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tangent4ronpaul
07-15-2009, 06:56 PM
http://features.csmonitor.com/politics/2009/07/15/sotomayor-dodges-gun-rights-questions/

Sotomayor dodges gun-rights questions

The Supreme Court nominee is choosing her words carefully about the Second Amendment during confirmation hearings.

For the second day, Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor dodged questions about whether she believes the Second Amendment guarantees a fundamental right to keep and bear arms.

Judge Sotomayor told senators Wednesday that the US Supreme Court had ruled in 2008 that there is an individual right to guns and other weapons. But she stopped short of revealing her thoughts on whether that right was worthy of the kind of judicial protection afforded fundamental rights like the First and Fourth Amendments.

At one point Sen. Tom Coburn (R) of Oklahoma asked Sotomayor whether he had a right to self defense.

“That is an abstract question with no meaning to me,” Sotomayor responded.

Senator Coburn persisted. “That’s what the American people want to know. Is it okay to defend yourself in your home if you are under attack?”

Questions about Sotomayor’s views on the Second Amendment stem from her involvement in a New York appeals court decision in January that sharply restricted gun rights.

The three-judge panel of which she was a part said the Supreme Court’s 2008 decision applies only to the federal government. The Sotomayor panel ruled that New York and other states were free to regulate or ban weapons if they have a rational basis to do so.

The questions are being asked in an attempt to gain insight into how Sotomayor may vote as a Supreme Court justice.

The question isn’t just hypothetical. Her panel’s decision is one of three lower court opinions currently under appeal to the Supreme Court. If the high court agrees to hear the cases, they could be argued as early as next term.

All three cases raise the issue of whether the right to keep and bear arms is a fundamental right that may not be infringed by state governments except under sharply limited circumstances.

In its 2008 decision, the Supreme Court left that question unanswered. But in a footnote, Justice Antonin Scalia gave lower court judges – such as Sotomayor – an important hint about how the five justices in the majority (all conservatives) believe that issue must be resolved.

The footnote suggests that the legal rationale limiting Second Amendment rights – a series of century-old high court decisions dating to 1875, 1886, and 1894 – is no longer good law.

The note says that the high court’s more recent cases are based on a different line of analysis, which embraces a significantly broader view in applying the protections of the Bill of Rights to the states.

Despite this footnote, Sotomayor’s panel relied on the 1886 precedent, adopting a sharply limited view of the Second Amendment’s protections for gun owners.

Sen. Orrin Hatch (R) of Utah asked Sotomayor about this Tuesday. “I believe you’ve applied the wrong line of cases,” he told the nominee.

Sotomayor has not offered a detailed explanation on why she relied on an 1886 precedent rather than following Justice Scalia’s hint.

Sotomayor has told the senators that when the recent gun-rights case arrived at her court, she and her colleagues read the Scalia footnote and concluded that the Supreme Court had not “explicitly rejected” the 1886 precedent supporting a narrow view of the Second Amendment. So the appeals court used it to decide the case, she said.

Earlier, Sotomayor had told Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy of Vermont that she had accepted and applied the high court’s 2008 gun rights decision in her own decision.

“Completely, sir,” she said. “I accepted and applied established Supreme Court precedent.”

She added that the Supreme Court had decided a different issue than her court decided, but she stressed that she’d been faithful to existing Supreme Court precedent.

Senator Leahy followed up with a basic question: “Would you have an open mind on the Supreme Court in evaluating whether Second Amendment rights should be considered fundamental rights and thus applicable to the states?”

“Absolutely,” she said.

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/05/28/sotomayors-gun-control-positions-prompt-conservative-backlash/

Sotomayor's Gun Control Positions Could Prompt Conservative Backlash
Earlier this year, President Obama's Supreme Court nominee joined an opinion with the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals ruling that Second Amendment rights do not apply to the states.

Judge Sonia Sotomayor could walk into a firestorm on Capitol Hill over her stance on gun rights, with conservatives beginning to question some controversial positions she's taken over the past several years on the Second Amendment.

Earlier this year, President Obama's Supreme Court nominee joined an opinion with the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals ruling that Second Amendment rights do not apply to the states.

A 2004 opinion she joined also cited as precedent that "the right to possess a gun is clearly not a fundamental right."

Ken Blackwell, a senior fellow with the Family Research Council, called Obama's nomination a "declaration of war against America's gun owners."

Such a line of attack could prove more effective than efforts to define Sotomayor as pro-abortion, efforts that essentially grasp at straws. Sotomayor's record on that hot-button issue reveals instances in which she has ruled against an abortion rights group and in favor of anti-abortion protesters, making her hard to pigeonhole.

But Sotomayor's position on gun control is far more crystallized.

Blackwell, who also ran unsuccessfully to head the Republican National Committee, told FOX News her position is "very, very disturbing."

"That puts our Second Amendment freedoms at risk," he said. "What she's basically saying is that your hometown can decide to suppress your Second Amendment freedoms."

The chief concern is her position in the 2009 Maloney v. Cuomo case, in which the court examined a claim by a New York attorney that a New York law that prohibited possession of nunchucks violated his Second Amendment rights. The Appeals Court affirmed the lower court's decision that the Second Amendment does not apply to the states.

The ruling explained that it was "settled law" that the Second Amendment applies only to limitations the federal government might seek on individual gun rights.

Despite last year's landmark Supreme Court ruling in the District of Columbia v. Heller, in which the court ruled that the Second Amendment protects an individual right to bear arms, the Maloney ruling determined that case "does not invalidate this longstanding principle" that states are not covered by the Second Amendment. (Another appeals court since the Heller case reached the opposite conclusion.)

Justice David Souter, whom Sotomayor would replace, dissented from the majority decision in D.C. v. Heller, so Sotomayor wouldn't necessarily tip the balance on such issues. But she's joining a split body -- the D.C. case was a 5-4 decision -- and with the Maloney case likely to be appealed to the Supreme Court her presence could be threatening to gun rights groups.

"We have concerns and we have questions," Andrew Arulanandam, public affairs director for the National Rifle Association, told FOXNews.com. He said the NRA would work with members of Congress to have those concerns addressed in the coming months, and that the NRA has researchers looking more closely at Sotomayor's gun rights record.

Ken Klukowski, a fellow and legal analyst with the American Civil Rights Union, predicted this issue would heat up as the confirmation process moves forward.

"If this nomination were not to succeed, it would likely be because of the Second Amendment issue," he said.

Klukowski questioned the brevity of the Maloney decision, which spanned only a few pages, more than the actual conclusion. He said it glossed over decades of relevant legal precedent.

"The idea that you would be the first circuit court to take up this profound, constitutional question after the Supreme Court's landmark ruling and only give it one paragraph is stunning," he said.

But Paul Helmke, president of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, said the issue of Sotomayor's gun rights position is being "overblown" since the court was merely following precedent. He agreed that the Heller decision did not mean Second Amendment rights apply to states.

He said any controversy over the issue would be a "red herring."

As interest groups launch a heated campaign to define Sotomayor and draw the battle lines ahead of her confirmation process, the White House has voiced unequivocal confidence in her judgment.

White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said Thursday that Obama was "very comfortable with her interpretation of the Constitution being similar to that of his."

FOXNews.com's Judson Berger and FOX News' Shannon Bream contributed to this report.

heavenlyboy34
07-15-2009, 06:59 PM
Like I said, a piece of paper (viz. the Constitution) is not going to protect your liberties-especially when the government wants something from you. :mad: I suggest y'all arm yourself ASAP. ;)

Time for Change
07-15-2009, 07:21 PM
Like I said, .... :mad: I suggest y'all arm yourself ASAP. ;)

I couldn't agree more.
Food and a means to "preserve" it.

FSP-Rebel
07-15-2009, 07:47 PM
Good thing I live in NH, the last time a rep tried to ban guns inside the state house, she eventually voted against her own bill. That's how we roll up here. Even democrats know not to mess with our guns.

Brian4Liberty
07-15-2009, 10:27 PM
Of course she doesn't agree with the Second Amendment. That doesn't matter. The true disqualification for her is that she thinks she should change that from the bench. For those that don't agree with the Second Amendment, there is a process to repeal it. Any other method of denying the right to bear arms is in violation of the rule of law and the Constitution. Therefore, she is not qualified to be a Supreme Court Justice. She (and others like her) take the oath to protect the Constitution with premeditated mental reservations and purpose of evasion.

Brian4Liberty
07-15-2009, 10:30 PM
browser error

Warrior_of_Freedom
07-15-2009, 10:53 PM
She's a fucking racist, and that's enough reason to deny her.

tron paul
07-16-2009, 05:44 AM
Let's look on the bright side. Sotomayer is less intelligent than the Justice she is replacing.

That's less brainpower on the liberal side. She's no Alito. Not even a Ginsberg LOL.

Time for Change
07-16-2009, 06:59 AM
She's a fucking racist, and that's enough reason to deny her.

No silly, Only white males are racist.
Everyone else has justification and that is considered acceptable because it's not their fault they are that way.
:p

Time for Change
07-16-2009, 07:01 AM
Let's look on the bright side. Sotomayer is less intelligent than the Justice she is replacing.

That's less brainpower on the liberal side. She's no Alito. Not even a Ginsberg LOL.

OOhhh to have HOPE!
Hope has me wanting her dropped from consideration since she has been chosen by a person that is technically ineligible to be POTUS in the first place.

Hope in one hand...you get socialists no matter what you do...losing faith...:mad: