Retired SCOTUS Justice Wants To 'Fix' the Second Amendment

CanHasDIY (1672858) writes "In his yet-to-be-released book, Six Amendments: How and Why We Should Change the Constitution, John Paul Stevens, who served as an associate justice of the Supreme Court for 35 years, believes he has the key to stopping the seeming recent spate of mass killings — amend the Constitution to exclude private citizens from armament ownership. Specifically, he recommends adding 5 words to the 2nd Amendment, so that it would read as follows: 'A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms when serving in the Militia shall not be infringed.'

What I find interesting is how Stevens maintains that the Amendment only protects armament ownership for those actively serving in a state or federal military unit, in spite of the fact that the Amendment specifically names 'the People' as a benefactor (just like the First, Fourth, Ninth, and Tenth) and of course, ignoring the traditional definition of the term militia. I'm personally curious about his other 5 suggested changes, but I guess we'll have to wait until the end of April to find out."

Comments

Re:Militia, then vs now

[gtall]

You point to a bigger issue, strict Constitutionalists in the U.S. believe the Constitution brooks no amending, somehow it was born of immaculate conception and henceforth shall remain ever as is until fossilized. This would of course take the U.S. back to the 1700's and deprive them of their automatic weapons which are needed for hunting small woodland creatures and to defend their property against the hobgoblins of their imagination. Last we heard, automatic weapons were useless against hobgoblins but that argument doesn't appear to carry water with the Libertarians.

Re:Militia, then vs now

[thaylin]

One can argue anything, however nothing I have seen about the NV incident shows anything other than Bundy being a thieving welfare king.