayor.”
1862: “It appeared to her well-regulated mind, like a clandestine proceeding.”
1894: “The newspaper, a never wanting adjunct to every well-regulated American embryo city.”
The phrase “well-regulated” was in common use long before 1789, and remained so for a century thereafter. It referred to the property of something being in proper working order. Something that was well-regulated was calibrated correctly, functioning as expected. Establishing government oversight of the people’s arms was not only not the intent in using the phrase in the 2nd amendment, it was precisely to render the government powerless to do so that the founders wrote it.
In 1792, a “well-regulated militia” was a group of Americans ready, willing, and able to kick some butt.
THIS TRAITOR?
AS JETHRO BODINE WOULD SAY,” WHO NEEDS AN OAF? YOU HAVE ONE RIGHT HERE!”
Jew York Times, living up to its high standard of TREASON!!
A “relic of the 18th century,” eh? Well, one definition of “relic” is “object of reverence, something that is revered.” And to revere is to “feel deep respect and admiration for.”
Don’t mess with what we revere. You mess with that and you are messin’ with life itself.
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A 1800’s black powder rifle round will take your head off at 400 yards. Just like being hit point blank with a modern day .45 pistol.
Just goes to show you the stupidity of the argument , and the dementia comments by Stevens.
a .50 cal 385 grain conical black powder projectile will blow a man in half
most of the civil war wounds were fatal due to impact and the ability to blow a mans body parts far and wide .. its like getting hit by a freight train
Ive taken deer down with my Thompson Center Muzzle loader , and a Mod 70 Winchester 30-06 , and a few other large caliber modern bolt actions 300 win mag etc
that muzzle loader puts em down with one hit , even if it doesn’t hit a vital
I sure as hell wouldn’t want to get hit with one
Yep,
This idiot Stevens, I read someplace, is trying to say that the 2nd amendment was designed for weapons of 1775, not modern weapons of today.
WHAT A MORON! He has no fkg idea WHY it was written. This asshat actually sat on the bench!
This shit is being taught in schools for fk sakes.
Similar to what Christ said in John 17:15 that has “rapture ready” types going bonkers for the rapture–“I pray no that thou shouldest take them out of the world (“them” being His disciples at the time) but that thou shouldest keep them from the evil.” Meaning, no rapture at the time. But what the “rapture ready crowd misses is John 17:20, again said by Christ: “Neither pray I for these alone, but for those who shall believe on me through their word.” Meaning, us present-day believers on Christ. Meaning, no rapture, period, until, maybe, post-tribulation, also referred to as “pre-wrath” when God send His wrath upon the Earth.
I’m no Glen Beck fan, but here he exposes more on who funded the march:
DARK MONEY: 10 anonymous donors ‘March For Our Lives’ is deliberately hiding:
https://www.theblaze.com/video/dark-money-10-anonymous-donors-march-for-our-lives-is-deliberately-hiding?utm_content=buffer4e3f9&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=theblaze
.
In other words, along with the usual suspects, we have AFT (which I refused to join as a teacher), the head of the “nation of Islam” (so we can’t defend ourselves against their possible “jihad”), the Quakers (who I thought were smarter than this!), and the baby sellers and fetus sellers (that is, Satanists)… Makes sense to me!
Stevens is 97yo. Looking forward to his passing. Hope its soon after all his living progeny burns to death.
We need to start revoking peoples right to breed. Even if its 70years late.
actually it’s getting to the point where revoking eating,pooping and sleeping is making more sense.
A Lamborghini looks more menacing than a Model A yet we haven’t banned the Italian super car. I think it’s time to put bayonets on pistols.
The speech given by little Adolf Hogg in German.
Please make copies and share before they take it down
Wow! That is nothing short of treason, courtesy of the Jew York Times.