Stevens stated that the court 's judgment was " a strained and unpersuasive reading " which overturned longstanding precedent , and that the court had " bestowed a dramatic upheaval in the law . " Stevens also stated that the amendment was notable for the " omission of any statement of purpose related to the right to use firearms for hunting or personal self-defense " which was present in the Declarations of Rights of Pennsylvania and Vermont . The Stevens dissent seems to rest on four main points of disagreement : that the Founders would have made the individual right aspect of the Second Amendment express if that was what was intended ; that the " militia " preamble and exact phrase " to keep and bear arms " demands the conclusion that the Second Amendment touches on state militia service only ; that many lower courts ' later " collective-right " reading of the Miller decision constitutes , which may only be overturned at great peril ; and that the Court has not considered gun-control laws ( e.g. , the National Firearms Act ) unconstitutional . The dissent concludes , " The Court would have us believe that over 200 years ago , the Framers made a choice to limit the tools available to elected officials wishing to regulate civilian uses of weapons . ... I could not possibly conclude that the Framers made such a choice . " On March 27 , 2018 , days after the March for Our Lives demonstrations in the wake of the Stoneman Douglas High School shooting , described by many media outlets as a possible tipping point for gun control legislation , Stevens wrote an essay for '' The New York Times '' , stating that the demonstrators should be demanding the outright repeal of the Second Amendment : In 2011 , Stevens published a memoir entitled '' Five Chiefs : A Supreme Court Memoir '' , which detailed his legal career during the tenure of five of the Supreme Court 's chief justices . In '' Five Chiefs '' , Stevens recounts his time as a law clerk during the tenure of Chief Justice Vinson ; his experiences as a private attorney during the Warren era ; and his experience while serving as an Associate Justice on the Burger , Rehnquist , and Roberts courts
Stoneman Douglas High School shooting
Stoneman Douglas High School shooting
John Paul Stevens