Retired Supreme Court Justice Stevens Calls For Repeal Of Second Amendment
The last post that was written here on John Paul Stevens was published on the occasion of his retirement from the U.S. Supreme Court in 2010; I certainly didn’t anticipate another–until this stunner.
Let’s start with the obvious: an amendment to repeal the Second (which would require 2/3 of the Senate, 2/3 of the House, and 3/4 of the states) certainly isn’t going to happen in today’s political climate, and, just like impeachment, this whole thing is much more political than it is legal.
Given that, most people of both decency and pragmatism would gladly content themselves with an interpretation of the Second Amendment that leaves us with gun control laws similar to those of the rest of the developed world, e.g., Japan, whose gun death rate is less than 1/2000th of ours. I.e.,
• Yes, you have a right to “bear arms,” by which we mean guns for hunting and personal protection.
• You do not have a right to own weapons of war and mass murder: assault rifles, land mines, hand grenades, surface-to-air missiles, mortars, RPGs, weaponized drones, nuclear weapons, flame-throwers, tanks, shoulder-fired missiles, etc.
• Society has an equal right to protect itself from gun violence, and that means the capacity to impose restrictions in terms of age, sanity, absence of a criminal record, and demonstrated competence.
Is it really asking too much to protect our children from being massacred en masse by banning the sale of weapons of mass murder to people of unknown character and mental health?
Let’s just knock off the foolishness. We need to tell anyone running for Congress, If you won’t tell the NRA to take a hike and pledge to do this simple act of integrity and common sense, you need to look for another job.
Craig,
It’s a simple fact that most Americans don’t really want gun control. Nor would legislation prohibiting possession of guns necessarily prevent mass shootings, anymore than banning drugs stops the illegal drug trade. (Norway is a good example).
There are more than 800 million guns currently in the USA. It’s estimated 40% to 60% of Americans own at least one firearm. That’s a lot of voters !
The truth is evident, the majority of American voters want to retain gun ownership. The US Supreme Court Decision in District of Columbia v. Heller, was a regrettable disaster for gun Control advocates, as a different interpretation was the best hope to bring sanity to US gun laws.
Disarming the US population probably isn’t possible since the making the vast stockpile illegal would only result in a situation like prohibition. Gun reform in the US will be a very difficult problem, not easily solved by simplistic demands.
Gun control political candidates get defeated not because of any Machiavellian scheme by the NRA, but because the voters don’t really want gun control.
You’re by a factor of about 3 in the guns count; it’s about 300 million. Not that this matters, as there will be no effort to round up all guns. You’ve also overstated the % of Americans with guns; 37%
More than a third of Americans say they or someone in their household owns a gun. http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2013/06/04/a-minority-of-americans-own-guns-but-just-how-many-is-unclear/
It’s not true that “most Americans don’t really want gun control,” unless you mean some extreme form of it, like outlawing all guns. 97% of Americans want universal background checks, and 67% want to ban assault rifles. http://theweek.com/speedreads/756459/97-percent-americans-want-universal-background-checks-gun-buyers-67-percent-want-ban-assault-weapons
I’m quite confident that we’ll get there. As I said on a radio show this afternoon, “One of the reasons these kids aren’t going to get jaded is that they’re going to win big. While it’s true that they don’t MAKE the laws, they’re having a terrific influence over those who do.”
Craig,
The problem with your figures are you only count “legal” or registered firearms. The US is awash with Illegal fire arms. Nor do people who possess illegal firearms respond to surveys etc. Surveys often also omit people who have access to guns as part of their job. Law enforcement, licensed security guards, rangers, as the firearms are often registered to corporations or government departments.
My figures are based on estimates compiled by the ATF, and include guns Americans don’t always declare, war souvenirs, guns kept a work places and forgotten, even old inherited rifles and shotguns.
The ATF states the number of firearms of all types of US manufacture grew from 6.5 million in 1911 to 9.3 million in 2015. In addition, the US imports over 5.3 million firearms annually.
The US exports about 10% of manufacture.
In 1947 the US had a population of 144.1 million while gun number were estimated at 2 guns for every American, or 280 million guns. Over the intervening 70 years the US has added firearms at a rate of at least 6 million a year or a total of 420 million firearms.
It’s difficult to estimate how many firearms are destroyed each year, but guns are surprisingly hardy machines and tend to survive.
The Pew Research you cite reports a drop in gun ownership from 49% in 1973 to a current 37%, however that could also simply illustrate a growing reluctance to admitting gun ownership.
Like you, I hope American society loses it’s 300 year love affair with firearms, but I don’t see gun control being practical in society where guns legal or illegal.are so easily available. Guns seem to be a deeply ingrained, integral feature of American culture.
Guns have been, and still are, glamourized in books, comics, films, TV, games etc. While this continues guns will always hold a fascination for a large part of the population, a small percentage of will be unbalanced.