Sen. Lindsey Graham wants every Democrat to answer, 'Is it a good idea to repeal the 2nd Amendment?

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) believes there's a civil rights question Democrats don't want to be forced to answer truthfully: Do they want to see the Second Amendment repealed?

And the lawmaker wants the media to ask the question to every Democratic politician.

Why ask that question?

Since the Feb. 14 mass killing at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, renewed calls for gun control have reverberated across the U.S.

Anti-gun Parkland students and their supporters have demanded that Congress "do something" about gun violence, ranging from restrictions on guns sales, registries, bans on certain firearms, and more. Their cries climaxed with the March for Our Lives in Washington, D.C., and other cities over the weekend.

Some of the students and their supporters have even called for a repeal of the Second Amendment — the most recent coming from former Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens.

Stevens, a famously liberal former jurist on the high court, was one of four justices who dissented in D.C. v. Heller, which declared that the Second Amendment does indeed protect the individual right to possess a firearm. In his dissenting opinion in Heller, Stevens wrote that the right to bear arms is a "collective right," not an individual one.

In an op-ed for the New York Times on Tuesday, Stevens lauded the efforts of the anti-gun Parkland students and even announced that it was time for the Second Amendment to go the way of the dodo:

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. 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.

That support is a clear sign to 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. But the demonstrators should seek more effective and more lasting reform. They should demand a repeal of the Second Amendment.

He went on to state that repealing the Second Amendment would move the Parkland students and their backers "closer to their objective than any other possible reform" and "would eliminate the only legal rule that protects sellers of firearms in the United States."

How would Democrats respond?

Graham told Fox host Martha MacCallum on Tuesday that he hopes Democratic politicians will have to tell the public whether they stand with Stevens' op-ed and the calls to end constitutional protections for gun rights.

"I hope every Democrat will be asked what you you've asked me: Is it a good idea to repeal the Second Amendment?" Graham said. "'Cause I want every Democrat to answer that question."

For his part, Graham, whose latest rating from the NRA Political Victory Fund is an A-, said that Stevens' call for repeal "is a very bad idea."

"I'm glad he's retired," Graham said of the former jurist. "He has a right to his opinion like every other American, but I'm up here to protect the Second Amendment not repeal it."

Knowing that the issue will make Democrats uncomfortable in an election year, he noted, "I can't wait to hear what Nancy Pelosi says and every other liberal Democrat. See if they will stand with Justice Stevens or they'll stand with the Constitution. I'm dying to know."

(H/T: Hot Air)