Cass Sunstein purports to explain "How the Gun Lobby Rewrote the Second Amendment."

I know the author of a column probably doesn't write his own headline, but there's nothing in this column that explains how the gun lobby rewrote the Second Amendment. Sunstein explains how people in the law field long relied, without studying the question in depth, on an assumption about the meaning of the amendment. To do the deep study and to arrive at a different opinion of the meaning of a text is not to rewrite it.

Sunstein's column is loaded with filler that has nothing to do with how the gun lobby supposedly rewrote the amendment: the recent shootings in Oregon, a Ben Carson statement in support of gun rights, the recency of the Supreme Court's discovery of an individual right in the Second Amendment, an old statement in an interview by Chief Justice Warren Burger of his understanding that the Second Amendment contains no individual right to bear arms, old case law that failed to perceive an individual right.

In the 11th and 12th paragraphs of the 15-paragraph column, Sunstein presents the fact that the National Rifle Association spent money expressing its belief in the individual right, that expression "resonated with the public," and that public opinion is "used strategically by politicians seeking votes." Yes, we live in a culture, and we vote in a democracy, and voters respond to arguments they hear and feel persuaded by, but how does that mean that one set of voices rewrites a clause in the Constitution?

Here we are, then, it's Paragraph 13. I want the answer my question. What do we get? Sunstein admits that there is no rewriting!

An important qualification: The text of the Second Amendment is ambiguous, and it could indeed be read in favor of an individual right; historians continue to debate the question. And because the individual right to own guns has long been a central part of American culture, if not its jurisprudence, federal judges might well hesitate before entirely denying that right.

The introductory phrase "An important qualification" is a rhetorical trick to make us feel the author has already made the basic point and this is a minor concession for the sake of scrupulous accuracy. But the basic point has not been made and the concession is really all there is: It's a difficult question of interpretation, and when serious scholars did the hard work, many of them perceived a right, a right in the original text. These people were not "rewriting" the Second Amendment, and they certainly were not accepting a rewrite delivered by a political lobby.

Ironically, Sunstein, writing in a newspaper, attempting to influence public opinion, is more of a lobbyist than the scholars he'd diminish as manipulated by lobbyists. 

As for judges, of course they should hesitate before denying a constitutional right! Whatever is happening in the political arena, judges should always look carefully at claims of right, as I am sure Sunstein and fellow anti-gun rights law professors will say about non-Second Amendment rights.

Paragraph 13 is the shocking "never mind," and the column peters out in the final 2 paragraphs, ending with the assertion that gun rights "have a lot more to do with interest-group politics" than with what the Constitution really means, which is certainly a true statement about Sunstein's column.