Sen. Ed Markey is adamant in his call for an emergency session of the U.S. Senate to debate gun safety legislation. But on the notion of repealing the Second Amendment, he is less clear.
Markey has long been a strong proponent of stricter gun laws. After mass shootings in El Paso and Dayton, he addressed the gun issue.
"We can ban assault weapons," Markey said. "We can ban high-capacity magazines. We can have background checks.”
But should Markey be going even further? One of his primary opponents says he should. In the wake of the mass shootings, Shannon Liss-Riordan is calling for the repeal of the Second Amendment and the constitutional right to bear arms.
"I agree with the late Justice John Paul Stevens: the Second Amendment is 'a relic of the 18th century.' We need leaders in Washington who understand that and have the courage and the will to fight to repeal the Second Amendment," Liss-Riordan said in a statement.
Markey was asked Wednesday if he agreed.
"We need to reinterpret the Second Amendment," he said. "We can do that in a special session in Congress in August, right now."
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"The fact is, it would be easier for you and I to hit the lottery then for the Second Amendment to be repealed," said NBC10 Boston legal analyst Michael Coyne.
Coyne said the Founding Fathers purposefully made it very difficult to make any changes to the Constitution and the amendments. And from a political standpoint, Coyne says it would be virtually impossible.
"We can't have our representatives even pass modest gun control and restrictions on these weapons of mass destruction," Coyne said. "The thought that the Second Amendment could be repealed is just a nonstarter from the onset."
Markey has a third primary opponent in the race, Steve Pemberton, who says he lost his father to gun violence. Pemberton says abolishing the Second Amendment would take years and that we need action now.
