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Should we amend the US Constitution? Justice Stevens thinks so, incl. 2nd Amendment (new book)



Justice Stevens served on the US Supreme Court for 35 years -- the second-longest of any Justice in US history. He knows a thing or two about the US Constitution and American jurisprudence. As with Justice Warren Burger, Stevens disagrees with those who (like Scalia) think the Second Amendment guarantees an individual's right to firearms for self-defense, and who argue that this trumps all other rights and goals.

Stevens believes the Second Amendment refers to the threat a national standing army posed to state sovereignty, and not to e.g. hunters' foraging or homeowners' anxiety about intruders. But post-Heller, in order to make this abundantly clear in the face of Scalia's misinterpretation,Stevens proposes that the Second Amendment should be modified 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.