One Can Only Hope

A Washington Times editorial expressed the concerns gun owners should have about Elena Kagan.

We've been down this road before. Less than a year ago, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick J. Leahy, Vermont Democrat, made similar assurances regarding then-Supreme Court hopeful Sonia Sotomayor, saying, "I do not see how any fair observer could regard her testimony as hostile to the Second Amendment personal right to bear arms, a right she has embraced and recognizes."

Once the "wise Latina" donned the robes of her lifetime office, any pretense of upholding the individual's right to bear arms was jettisoned. Ms. Sotomayor signed onto the gun rights dissent of Justice Stephen G. Breyer last month, which stated, "I can find nothing in the Second Amendment's text, history or underlying rationale that could warrant characterizing it as 'fundamental' insofar as it seeks to protect the keeping and bearing of arms for private self-defense purposes."

There's reason to think Ms. Kagan will follow the same path.

What's your opinion? Is Kagan going to be another Sotomayor, as concerns gun rights?

And how about that Justice Breyer? Can he write, or what?

"I can find nothing in the Second Amendment's text, history or underlying rationale that could warrant characterizing it as 'fundamental' insofar as it seeks to protect the keeping and bearing of arms for private self-defense purposes."

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Sotomayor on Guns

A couple weeks ago a "satirical" story went around the internet about Sonia Sotomayor's law-school papers. When I posted about it, I hadn't noticed that it was supposed to be satire. The ribbing I got from some of the commenters a few hours later when everyone in the world saw the truth was well-deserved, and I think well-received.

Now, Yahoo News reports on the latest, hopefully genuine information, about the judge's gun stance.

Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor told a senator Thursday that she would follow a historic ruling affirming Americans' right to own guns for self-defense, but pro-gun activists said they still believe she'd work to limit gun rights if confirmed for the high court.

Democratic Sen. Mark Udall of Colorado said Sotomayor told him during a private meeting that she considers the 2008 ruling that struck down a Washington, D.C., handgun ban as settled law that would guide her decisions in future cases. In District of Columbia v. Heller, the Supreme Court held that individuals have a constitutional right to guns.

But the statement gave little comfort to gun rights activists. Conservative Sen. Jim DeMint, R-S.C., said that earlier in the week, Sotomayor told him in a similar closed-door session that she stood by an appellate court decision she signed this year that said the Second Amendment protection from curbs on the right to bear arms applied only to federal laws — not state or local ones. That ruling, Maloney v. Cuomo, left it up to the Supreme Court to decide whether the rights recognized in the Heller case applied throughout the country.

Gun rights activists are right to be concerned. The Maloney decision is one in which Sotomayor and two other judges on the 2nd Circuit appeals court upheld a New York state law banning the possession of "chuka sticks." They said they were bound by an 1886 Supreme Court ruling — not by Heller, which didn't address the question of whether the Second Amendment applied to states.

I'm tempted to say, now who's going to have the last laugh, but I'm doubtful she'll survive the gruelling confirmation process. I've already seen too much negative propaganda, much of which must have the NRA's fingerprints on it.

What's your opinion? Do you think she's hostile to gun rights? Would that make her anti-freedom? Isn't it possible for someone to oppose the pro-gun movement and do so with integrity and good intentions?

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