NEW YORK TIMES’ TOKEN ‘CONSERVATIVE:’ ‘Repeal the Second Amendment,’ Bret Stephens writes, noting that “I have never understood the conservative fetish for the Second Amendment.”

Huh – I always thought Stephens was a reasonably intelligent fellow. I bet somehow he could figure this out, if he really applied himself — and he should. Or as G.K. Chesterton famously wrote:

In the matter of reforming things, as distinct from deforming them, there is one plain and simple principle; a principle which will probably be called a paradox. There exists in such a case a certain institution or law; let us say, for the sake of simplicity, a fence or gate erected across a road. The more modern type of reformer goes gaily up to it and says, “I don’t see the use of this; let us clear it away.” To which the more intelligent type of reformer will do well to answer: “If you don’t see the use of it, I certainly won’t let you clear it away. Go away and think. Then, when you can come back and tell me that you do see the use of it, I may allow you to destroy it.

Or not. As David Harsanyi writes at the Federalist, “Come And Take Them, Bret Stephens: As an American-Jew whose ancestors came here escaping both Nazism and communism, I totally ‘get’ the Second Amendment ‘fetishists.’”

And funny enough, last year, when he was still employed by the Wall Street Journal, so did Stephens: