Repealing the 2nd Amendment.

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The only instances of Constitutional amendments that I recall being successfully repealed or modified involved ending Prohibition, giving women the right to vote, and limiting the terms that a president can serve.

Taking away the right of the people to keep and bear arms - a right that has lasted about 240 years - is unlikely, since it would require ratification by two-third of the States, most of which have very strong gun lobbies and many gun-owning citizens.

There is a better chance that the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) would be ratified, thus giving us a Constitutional Amendment that would guaranty equal rights for all citizens, regardless of sex, ethnicity, religion, disability, et cetera. I haven't heard much lately about the ERA; what ever happened to it?

Doesn't the fourteenth amendment fulfill the same function? It provides equal rights to all citizens; at least in the lens of due process of law.

The Equal Rights Amendment

Section 1. Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of sex.

Section 2. The Congress shall have the power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.

Section 3. This amendment shall take effect two years after the date of ratification.

Legal Due Process is one thing. Equal opportunity in education, hiring, and housing for men and women are completely different


If I remember right, the biggest objection to the ERA was that it would force women into front-line combat roles.

I do not understand. The fourteenth amendment was used to desegregate schools in Brown v. Board of Education even though it used the equal rights provision to enforce equality.

Amendment XIV

Section 1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside. No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

Section 2. Representatives shall be apportioned among the several states according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each state, excluding Indians not taxed. But when the right to vote at any election for the choice of electors for President and Vice President of the United States, Representatives in Congress, the executive and judicial officers of a state, or the members of the legislature thereof, is denied to any of the male inhabitants of such state, being twenty-one years of age, and citizens of the United States, or in any way abridged, except for participation in rebellion, or other crime, the basis of representation therein shall be reduced in the proportion which the number of such male citizens shall bear to the whole number of male citizens twenty-one years of age in such state.

Section 3. No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any state, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any state legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any state, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.

Section 4. The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned. But neither the United States nor any state shall assume or pay any debt or obligation incurred in aid of insurrection or rebellion against the United States, or any claim for the loss or emancipation of any slave; but all such debts, obligations and claims shall be held illegal and void.

Section 5. The Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.

I do not understand. The fourteenth amendment was used to desegregate schools in Brown v. Board of Education even though it used the equal rights provision to enforce equality.

In 1868, when the 39th Congress was debating and ultimately proposing the 14th Amendment, I don't think anybody would have thought that equal protection applied to sex discrimination, or certainly not to sexual orientation. So does that mean that we've gone off in error by applying the 14th Amendment to both?
Yes, yes. Sorry, to tell you that. ... But, you know, if indeed the current society has come to different views, that's fine. You do not need the Constitution to reflect the wishes of the current society. Certainly the Constitution does not require discrimination on the basis of sex. The only issue is whether it prohibits it. It doesn't. Nobody ever thought that that's what it meant. Nobody ever voted for that. If the current society wants to outlaw discrimination by sex, hey we have things called legislatures, and they enact things called laws. You don't need a constitution to keep things up-to-date. All you need is a legislature and a ballot box. You don't like the death penalty anymore, that's fine. You want a right to abortion? There's nothing in the Constitution about that. But that doesn't mean you cannot prohibit it. Persuade your fellow citizens it's a good idea and pass a law. That's what democracy is all about. It's not about nine superannuated judges who have been there too long, imposing these demands on society.

Unless a constitutional provision is completely unambiguous (if that is even possible), it's scope is dependent on the judicial interpretation of the Supreme Court.

Given that the so-called "swing vote" in the Supreme Court is currently held by Anthony Kennedy, who is in favor of a broad interpretation of the Equal Protection clause, it may seem superfluous to include an Equal Rights Amendment.

However, imagine if a justice like Antonin Scalia had a majority behind his interpretation of the 14th Amendment:


Source: https://ww2.callawyer.com/clstory.cfm?p ... 358&evid=1

If the Supreme Court has already a broad determination of constitutional principles, then that would nullify the necessity of such specific constitutional amendments.

Only if the Supreme Court couldn't change its mind.

In your own example - Brown v. Board of Education - the Supreme Court overturned a previous interpretation by the Supreme Court (Plessy v. Ferguson) of the 14th Amendment. Strictly speaking (although extremely unlikely) it *could* reverse its position again.

So - despite the general rule of Stare decisis - a specific interpretation of a constitutional provision by the Supreme Court is not necessarily set in stone. A lot of Republicans are hoping for an opportunity for a future Supreme Court majority to overrule Wade vs. Roe, for instance.

Correct! Some judges have been known to completely disregard stare decisis and revert to whatever interpretation of the constitutional law they see fit. Perhaps these are the so-called activist judges that some are hoping for, after all, doesn't being an activist judge confer the assumption that you would ignore precedence?

IMO, the term "Activist judge" is mostly just used as a derogatory claim towards a judge one tends to disagree with.

As I have stated previously on WP, the US Constitution itself is silent on how to interpret the US Constitution. There is no *correct* way to interpret it (be it activist, originalist, constructivist etc.), since the framers of the constitution simply didn't provide explicit guidelines on how to do so - Just as they didn't resolve the question of judicial review in the constitution either, leading the Supreme Court to decide on its own how to deal with it in Marbury v. Madison.

I seriously doubt wishful thinking by some Aspies is going to accomplish that end. Nobody in government is going to end the 2nd amendment, no matter how many crazy people who have relations with their guns under the sheets might convince themselves that that's the case.

Short memory?
You said talking about getting rid of the 2nd, not actually doing it. And I don't see where concern for attacks on the 2nd amendment is so paranoid when it is the most attacked of our constitutional amendments.
It's not nearly as paranoid as, let's say, fear that Trump will be president.

People who live in glass houses ought not throw stones.

Short memory?
You said talking about getting rid of the 2nd, not actually doing it. And I don't see where concern for attacks on the 2nd amendment is so paranoid when it is the most attacked of our constitutional amendments.
It's not nearly as paranoid as, let's say, fear that Trump will be president.

People who live in glass houses ought not throw stones.

People can argue all they want about whether or not they think the Second Amendment should be repealed; they can argue all they want about why; but I seem to be the only one considering whether or not the Second Amendment (or any other Amendment) could be repealed - Prohibition notwithstanding, of course.

C'mon, bullsh*ting about something is one thing, but actually discussing something by political think tanks with the intent of changing it, as was actually stated by the OP, is quite another.