Former Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens’ New York Times op-ed calling for the repeal of the Second Amendment has made quite a stir. It’s one thing for traumatized teenagers to demand that we “do something” to stop gun violence, quite another for a distinguished jurist to call for a fundamental constitutional change.

Yet Stevens effectively agrees with the high-schoolers, arguing that the rallies they orchestrated last weekend “demand our respect” because they “reveal the broad public support for legislation to minimize the risk of mass killings of schoolchildren and others in our society.”