Former Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens called on gun control activists to demand a repeal of the Second Amendment in the wake of protests across the country aimed at pressuring lawmakers to act on stricter gun regulations.
In an op-ed for the New York Times, Stevens, who was nominated by Republican President Gerald Ford and went on to be part of the court’s liberal block until his retirement in 2010, said students and gun control advocates should push lawmakers to go much further than banning semiautomatic weapons and increasing the minimum age to buy a firearm.
“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,” he wrote. “But the demonstrators should seek more effective and more lasting reform. They should demand a repeal of the Second Amendment.”
Stevens argued the Second Amendment was written to allow citizens to form “a well regulated militia” at a time when there was concern about the idea of standing armies and and thus it was a “relic of the 18th century.”
In 2008, Stevens was on the losing side of the landmark District of Columbia v. Heller case, in which the majority ruled that the Second Amendment guaranteed a right to bear arms to individuals that was not contingent upon service in the militia.
Amending the Constitution to repeal the Second Amendment would need to be proposed by either two-thirds of Congress (or two-thirds of states) and ratified by 38 states.
The Stevens op-ed was published just days after pro-gun control March for Our Lives rallies were held in several cities across the nation. The rallies were organized after a gunman killed 17 people at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla.
