ANALYSIS/OPINION:

Forget former U.S. Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens and his eyebrow-raising call for a repeal of the Second Amendment.

Fully 21 percent of Americans think the same way. That’s according to a poll taken back in February by the Economist/YouGov.

Founding Fathers warned that an uneducated citizenry would never be able to maintain a republic. Well, here we are.

The findings show just how skewed our collective understanding of the Constitution has become. Blame public schools, the progressive-minded in politics, and parents who fail to take seriously their responsibilities of training the next generation in the proper way to go.

The poll, reported in The Washington Post — in an opinion piece that slammed Stevens for presenting a view that was unhelpful to the gun control crowd, no less — showed this: A fifth of Americans supported a repeal of the Second Amendment. Only 8 percent of Republicans were on board with that — though perhaps the sentence should read, Good Lord, even 8 percent of supposed constitutionally minded Republicans saw a Second Amendment repeal as a sane idea.

And here’s the skinny: 39 percent of Democrats supported repeal.

The big takeaway here is that Stevens is not an anomaly of the left. He’s not out on this anti-Second Amendment cliff by himself.

It’s a crowded ledge. And thanks to the failures of schools to properly teach the Constitution, and sadly, the failures of parents to pick up the slack and teach the same, that ledge is only going to grow more crowded as the years go by.

Fact is, the Second Amendment is based on the God-given right of an individual to protect him- or herself from harm. It’s not a government grant.

It’s a human right, and the Constitution simply supports and protects by law what’s already afforded at birth.

The 39 percent of Democrats who can’t see that — the 21 percent of Americans who are blind to that — are destroying more than a Bill of Rights. They’re destroying the American concept of God-given.

• Cheryl Chumley can be reached at [email protected] or on Twitter, @ckchumley.

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