Call for repeal of right to bear arms

A RETIRED Supreme Court judge has called on the United States to repeal the second amendment as a way of dealing with its staggering rates of gun violence.

John Paul Stevens, who stepped down in 2010, said the nationwide series of gun control rallies this weekend, March For Our Lives, organised by the survivors of the Florida Parkland school shooting, showed that time is now for America to end the right to bear arms.

“Rarely in my lifetime have I seen the type of civic engagement schoolchildren and their supporters demonstrated in Washington and other major cities throughout the country this past Saturday,” wrote the 97-year-old in The New York Times.

“These demonstrations demand our respect.

“They reveal the broad public support for legislation to minimise the risk of mass killings of schoolchildren and others in our society.

“But the demonstrators should seek more effective and lasting reform. They should demand a repeal of the second amendment.”

Mr Stevens, the thirdlongest-serving court member, said the amendment’s text – allowing Americans to bear arms as part of “a wellregulated militia” – was “a relic of the 18th century”.