President Trump fired off an early morning response Wednesday to an opinion piece by a retired Supreme Court justice who called for the repeal of the Second Amendment.
“THE SECOND AMENDMENT WILL NEVER BE REPEALED!” the president tweeted.
“As much as Democrats would like to see this happen, and despite the words yesterday of former Supreme Court Justice Stevens, NO WAY,” he continued.
“We need more Republicans in 2018 and must ALWAYS hold the Supreme Court!”
Trump’s pledge came a day after retired Justice John Paul Stevens wrote an op-ed in the New York Times calling for the repeal of the amendment.
“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,” Stevens, 97, wrote.
“These demonstrations demand our respect. They reveal the broad public support for legislation to minimize the risk of mass killings of schoolchildren and others in our society,” he continued.
Stevens called on student activists to urge lawmakers to “enact legislation prohibiting civilian ownership of semiautomatic weapons, increasing the minimum age to buy a gun from 18 to 21 years old, and establishing more comprehensive background checks on all purchasers of firearms.”
In 2008, the Supreme Court ruled that the Second Amendment lets people own guns for self-defense.
Stevens, who retired from the high court in 2010 after more than 35 years, said the decision in the 2008 case — District of Columbia v. Heller — “has provided the NRA. with a propaganda weapon of immense power.”
During the weekend, hundreds of thousands of protesters held rallies across the US that were organized in the wake of the deadly mass shooting at a high school in Parkland, Fla.
Shortly after the massacre, in which 17 people were killed, Trump expressed a willingness to fight the powerful gun lobby.
“Don’t worry about the NRA, they’re on our side,” he told a gathering of state governors.
“Half of you are so afraid of the NRA. There’s nothing to be afraid of. … And you know what, if they’re not with you, we have to fight them every once in a while, that’s OK,” he added.
“Sometimes we’re going to have to be very tough and we’re going to have to fight ’em.”



