RUTHFULLY YOURS

In his review of recent books about the life of former President Dwight Eisenhower, Richard Rhodes (Books, March 17) repeats the now well-known warning made by President Eisenhower in his Jan. 17, 1961 speech about the “military-industrial complex.” It is important also to recall another warning the president made in the same speech about the need for universities in the U.S. to maintain freedom and independence from federal control imposed by the government making federal grants for research and other programs and activities sponsored by the universities. The president said: “The prospect of domination of the nation’s scholars by federal employment, project allocations and the power of money is ever present and is gravely to be regarded. Yet, in holding scientific research and discovery in respect, as we should, we must also be alert to the equal and opposite danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientific-technological elite.”

Em. Prof. John A. Clark University of Michigan

Critics often accuse the National Rifle Association of paranoia for arguing that gun controllers want to eliminate the Second Amendment. Well, being paranoid doesn’t mean the NRA is wrong.

Look no further than former Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens, who is arguing this week that the Parkland, Florida, students and their allies shouldn’t settle for mere restrictions on guns. They should lobby Congress and the states to abolish the Second Amendment.

“Concern that a national standing army might pose a threat to the security of the separate states led to the adoption of that amendment,” the 97-year-old former Justice wrote in an op-ed published in The New York Times Tuesday, adding, “today that concern is a relic of the 18th century.”

Apparently Justice Stevens is still sore about losing the argument in the 2008 landmark gun-rights case, D.C. v. Heller. He wrote the dissent in that case arguing that the Second Amendment was merely intended to support a militia, not the individual right to bear arms.

Former Associate Justice John Paul Stevens was a foe of any broad reading of the Second Amendment while he served on the U.S. Supreme Court. He dissented from the 2008 majority decision in the District of Columbia v. Heller case, which held that there was an individual right to bear arms. Mr. Stevens is now going even further in his retirement, writing an op-ed column for the New York Times entitled “John Paul Stevens: Repeal the Second Amendment.”

Mr. Stevens is of the view that the Second Amendment is an artifact with no current beneficial purpose to serve. “Concern that a national standing army might pose a threat to the security of the separate states,” he wrote in his op-ed column, “led to the adoption of that amendment, which provides 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.’ Today that concern is a relic of the 18th century.”

In his op-ed column Mr. Steven sharply criticized the Heller decision, which he wrote “has provided the N.R.A. with a propaganda weapon of immense power.” Mr. Stevens added: “Overturning that decision via a constitutional amendment to get rid of the Second Amendment would be simple and would do more to weaken the N.R.A.’s ability to stymie legislative debate and block constructive gun control legislation than any other available option.”

Mr. Stevens provides no reasoning in his op-ed column to speak of for getting rid of the Bill of Rights amendment to the Constitution protecting the right of the people to keep and bear arms that comes right after the First Amendment’s protection of free speech, free exercise of religion, the right to petition the government and the right of assembly. We need to look back at his dissenting opinion in District of Columbia v. Heller, joined by liberals Justice Souter, Justice Ginsburg, and Justice Breyer, to get a sense of his disdain for any continuing relevance of the Second Amendment in today’s society. In his dissent, he rejected the notion that the framers of the Constitution “intended to enshrine the common-law right of self-defense in the Constitution” or had “the slightest interest in limiting any legislature’s authority to regulate private civilian uses of firearms.”