Larry King Says Second Amendment Should Be Repealed, Was Created to Stop 'Slave Uprisings'

Longtime media personality Larry King was unflinching in his thoughts about gun control when he was spotted by the celebrity news site TMZ on Thursday.

Asked about an op-ed calling for the amendment's repeal, King responded to TMZ, "Yeah, repeal it."

"It's poorly written," he said. "What did they mean by 'militia?' [Signees] were Southern Senators, [who signed] so they could ward off slave uprisings."

"Really?" asked the TMZ reporter. "Read the history. Eventually it won in other areas but Southern senators started it so they could repel slave uprisings," King responded.

Although there's some historical debate on King's assertion, the media personality asserted his thoughts after a bit more back and forth.

"That second Amendment is terrible," he said. "And the NRA is the worst."

The conversation was sparked by a New York Times opinion piece on Tuesday from retired Supreme Court Justice John Stevens frankly titled "Repeal the Second Amendment." Citing the historic March for Our Lives, Stevens argued, in part, that the idea of a "well regulated militia" was a relic of the past.

"Rarely in my lifetime have I seen the type of civic engagement schoolchildren and their supporters demonstrated in Washington and other major cities throughout the country this past Saturday," Stevens wrote in the Times. "These demonstrations demand our respect."

President Donald Trump, perhaps predictably, railed against Stevens's argument. "THE SECOND AMENDMENT WILL NEVER BE REPEALED!" Trump tweeted on Wednesday. "As much as Democrats would like to see this happen, and despite the words yesterday of former Supreme Court Justice [John Paul] Stevens, NO WAY. We need more Republicans in 2018 and must ALWAYS hold the Supreme Court!"

Trump himself, however, at one point said he wanted to take away certain folks' guns in the wake of the Parkland, Florida, school shooting that left 17 dead and sparked the mass protests.

"I like taking the guns early, like in this crazy man's case that just took place in Florida…to go to court would have taken a long time," Trump said in a meeting with lawmakers. "You could take the guns first, go through due process second."