Rolling Stone – by David S Cohen
I teach the Constitution for a living. I revere the document when it is used to further social justice and make our country a more inclusive one. I admire the Founders for establishing a representative democracy that has survived for over two centuries.
But sometimes we just have to acknowledge that the Founders and the Constitution are wrong. This is one of those times. We need to say loud and clear: The Second Amendment must be repealed.
As much as we have a culture of reverence for the founding generation, it’s important to understand that they got it wrong — and got it wrong often. Unfortunately, in many instances, they enshrined those faults in the Constitution. For instance, most people don’t know it now, but under the original document, Mitt Romney would be serving as President Obama’s vice president right now because he was the runner-up in the last presidential election. That part of the Constitution was fixed by the Twelfth Amendment, which set up the system we currently have of the president and vice president running for office together.
Much more profoundly, the Framers and the Constitution were wildly wrong on race. They enshrined slavery into the Constitution in multiple ways, including taking the extreme step of prohibiting the Constitution from being amended to stop the slave trade in the country’s first 20 years. They also blatantly wrote racism into the Constitution by counting slaves as only 3/5 of a person for purposes of Congressional representation. It took a bloody civil war to fix these constitutional flaws (and then another 150 years, and counting, to try to fix the societal consequences of them).
There are others flaws that have been fixed (such as about voting and Presidential succession), and still other flaws that have not yet been fixed (such as about equal rights for women and land-based representation in the Senate), but the point is the same — there is absolutely nothing permanently sacrosanct about the Founders and the Constitution. They were deeply flawed people, it was and is a flawed document, and when we think about how to make our country a more perfect union, we must operate with those principles in mind.
In the face of yet another mass shooting, now is the time to acknowledge a profound but obvious truth – the Second Amendment is wrong for this country and needs to be jettisoned. We can do that through a Constitutional amendment. It’s been done before (when the Twenty-First Amendment repealed prohibition in the Eighteenth), and it must be done now.
The Second Amendment needs to be repealed because it is outdated, a threat to liberty and a suicide pact. When the Second Amendment was adopted in 1791, there were no weapons remotely like the AR-15 assault rifle and many of the advances of modern weaponry were long from being invented or popularized.
Sure, the Founders knew that the world evolved and that technology changed, but the weapons of today that are easily accessible are vastly different than anything that existed in 1791. When the Second Amendment was written, the Founders didn’t have to weigh the risks of one man killing 49 and injuring 53 all by himself. Now we do, and the risk-benefit analysis of 1791 is flatly irrelevant to the risk-benefit analysis of today.
Gun-rights advocates like to make this all about liberty, insisting that their freedom to bear arms is of utmost importance and that restricting their freedom would be a violation of basic rights.
But liberty is not a one way street. It also includes the liberty to enjoy a night out with friends, loving who you want to love, dancing how you want to dance, in a club that has historically provided a refuge from the hate and fear that surrounds you. It also includes the liberty to go to and send your kids to kindergarten and first grade so that they can begin to be infused with a love of learning. It includes the liberty to go to a movie, to your religious house of worship, to college, to work, to an abortion clinic, go to a hair salon, to a community center, to the supermarket, to go anywhere and feel that you are free to do to so without having to weigh the risk of being gunned down by someone wielding a weapon that can easily kill you and countless others.
The liberty of some to own guns cannot take precedence over the liberty of everyone to live their lives free from the risk of being easily murdered. It has for too long, and we must now say no more.
Finally, if we take the gun-rights lobby at their word, the Second Amendment is a suicide pact. As they say over and over, the only way to stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun. In other words, please the gun manufacturers by arming even the vast majority of Americans who do not own a gun.
Just think of what would have happened in the Orlando night-club Saturday night if there had been many others armed. In a crowded, dark, loud dance club, after the shooter began firing, imagine if others took out their guns and started firing back. Yes, maybe they would have killed the shooter, but how would anyone else have known what exactly was going on? How would it not have devolved into mass confusion and fear followed by a large-scale shootout without anyone knowing who was the good guy with a gun, who was the bad guy with a gun, and who was just caught in the middle? The death toll could have been much higher if more people were armed.
The gun-rights lobby’s mantra that more people need guns will lead to an obvious result — more people will be killed. We’d be walking down a road in which blood baths are a common occurrence, all because the Second Amendment allows them to be.
At this point, bickering about the niceties of textual interpretation, whether the history of the amendment supports this view or that, and how legislators can solve this problem within the confines of the constitution is useless drivel that will lead to more of the same. We need a mass movement of those who are fed up with the long-dead Founders’ view of the world ruling current day politics. A mass movement of those who will stand up and say that our founding document was wrong and needs to be changed. A mass movement of those who will thumb their nose at the NRA, an organization that is nothing more than the political wing of the country’s gun manufacturers, and say enough is enough.
The Second Amendment must be repealed, and it is the essence of American democracy to say so.
Read more: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/why-its-time-to-repeal-the-second-amendment-right-bear-arms-20160613#ixzz4BeVsjb7B
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What a maroon.
Try it, jew bitch.
Cohen – a Jew. A traitorous lump of filth and enemy to freedom.
The 2nd Article does not grant or convey ANYTHING to anyone. The right to keep and bear arms is a God-given right, as are ALL the rights of free men. The 2nd Article is a prohibition upon government from interfering in any way with our God-given rights. What this creature is advocating is the removal of the limits on government – the very reason the Bill of Rights was included in that manifest for the Republic known as the Constitution.
Nothing else needs to be said.
I feel like throwing up. Why post this marxist drivel? Rolling Stone was always a worthless rag pandering to intellectual infants. They worship Obama as a god. Enough said.
This jewboy turd really teaches the Constitution?
We post this marxist drivel because you do not ignore an enemy advance; you meet it head on and beat it down, as you did with the second part of your comment.
Clear it up?
Thank you Henry, it is most definitely important to know our enemies and keep an eye on what they’re doing!
The people are the Militia, so your aim is to disarm the Nations defenses?
I could tear this story apart without even trying.
Again, the filthy joos openly declaring war on a nation. It worked on Germany.
cohen deserves to be taught a working example of why people hate his tribe and the reason for the Second Article.
This disgusting kike has the balls to pen this garbage piece and says he reveres the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. Sh!# pours out of both sides of this faggot promoting, liberty hating, genocide constructing liars mouth.
I need coffee. .1
1 opinion, 319,999,999 other opinions possible.
I just miss out why his opinion should have more value then that of all the other Americans that believe in the 2nd Amendment combined.
According to his own words, this was a a representative democracy (Instead of a Republic.), but then he blatantly disregards the majority like a little tyrant. Nuff Said.
btw, just an afterthought. How are them gun confiscations working out in that State (CT?) that forbade the ownership of AR-15’s and where Tens if not Hundreds of Thousands of people refused to hand them over?
CT is sucking wind on that “ban” and for good reason.. tons of people are awake to the game , and decided not to play along, as we all should if it comes to any of our states
Do not comply .. make them make the first move, and even maybe make them make the 2nd move too .. than wake them up rudely
the enforcement on any of this will only be voluntary even if they make it sound mandatory .. after all we have guns to stand in defiance with .. want em ? come try .. Civil Disobedience is the rule when it comes to crap like this
Plus to add to this ,, they Cant “Repeal” what they didnt give
this government didnt give us the 2nd amendment .. we told THEM that we have this right
This is how they are going to enact “MARTIAL LAW”. It will be incremental, rapid dismantlement of any of our remaining rights protected under the constitution. They know that if they just declare martial law it will mean civil war and immediate response from large segments of the population. They don’t want that. On the other hand they are trying to brow beat us into giving up our rights. Our response has to be telling them to “Try disarming us?!! Make our Freaking Solar Year!!” What this is? They are beating the war drums trying to marginalize and isolate their target population as much as they can before they finally just go for it.
Their problem? PLANNING TO RIDE THE TIGER IS NOT THE SAME AS ACTUALLY RIDING THE TIGER.
Well, I must say I am shocked. Just shocked, I tell you. I mean, a jew (gasp!) who “teaches the Constitution” and who “revere[s] the document when it is used to further social justice and make our country a more inclusive one” proselytizing the disarmament of American citizens and the repeal of the Constitution. Shocked.
For those of you without a sense of humor, yes, that was dripping with sarcasm. Best of luck in getting the States to repeal that nasty 2nd Amendment, assholes. There will be lynchings.
These enemies of our republic are coming out right one cue. Also, right on cue, is a run of mass shootings during an election year wherein democrats are about to lose power. Further, and also as expected, “right-wingers” or any other American who disagrees with the communists in power and in the media are being called terrorists and compared to foreigners who routinely strap bombs to themselves or their children in an effort to kill as many Americans or other Westerners as possible. Coincidence? I do not believe in political coincidences, certainly not during an election year. As I predicted some time ago, we have a real chance of BHO opting out of leaving the White Hut at the end of his two terms.
Go to the Rolling Stone web site. See the article then read the comments. very few, very few agree, the majority do not. If Rolling Stone values its audience, Cohen will never write again for them.
I was going to send this one in last night, too.
I love how says he teaches the Constitution for a living.
“I teach the Constitution for a living. I revere the document when it is used to further social justice and make our country a more inclusive one.”
And then immediately says that our founders established a “representative democracy” and NOT a “Constitutional Republic”.
“I admire the Founders for establishing a representative democracy that has survived for over two centuries.”
Apparently, he must have had Barry as his Constitutional Law Professor because he clearly can’t read the words on the document.
“Section 4
The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government”
So much for your Constitutional Democracy argument, Dave. Yea, you’re a real scholar, you Commie piece of shit.
*** When the Second Amendment was written, the Founders didn’t have to weigh the risks of one man killing 49 and injuring 53 all by himself. Now we do, and the risk-benefit analysis of 1791 is flatly irrelevant to the risk-benefit analysis of today. ***
How about the risk of tyranny and democide, Jewboy? That risk is greater today than it has ever been. Governments today possess far more efficient tools for imposing tyranny and committing mass murder than were available back in 1791. The 20th Century alone saw the mass murder of tens of millions of people by their own governments. We know what can happen if power becomes too concentrated. Therefore, it has never been more important for the people, acting in sufficient numbers, to possess the armed capacity to resist government forces.
FOAD Cohen, you little rodent.
Getting close to that time. Time to Repeal some communists ability to breathe.
“I teach the Constitution for a living.”
So did Øbama.
“I revere the document when it is used to further social justice and make our country a more inclusive one.”
Meaning only when it is used to further my agenda which goes exactly opposite of the intent and reason for the US Constitution.
“I admire the Founders for establishing a representative democracy that has survived for over two centuries.”
Yet still tries to invalidate, kill or change to my personal agenda going polar opposite of the intent.
– I stopped reading the trash at that point.