This past week, former United States Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens boldly called for the repeal of the Second Amendment, which reads in its entirety: “A well regulated militia, being necessary for the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.”

Justice Stevens made two arguments. First, he claimed that the late Justice Antonin Scalia misread the Second Amendment when he held in D.C. v. Heller (2008) that it prevents the District of Columbia from prohibiting Dick Heller, a D.C. special policeman, from keeping or carrying a side-arm in his home for the purposes of self-defense. Justice Scalia said that the Second Amendment protects an individual right to keep and bear arms, unconnected with service in the militia. Second, spurred on by the mass killings at Parkland High School, Justice Stevens argued that the Second Amendment, as construed, was a “relic” that imposed outdated restrictions on the proper regulation of guns.

Stevens goes one for two. He is right that Scalia’s reading of the Second Amendment is incorrect, but wrong to think that Scalia’s interpretation of that amendment precludes any sensible reform in gun regulations. The constitutional and policy issues are often linked politically, but they are conceptually distinct and thus best considered separately.