Is it time to repeal the Second Amendment? | The Tylt

Conservative Bret Stephens wrote a blistering editorial in The New York Times arguing that "tinkering at the edges" does nothing to solve the problem of gun violence. He asserts we must stop tiptoeing around the NRA and just fight to change the Constitution.

The more closely one looks at what passes for “common sense” gun laws, the more feckless they appear. Americans who claim to be outraged by gun crimes should want to do something more than tinker at the margins of a legal regime that most of the developed world rightly considers nuts. They should want to change it fundamentally and permanently.

There is only one way to do this: Repeal the Second Amendment.

Pod Save America hosts Jon Favreau and Dan Pfeiffer asked whether the failure of gun control is due in part to the fact that liberals and Democrats are disingenuous when they say they support gun rights but just want common-sense regulations. 

Perhaps it is time Democrats came forward and said what many of them believe: that half-measures don't work, and that background checks and incremental steps won't solve the problem. We need to make guns illegal for our citizens, just like they are in every other Western democracy on earth. Maybe liberals just need to say it: yes, we want to take away your guns. 

Congressman Steve Scalise, who himself was shot and seriously injured by a rogue gunman, still defends the Second Amendment, and says the right to bear arms is so important that it is worth the cost we pay in terms of violence and mass shootings.

“…Look, people need to tone down the rhetoric,” he said. “This is part of our Constitution in our country. Go read what Thomas Jefferson wrote, what John Adams wrote about the importance of people having firearms to protect themselves.”

Second Amendment purists say repealing gun rights would be akin to repealing the right to free speech or freedom of assembly—it's inherently un-American and a violation of our freedom.

Even those who want to outlaw guns say repealing the Second Amendment is a political pipe dream. Thirty eight states would have to ratify the change the Constitution. Gun safety advocates need to work on common sense solutions, not advocate for radical constitutional changes that have no chance of becoming reality.

Many liberals and gun safety advocates argue such a drastic call for change would backfire.

Others point to gay marriage and the civil rights movement: many societal changes were once thought impossible and impractical. Maybe if gun safety advocates dream it, they can do it.