Tornado Alley (PROG)

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shermann7, Former Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens: repeal the 2nd Amendment

John Paul Stevens argues that this is the best way to disarm the NRA.

By German [e-mail]@vox.com Updated Mar 27, 2018, 4:05pm EDT

[...]

For much of US history, the Second Amendment was seen as defending collective — not individual — rights. This protected the right to bear arms only within the context of a militia. It’s only more recently that the Second Amendment has been expanded to protect an individual right to bear arms, making it much more difficult to regulate guns.

The collective approach, Fordham University historian Saul Cornell previously told me, came out of a Cincinnatus view toward guns and defense — a reference to the legendary Roman general who, according to the story (and possibly myth), went back to farming instead of attempting to seize more power after he led the Romans to victories.

This kind of republican value was embedded in American values at the time, so the founders made sure to enshrine it in the Constitution. But it only preserved the collective right to own firearms insofar as able-bodied men needed the weapons to help defend their state and country.

Courts and legal scholars widely accepted this for decades.

Consider previous Supreme Court decisions: In 1939, the Court unanimously ruled in United States v. Miller that Congress can ban sawed-off shotguns because that weapon was of no use in a well-regulated militia, making it clear that the right to bear arms was inseparable from the role of a militia.

Justice James McReynolds wrote in the majority opinion, “The Court cannot take judicial notice that a shotgun having a barrel less than 18 inches long has today any reasonable relation to the preservation or efficiency of a well-regulated militia, and therefore cannot say that the Second Amendment guarantees to the citizen the right to keep and bear such a weapon.”

That only changed in 2008’s District of Columbia v. Heller, when the Court concluded that “the Second Amendment conferred an individual right to keep and bear arms.”

This was in part a result of decades of campaigning by gun rights activists, particularly the National Rifle Association (NRA), to change how the public views the Second Amendment.

https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/3/27/17167700/john-paul-stevens-second-amendment

SCOTUS positions change.

"We do a lot in our community to make sure people have food to eat, a Place to live, and Clothes to put on their back.

That is our top priority"

And so it should be if it's the most important problem in your place. Well done. Sounds good.