Once again, the New York Times op-ed section is masquerading as hard news. Yesterday, retired US Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens penned an op-ed about gun control.
The 97-year-old was one of four unsuccessful dissenters in the 2008 case, District of Columbia v. Heller, in which the Supreme Court determined that the Second Amendment does, in fact, guarantee a citizen’s right to possess firearms for self-defense.
Appointed by Richard Nixon, Stevens started his career as a Republican, but quickly led the liberal wing of the Supreme Court, and has been decorated for a legacy of championing progressive causes.
The media have described former Justice Stevens as a conservative. Another falsehood. Again, he opposed District of Columbia v. Heller.
In the New York Times op-ed, Justice Stevens described the Second Amendment --- which states that “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” --- as little more than “a relic of the 18th century.”
The narrative is becoming familiar.
He celebrated the high school renegades supposedly at the helm of the impressively-funded “March For Our Lives” movement. Stevens claimed the high school protestors “reveal the broad public support for legislation to minimize the risk of mass killings of schoolchildren and others in our society.” The high school students, Justice Stevens wrote, should “demand a repeal of the Second Amendment.”
They “should” demand? They’ve been demanding. All they seem to do is demand.
The narrative is becoming familiar: A ragtag band of high schoolers are leading a revolution against the gun-toting boogeymen. Those kids are too young to see the irony in it.
They don’t realize that the real boogeymen are the ones telling them what to say.