Dallas Mavericks Owner Mark Cuban recently made a series of suggestions about how to “update” the Second Amendment to give states more power to regulate guns.
“I would go to change the Second Amendment in ways that people probably wouldn’t expect,” Cuban told Yahoo Editor-in-Chief Andy Serwer.
The billionaire noted that he felt the various state governments should have more power to limit guns.
“States have the right to manage the ownership — —the purchase, ownership, and management — of guns owned and held within their borders,” the Shark Tank star said.
“If you live in a state like Texas, if the law in Texas is open carry, so be it,” Cuban continued. “If you live in Pennsylvania where they are more stringent, and they don’t want you to be able to have a gun other than in your own premises or under lock and key or you have to do a background check, then that’s up to them to decide.”
Contradictorily, though, Cuban also said the Second Amendment must be made more explicit that the federal government cannot prevent the ownership of guns.
“One, every American citizen has the right to own a gun,” Cuban said. “Two, the federal government will never be allowed to ever confiscate that gun from an individual.”
Note that Cuban says the Federal government should be banned from confiscating guns, but he did not say if he thinks the states have a right to confiscate guns. So, on the one hand, he seems to be saying that the federal government should operate with a hands-off-guns rule, while the states are free to do whatever they want with them. It appears that Cuban would allow the states to nullify the Second Amendment at will.
Cuban agreed that making changes to the Constitution is not a quick procedure. “It’s not easy to change an amendment,” Cuban said.
Still, he said he feels something needs to be done.
“We’re trying to take a Second Amendment that has been analyzed up and down and backwards and forwards, and it’s created its own set of problems,” Cuban said. “Let’s update it.”
Amendments to the U.S. Constitution can be proposed by a two-thirds majority in the U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate, or by a constitutional convention called by two-thirds of the state legislatures. But amendments can only become law after approval by three-fourths of the states.
Follow Warner Todd Huston on Twitter @warnerthuston.