Americans want gun control

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Letter to the editor in today's SF Chronicle:

Reverse gun ruling

The recent overturning of Roe v. Wade was the result of an avid push by antiabortion groups and a conservative majority on the Supreme Court. While it is not applauded by the majority of Americans, it shows what a concerted effort by a determined minority group can politically achieve.

With increasing gun violence and mass shootings in America, most Americans desire stricter gun control. Efforts toward this are stymied by a 2008 Supreme Court ruling (District of Columbia v. Heller) that I think grossly misinterpreted the meaning of the Second Amendment.

Roe v. Wade had only two dissenters, with nine justices giving the ruling a substantial majority. Yet even with that large majority, it was overturned. Heller had four dissenters; if a review of Roe could proceed, then a review of District of Columbia should proceed without haste.

Former Justice John Paul Stevens, a dissenter in Heller, referred to the Second Amendment as a “relic of the 18th century” and called for its repeal in a New York Times essay. 

He also noted that in 1991 former Chief Justice Warren Burger characterized the National Rifle Association’s push for Second Amendment rights as “one of the greatest pieces of fraud … on the American public by a special interest group” he had ever seen.

A majority of Americans favor stricter gun controls and that can be achieved if we make a determined and concerted effort. Our children’s lives depend on it.

Robert Thomas

Castro Valley

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