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The Devil & The Second Amendment

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PDBiLT3LASk] Retired Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens, writing in today’s New York Times: 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 […]

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PDBiLT3LASk]

Retired Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens, writing in today’s New York Times:

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.

Sir Thomas More, in Robert Bolt’s play A Man For All Seasons:

Roper: So now you’d give the Devil benefit of law!
More: Yes. What would you do? Cut a great road through the law to get after the Devil?
Roper: I’d cut down every law in England to do that!
More: Oh? And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned round on you — where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? This country’s planted thick with laws from coast to coast — man’s laws, not God’s — and if you cut them down — and you’re just the man to do it — d’you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then? Yes, I’d give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety’s sake.

UPDATE: Good grief! I don’t say that Justice Stevens is advocating breaking the law. He’s not; he’s advocating working within the Constitutional system to amend the Constitution. My point is that if we got rid of the Second Amendment for the sake of trying to eliminate school shooters, we would remove from ourselves an important Constitutional protection.

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