Bill Press, a former correspondent at CNN, argues that there is no way to fix the Second Amendnent. Despite the obvious political roadblocks, he believes that the only remedy for the damage caused by the Second Amendment is to repeal it. it was written, he says, to protect Southern slaveholders, who wanted to protect their right to use deadly force to suppress slave rebellions. Two Supreme Court Justices, both appointed by Republican presidents, have urged its repeal. It is now a license for civilians to own deadly military weapons. Is it politically possible now? No. If the massacres continue, public opinion may change.
He writes:
After Columbine, Aurora, Sandy Hook, Orlando, Virginia Tech, Margery Stoneman Douglas, El Paso, Buffalo, Uvalde and so many others, it’s always the same.
First, shock. Then, grief. Then, a demand for action. Then, the phony claim: Too bad, but we can’t do anything about guns because of the Second Amendment. And then, nothing is done to prevent the next attack.
This time, could things be different? After the senseless assassination of 19 elementary school students and two teachers in Uvalde, Texas, senators of both parties are actually talking about a compromise on guns.
But don’t hold your breath. No matter what they come up with, chances are still slim that there will be 10 Republicans willing to override the filibuster. (A total of 60 votes are needed to end a filibuster in the evenly-divided US Senate.)
Anything they agree on will probably just nibble around the edges of the gun issue. Sen. John Cornyn, the lead Republican negotiator, has already vetoed one of the most sensible proposals: raising the legal age for buying an assault weapon from 18 to 21 years…
Let’s face it. The way many judges and conservatives interpret the Second Amendment is a total con job. And, as wildly misinterpreted today, it is, for all intents and purposes, a license to kill as many people as you want with as many guns as you want.
The only effective way to deal with the Second Amendment is to repeal it — and then replace it with something that makes sense in a civilized society.
I’m hardly the first person to say that the Second Amendment has been a disaster for this country. In fact, two Supreme Court justices — justices appointed by Republican presidents — have said as much.
In a March 2018 opinion piece for the New York Times, former Justice John Paul Stevens, who was appointed by then-President Gerald Ford, wrote that Americans protesting the massacre of 17 people at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School “should demand a repeal of the Second Amendment…”
And decades earlier, in 1991, former Chief Justice Warren Burger, appointed by President Richard Nixon, told the PBS Newshour: “If I were writing the Bill of Rights now, there wouldn’t be any such thing as the Second Amendment.
Burger called the Second Amendment “one of the greatest pieces of fraud — I repeat the word ‘fraud’ — on the American people by special interest groups that I have ever seen in my lifetime.”
Indeed, you only have to read the Second Amendment to see what a fraud it’s become. Here it is, all 27 words: “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”
Read it again. There’s no way you can logically leap from those 27 words about the existence of a state militia to the unfettered right of any citizen to buy as many guns — and any kind of gun — that they want, without the government being able to do anything about it.
It’s clear from the wording of the Second Amendment itself that it has nothing to do with individual gun ownership; nothing to do with self-defense; and nothing to do with assault weapons. The amendment speaks, not to the rights of well-armed individual citizens, but only to citizens as members of a group, a “well regulated militia.”
And its history is well-known. The founders saw no need to mention guns in the original Constitution. As many constitutional scholars and American historians have shown, the Second Amendment was added later by James Madison as part of a deal to secure the support of Patrick Henry and other White racist Virginians for confirmation of the Constitution. Noted academic Carol Anderson, for one, describes the “anti-Blackness” that lies at the heart of the Second Amendment in her book “The Second,” as well as its “architecture of repression.”
As such, it was not about self-defense. It was, in the opinion of these historians, about reassuring White plantation owners that the new federal government would not interfere with their practice of forming White militias to patrol the South, ready to put down rebellion by disgruntled Black slaves or chase down slaves who tried to flee.
And again, the amendment has nothing to do with self-defense or allowing ownership of any kind of gun. As Stevens noted in his New York Times op-ed: “For over 200 years after the adoption of the Second Amendment, it was uniformly understood as not placing any limit on either federal or state authority to enact gun control legislation.”
Two things changed that. First, a band of gun extremists took over the NRA at its 1977 annual convention in Cincinnati and changed its mission from championing the Second Amendment as the right of hunters to giving every American the right to own a gun for self-defense. The NRA proceeded, successfully, to sell that unfounded idea of self-defense to politicians and the general public.
Second, in 2008, former Justice Antonin Scalia wrote the majority opinion in District of Columbia v. Heller, which — again for the first time in over 200 years — established the right of every American under the Second Amendment to own a gun for self-defense. And he rounded up four other votes.
However, it’s important to note that even in Heller, Scalia took pains to argue that as with other rights, those granted under the Second Amendment are not unlimited — and that governments retain the power to regulate what kind of guns, or how many, people may own.
Of course, those provisions of Heller are conveniently ignored by gun worshippers like Republican Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, who uphold the Second Amendment as reinterpreted by Scalia. That flawed reasoning allowed a Texas teenager to buy two AR-15’s on his 18th birthday, walk into an elementary school and mow down 19 students and two teachers.
We are a sick nation indeed, if we allow that idiocy to stand.
The methods for amending the Constitution are outlined in Article V. Have at it.
Diane’s post and this essay says it all.
1) The right to bear arms as a clause in “a regulated militia” does not give an individual the right to BUY arms. You are either in the militia protecting your free state or your a hunter and gatherer.
2) You don’t turn your back to a wave.
We just had a tsunami of destructive court decisions.
Regulate the militias. Make they apply and register and be accountable. And, like the Army, Marines, Navy, Airforce and National Guard – require training before anyone touches a rifle.
Where is hunting a right in the Constitution? Find it. And, take anyone to court using an AK-47 to shoot Bambi.
But the BEST PART OF THIS POST – – – It’s time to stop playing defense. It’s time to stop just admiring the problem. Radical. Out of the box. Outrageous. Attention getting. Massive protests and targeted boycotts.
Put corporations on the spot.
Put masses of doctors and scientists and universities on the spot to be experts with letters signed by thousands.
Put JOURNALISTS on the spot (to keep asking until they get an answer and an explanation of stupid and non-answers).
Amen!
The following doesn’t relate directly to the topic. It does, however, relate to the adverse outcomes of rule by the wealthy, like slave owners. A study about England in the 1870’s found that opposition to public /state education ended and legislation passed to achieve it when constituencies were no longer represented by aristocracy. (Axios, July 2, “What happened when the rich stopped intermarrying”)
Hi, Diane. Could you provide a link to the article written by Bill Press?
I added it: https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2022/06/09/opinions/gun-reform-second-amendment-repeal-uvalde-shooting-press/index.html
Thanks, Diane.
The votes aren’t there to remove the filibuster, but sure, let’s repeal the Second Amendment.
I think that goes without saying, however, the obstacle of the filibuster was actually mentioned in the article.
I didn’t mean that the filibuster is an obstacle to repealing the Second Amendment. I mean that it is pure fantasy to talk about how we need to do something that requires the support of 2/3 of both houses of Congress and 3/4 of all the states when there isn’t even 51 votes to do something as basic as get ditch the filibuster.
FLERP!
Look at that we agree on something.
I’m sure there are countless other things.
I second Joel
Not sure about the countless other things.
One or two. Maybe.
Does the Second Amendment say guns, or firearms?
Neither.
“A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”
Can the next set of jurists twist the words “bear arms” to mean the bodily appendage called arms? It seems fair. In the past, GOP jurists managed quite a contortion in their interpretations to decide it was not firing when strikers were permanently replaced.
SCOTUS leaves out the first four words. “A well regulated Militia.”
The short sleeves amendment.
“ARMS” can be interpreted different ways. Remember this Supreme Court cites whatever random “legal mind” in history it wants, including the same guy who believes women belong to men. “Arms” can be “weapons”, and “weapons” include rocket launchers, nuclear bombs, bayonets.
Does NYC have the right to stop people from bring their bayonets on the subway? According to THIS Supreme Court, apparently they do not.
Can I bear my bombs anywhere? The far right Justices are idiots, but idiots who were given unlimited power and “very important people” know, so their idiocy is treated as brilliant reasoning and legitimized by the media, instead of called out for what it really is.
The cowardly media will never say the Emperor is naked. Instead, the Supreme Court far right cabal makes brilliant arguments supporting their positions.
Step by step, the Supreme Court is rolling back the decades. Are we at 1900 yet?
The right wants to avoid the term “regulate” because it implies government oversight. Yet, they have no problem overburdening the public schools with cumbersome regulation. They have no problem regulating texts and library books. They have little concern about regulating women’s bodies, the right to vote and the free speech right to protest. Hypocrites all!
Linda: I wish you would not twist words so. Bear arms have paws with claws.
Roberts’ Court Ruling on the Right to Bear Arms”
“To bear the arms of bear:
A right that folks have got
The Grizzly bear is not
The one that owns the hair”
Here we go again: The Second Amendment is racist!
No. Bill Press is even worse at history than Thomas. And that’s saying something. I see other misunderstanding in comments here already, and there are only a few comments so far.
As to the meaning of “the militia”. One comment says we should “regulate” the militias like we regulate the National Guard. The militia of the Constitution IS the National Guard. That is literally what the militia is. Gangs of beer-bellied, AR-15 waving nimrods are not the militia. They are illegal paramilitary groups that laws in all 50 states mostly forbid.
The founders knew exactly what the militia is: A citizen-manned defense force to be called out in emergencies. The militia (National Guard) was, and is, answerable to the governors of the states. After the ratification of the Constitution, they fell under the control of the president when they were called into federal service. Then the federal government had near-total control over the militia.
Some feared the federal government would disarm the militias by simply not arming them in the first place. Hence, Madison’s Second Amendment, which guaranteed the militia could not be disarmed. That’s it. Anyone familiar with the Articles of Confederation would recognize the amendment’s language.
Yes, some Southern states used their militia for slave patrols, but that was not the purpose of Second Amendment. The militias were what the country had in place of a standing army (though Madison actually provided for one in the Constitution – we have one today).
The Second Amendment had nothing to do with a personal right to be armed. No one in Congress claimed any such thing when they were debating the amendment. Regulation of private arms was always a state function. And that is why Thomas, like Scalia, had to lie, flagrantly, in his opinion.
jsrtheta
Thats exactly what this guy was thinking when he said this.
“By this, sir, you see that their control over our last and best defense is unlimited. If they neglect or refuse to discipline or arm our militia, they will be useless: the states can do neither—this power being exclusively given to Congress. The power of appointing officers over men not disciplined or armed is ridiculous; so that this pretended little remains of power left to the states may, at the pleasure of Congress, be rendered nugatory.”
“If the country be invaded, a state may go to war, but cannot suppress insurrections. If there should happen an insurrection of slaves, the country cannot be said to be invaded. They cannot, therefore, suppress it without the interposition of Congress. Congress, and Congress only , can call forth the militia.”
and this
“In this situation,” Henry said to Madison, “I see a great deal of the property of the people of Virginia in jeopardy, and their peace and tranquility gone.”
or this guy
“The militia may be here destroyed by that method which has been practiced in other parts of the world before; that is, by rendering them useless, by disarming them. Under various pretenses, Congress may neglect to provide for arming and disciplining the militia; and the state governments cannot do it, for Congress has an exclusive right to arm them: George Mason
Now why would the Congress disarm the militias . Would they disarm all militias and not have any means of defense ? Perhaps the Navy would have F18s to defend the Nation.
Obviously they feared losing their slave patrols
So yes the Militia was in place of a Standing Army which Madison never put in the constitution (a Standing Navy he did) . What Madison originally called for was that the Militia be under the control of Congress.
The objection of especially the Virginia delegation resulted in giving that power to the States.
Random quotes of people who did not write or vote for the Second Amendment are hardly authorities on what the amendment means, or its purpose.
That is indeed “law office history”: “But hey, this one guy said…!”
What amazes me is that you quote the LOSERS of the argument, the antifederalists. These are men who opposed the Constitution. Yet you do not quote any of the congressional debates on the amendment, which represent the people who, you know, actually wrote it.
And we have no standing army? Really? Sixty miles south of where I sit is Fort Carson. It doesn’t get torn down every two years, because we’ve had a standing army for going on a hundred years. Just as Madison provided for. (Garry Wills has addressed this point repeatedly. Between you and him, I’ll go with him.)
You also ignore the fact that legislatures in the time of the Constitution passed laws that were race-specific all the time. They were not shy about it.
They say history is written by the winners. You prefer to find the losers to be the authorities. They aren’t.
jsrtheta
The second amendment was a concession to the anti federalist to bring votes on board for the Constitution.
Fortunately we do have copies of that document
Article 1 Section 8
To declare war, grant letters of marque and reprisal, and make rules concerning captures on land and water;
To raise and support armies, but no appropriation of money to that use shall be for a longer term than two years;
To provide and maintain a navy;
To make rules for the government and regulation of the land and naval forces;
To provide for calling forth the militia to execute the laws of the union, suppress insurrections and repel invasions;
Notice the difference between limitations on funding an Army and maintaining a Navy .
The Constitution was ratified on June 21 1788 . Not till September 29, 1789 the last day of the 1st congressional session was the first authorization of funding granted to Washington. And only after Washington cajoled the congress to do so .
Your first mistake is that the Constitution was ratified in 1788. The Second Amendment was adopted with the Bill of Rights at the end of 1791. So the Second Amendment could not have been a condition for ratifying the Constitution – it was already done.
Congress wasn’t wild about the idea of the amendments to begin with, and there was no guarantee they would ever exist. (For that matter, Madison did not propose amendments – he sought to interlineate them in the existing text of the Constitution.) So I guess your argument is, what? Did Madison say ratify the Constitution and I pretty please promise I’ll do something in a couple of years? Maybe?
Even worse for your theory is the fact that Henry and Mason voted AGAINST the Constitution. Some deal! So after Mason and Henry broke their bargain Madison said “But I will keep my end of this imaginary bargain!” Please.
We see by this chronology that the Second Amendment was not a “concession” to anyone, because Madison had already achieved ratification of the Constitution without it, and had no reason to include it pursuant to some imaginary bargain. “I will gladly give you an amendment some day for a hamburger today.” Is this the Wimpy school of constitutional history?
It’s not worth it, Joel. The only paragraph that I can see that is without error is the last one in the first comment. Otherwise, not sure what sources this person is using. It’s certainly not the Constitution or an accurate description of its history.
The most troublesome sentence of many that demonstrates the depth of misunderstanding is, “Some feared the federal government would disarm the militias by simply not arming them in the first place.” Please cite a source other than from the intestinal tract. The whole point of the second amendment is for citizens to use their own arms so that they could gather in organized groups to defend the nation against threats to is governing responsibilities. There was never talk of disarming citizens. Nor was it designed for some nebulous “emergencies,” imposing the mission of today’s National Guard with the late 18 century notion of militias. Many didn’t think building roads were a federal function, how can one infer that they would think the government were responsible for non-military disasters? They were expected to keep the arms needed for state defense. Period.
As for the 1788/1791 red herring, the amendments to the Constitution that became the Bill of Rights were drafted in 1789. They had been debated for years prior to 1791, they didn’t just spring forth like Aphrodite from the sea. It was understood that the Constitutional Convention’s primary responsibility was to form a structure of government to replace the failed Articles. The reason Mason voted against the Constitution was not because he opposed it, but because he felt it was incomplete without something like a bill of rights. The first action of the first Congress was a nod to him and a test to see if the amending process would work. You can choose to argue with the meaning of the word “concession”, but the fact is that is was more than understood, it was explicitly stated and acted upon to address the concerns of Mason and Henry. Their disagreement was with procedure, not principle. Remember folks, the U.S. was a very fragile nation then, trying to find its way with a form of governing that had never been attempted.
Some good comments here. You should stick around.
This is a good and lively debate. Surely both it’s participants are aware of the historical disagreement about the motivation for the second amendment. Settling an historical argument about motivation is as tough but to crack at best, but it makes for the most exciting of historical debates.
I am forced to reply here to GregB, who demands a source for the antifederalist argument that Congress could disarm the militia by simply failing to arm them at all. This one’s for you, Greg:
George Mason: “The militia may be here destroyed by that method which has been practised in other parts of the world before; that is by rendering them useless by disarming them. Under various pretences, Congress may neglect to provide for arming and disciplining the militia; and the state governments cannot do it, for Congress has an exclusive right to arm them.” George Mason, as quoted in Waldman, M. The Second Amendment, 38, Simon & Schuster (2014). “But we need not give them power to abolish our militia. If they neglect to arm them, and prescribe proper discipline, they will be of no use.” George Mason, Debate in Virginia Ratifying Convention, June 14, 1788. https://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/a1_8_12s27.html
OK, you can’t criticize someone for using “random quotes” and then do exactly the same thing. It’s not becoming.
Mason, as virtually all the Framers did, feared the potential threat a standing army could be to a government of elected representatives. History was and continues to be replete with examples to show this fear to be justified in the face of a weak, threatened nation. Yet he also recognized that chaos that could ensue if militias were not commanded by a central authority.
You also can’t claim time as reason for things not being true and then cite a quote that was made during a debate from another convention three years before the amendment was ratified, which you made a point of stressing. You cite a quote from a debate, not a statement of policy. Three years later, the adoption of the Bill of Rights answered Mason’s objection from previous years and incorporated his arguments. Defense of the nation would be shared: it was up to the federal government to identify the threat, explain it to the people, and then call them into militias which would be directed by a central authority but would be provisioned by a shared responsibility of citizens and the State.
One random quote does not make an argument. Especially if it is quoted out of context and in isolation.
Yeah, I don’t think you really understand Madison’s thinking, or the obsolescence of Mason’s viewpoint.
And you REALLY don’t understand why Madison did what he did with the militia, or why.
But you’ve drunk the Kool Aid, so I hold out no hope.
jsrtheta-
Just musing- will SCOTUS allow women and Blacks to bear arms since they didn’t have rights when the Constitution was written?
I can foresee the Christo-fascists marginalizing women as is their pattern by having legal shops like Beckett Fund, First Liberty, …bring suit against those rights.
That would require a finding that women are not protected, are not citizens, under the Constitution.
I’m not sure the justices would make it out of the building alive.
jsrtheta-
You provided a funny answer given, a 50-year-old right, shared by citizens in every developed nation, was overturned and there’s no guarantee that the Republicans will even lose in the midterms.
One-half or more of members of the conservative Churches that overtly discriminate against women are women.
I’m not sure what you’re point is. Given the subject matter of the thread.
You said the justices wouldn’t make it out alive. After Roe, they made it out alive. That ruling took away a woman’s right to live.
A fertilized cluster of cells has more value than a woman. How many men would sacrifice their lives for a fetus?
I don’t think it would be good idea to change anything in the US Constitution at this time. Once they start that process, the other side may see an opportunity to make their own changes, like repeal and or revise all the Amendments to support theofascism. To be safe, the Democrats would need a huge majority and they don’t have it and may never have one like that again.
“An amendment may be proposed by a two-thirds vote of both Houses of Congress, or, if two-thirds of the States request one, by a convention called for that purpose. The amendment must then be ratified by three-fourths of the State legislatures, or three-fourths of conventions called in each State for ratification.”
When prohibition was repealed, much of the argument to do so had to do with the crime and violence it had produced. The crime of bootlegging pales in comparison to the death and carnage we experience daily in the 21st century due to the availability of guns. If we were a reasonable country, we would repeal the 2nd Amendment. After all, SCOTUS has effectively neutered the Establishment Clause and the 14th amendment, so there is now precedent.
Off topic: A couple of things to add some light to a dreary time.
Mah-KAY-bah, not what Ed says. I had tix to see her in concert years ago and got violently ill right before and had to miss it. Really regret that one.
wonderful
Repeal of the Second Amendment will not matter.
Because the current SCOTUS will just read the same “right” into some other part of the Constitution, Bill of Rights or Amendments.
That’s the beauty of “judicial review”
As the Supreme Decider of the Constitution, you can read in anything you want to read in.
Hell, you can even read the word “is” any way you want.
And nobody can contest your reading (from the Book of Lies*)
Even Kenneth Starr couldn’t do so (if he wanted to, which he wouldn’t in the case of the Religious Six, of course)
*The Book of Lies is in the John Roberts version of the New Testament, in case you are wondering. And it relates the parable of the Praying Coach, among other things
It used to be that the Atlantic ocean made Americans feel safe from the rest of the world. Now it at least prevents the easy transfer of arms to Europe, keeping them safe from us.
“When I read the Constitution” John Roberts said in rather a scornful tone, ‘it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less. “
“Judicial Review (Humpty Dumpty Style)
The document means
Whatever I see
Whatever, it seems,
Is pleasant to me
“Judicial Review (Humpty Dumpty Style) twkec2
The document means
Whatever I see
Whatever, it seems,
Is pleasing to me
I’m an Originalist. My interpretation is original with me. It’s whatever I say it is. –Alito, Thomas, Roberts, Kavanaugh, Gorsuch, Barrett
“I’m a strict Originalist. If God had wanted Eve to have any choice in the matter of reproduction, he would certainly have given her more than just fig leaves to cover her privates.”
Dear Sammy Alito:
Just a quick note to provide you with a source you can cite to justify the absolute religious authority of the six conservative justices of the Extreme Court, meeting as an all-powerful Life Council (magistrates appointed for life) on the model of that adopted for its Council of Magistrates by the Massachusetts Bay Colony:
“The fundamentals which God gave to the Commonwealth of Israell, were a sufficient Rule to them, to guide all their Affaires.” –John Winthrop, “Arbitrary government described and the Government of the Massachusetts vindicated from that aspersion” (1644)
No doubt this will appeal to you as a general principle for governing, given that it is almost four hundred years old.