Bret Stephens Defends 2nd Amendment Column: ’Not Gun Ownership That Keeps Us Free, It’s the Rule of Law’

Bret Stephens, conservative columnist for The New York Times, appeared on MSNBC this afternoon to defend his new column headlined “Repeal the Second Amendment.”

Chuck Todd noted that Stephens has gotten quite a bit of conservative blowback to that column.

“I think my fellow conservatives,” Stephens said, “fail to take proper account of the fact that in the last five years, 46,000 or so of their fellow Americans have been killed in gun violence.”

And he continued:

“All of the proposals that you hear, even from most Democrats––more background checks, gun buyback programs, and so on––are simply not going to do anything meaningful to curb these daily massacres on American streets. The only thing that’s going to do that is to repeal the Second Amendment.”

Stephens clarified that he is “not for banning guns,” but also said that someone like the Las Vegas gunman shouldn’t have been able to get the kind of weapons he did.

“Conservatives have this idea,” he added, “that the only right that guarantees our freedom is the Second Amendment. These are the same conservatives who seem to think that if it weren’t for gun ownership, we wouldn’t be a free people. It’s not gun ownership that keeps us free, it’s the rule of law.”

Watch above, via MSNBC.

[image via screengrab]

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Follow Josh Feldman on Twitter: @feldmaniac

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