The liveliest (and oldest) former member of the U.S. Supreme Court is at it   
   again. John Paul Stevens, 93, served on the highest court in the land for an   
   impressive 35 years, from 1975 until his retirement in June 2010. Known for his   
   bow ties, brilliant legal mind, and striking transformation from Midwest   
   Republican conservative to hero of the political left, Stevens remains an   
   intellectual force to reckon with. In his latest book, the forthcoming Six   
   Amendments: How and Why We Should Change the Constitution, he offers a   
   half-dozen stimulating ideas for altering, and he would say improving, our   
   foundational legal document. Today, let's consider his most controversial   
   proposal: changing the Second Amendment. Stevens is not going to win any   
   friends at the National Rifle Association, because his undisguised agenda is to   
   make it easier to regulate the sale and ownership of firearms.   
      
   With exquisitely awkward 18th century syntax, the Second Amendment states:   
      
       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.   
      
   For a couple of centuries, you might be surprised to learn, the Supreme Court   
   didn't say exactly what the Second Amendment means. As far as Stevens can tell,   
   "federal judges uniformly understood that the right protected by the text was   
   limited in two ways: first, it applied only to keeping and bearing arms for   
   military purposes, and second, while it limited the power of the federal   
   government, it did not impose any limit whatsoever on the power of states or   
   local governments to regulate the ownership or use of firearms." He recalls a   
   colorful remark on the topic by the late Warren Burger, who served as chief   
   justice from 1969 to 1986. Responding to the NRA's lobbying campaign opposing   
   gun control laws in the name of Second Amendment rights, Burger, a lifelong   
   conservative, remarked during a television interview in 1991 that the amendment   
   "has been the subject of one of the greatest pieces of fraud-I repeat, fraud-on   
   the American public by special interest groups that I have ever seen in my   
   lifetime."   
      
   Strong stuff. Times change, though, and so do constitutional interpretations.   
   In 2008, Stevens was on the losing end of a 5-4 decision in District of   
   Columbia v. Heller, a landmark ruling in which the high court, in an opinion   
   written by Justice Antonin Scalia, for the first time declared that the   
   Second Amendment protects a civilian's right to keep a handgun in his home   
   for self-defense. In 2010, by another 5-4 vote, the justices extended Heller   
   to apply to state and local governments.   
      
   8.75 MILLION   
      
   Number of guns produced by U.S. firearms makers in 2012, up 31 percent from   
   6.54 million in 2011   
      
   Stevens dissented with characteristic eloquence in both cases. But he lost,   
   and in the process, the conservative majority struck down laws in Washington,   
   D.C., and Chicago that effectively banned civilian ownership of handguns.   
   Those decisions are rippling through the legal system, and it will take some   
   years before it's clear whether gun rights advocates will succeed in using   
   Heller to knock down other regulations, short of across-the-board bans.   
      
   Reflecting on these developments, Stevens makes several important points:   
   Heller did not by its own terms preclude federal, state, or local governments   
   from restricting the ownership of the sorts of large-capacity weapons used in   
   mass shootings in Connecticut, Virginia, Colorado, and Arizona in recent   
   years. That Congress failed to act is a function of elective politics and   
   lobbying, not constitutional law. Stevens also observes that whether one   
   thinks Heller was right or wrong, the decision had the effect of shifting the   
   ultimate power to determine the validity of gun control laws from elected   
   politicians to life-tenured federal judges.   
      
   Since Stevens believes that the authors of the Second Amendment were   
   primarily concerned about the threat that a national standing army posed to   
   the sovereignty of the states-as opposed to homeowners' anxiety about violent   
   felons-he thinks the best way to fix the situation is to amend the Second   
   Amendment. He'd do that by adding five words 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.   
      
   To support the change, he argues: "Emotional claims that the right to possess   
   deadly weapons is so important that it is protected by the federal   
   Constitution distort intelligent debate about the wisdom of particular   
   aspects of proposed legislation designed to minimize the slaughter caused by   
   the prevalence of guns in private hands."   
      
   As a practical matter, the Stevens amendment of the Second Amendment is DOA   
   in any discussion of gun policy in the foreseeable future. He must know that.   
   He also must know that just as constitutional interpretations evolve, so do   
   political and cultural ideas. For better or worse, guns have acquired a   
   symbolic meaning in modern American society to which Stevens, for all his   
   erudition, gives short shrift.   
      
   For a significant minority of Americans, firearms represent individualism,   
   independence, and self-reliance. In the eyes of citizens who connect these   
   values to gun ownership, membership in a militia-whatever that would mean in   
   the modern context-isn't a necessary part of the equation. Amending the   
   Constitution, and that includes amending an amendment, is a political   
   undertaking that has to reflect the will of "we the people." These days, an   
   awful lot of those people, the vast majority of whom obey the law and pay   
   their taxes, like their guns and intend to keep them.   
      
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