President Trump tweets support for 2nd Amendment

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump vowed on Twitter Wednesday that the Second Amendment will never be repealed, a day after former Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens recommended gun control activists wage a longshot battle for its removal.

“THE SECOND AMENDMENT WILL NEVER BE REPEALED!,” Trump tweeted. “As much as Democrats would like to see this happen, and despite the words yesterday of former Supreme Court Justice Stevens, NO WAY. We need more Republicans in 2018 and must ALWAYS hold the Supreme Court!”

Stevens, a Republican who often sided with the liberal side of the bench, wrote in a New York Times op-ed on Tuesday that the current wave of students and activists pressing for stricter gun control laws after the school shooting massacre in Parkland, Florida, should press for “more effective and more lasting reform.”

“They should demand a repeal of the Second Amendment,” said Stevens, who was appointed to the bench in 1975 by President Gerald Ford and retired in 2010.

In the wake of the Valentine’s Day mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, where 17 students and faculty were killed, students and adult activists alike have organized mass demonstrations — including school walkouts and last Saturday’s series of marches — calling on Trump and Congress to enact stricter gun control laws. Among the controls sought are raising the legal age to purchase a gun from 18 to 21, and mandating universal background checks on all gun purchases.

While many of the students and activists have cast the Second Amendment as outdated, there have been no major organized efforts to repeal the amendment — which in itself would present a massive undertaking. Repealing an amendment requires two-thirds of both houses of Congress to approve the proposal, which must then be ratified by three-fourths of the states, or 38 states.

Another option, as outlined in the Constitution, calls on two-thirds of the country’s state legislatures to ask Congress to call a national convention to propose amendments. Any such proposals would also need to be ratified by three-fourths of the states.

Both options would require gun-control activists to coalesce widespread support behind a politically divisive issue. A poll last month by the Economist magazine and the polling firm YouGov found that only 21 percent of Americans supported a repeal of the Second Amendment, compared to 60 percent who were opposed to the idea.

So far, Congress has approved increased funding for mental health programs and anti-violence initiatives at schools and a measure aimed at improving the federal background check system, but the measures have fallen short of Trump’s initial call to raise the gun purchase age.

The National Rifle Association, whose leaders met with Trump last month, has fought all attempts to raise the age limit or enact universal background checks.