Obama SCOTUS nominee has ‘very liberal view of gun rights’

Amidst the excitement from many about the opportunity to elect the first black President in 2008, and amidst many gun owners' decision to sit out the 2012 election due to the sketchy record of Mitt Romney on guns, there were loud warnings from groups like Buckeye Firearms Association and the National Rifle Association that an Obama presidency could mean the end of the Second Amendment.

Those warnings, which were labeled at best as exaggeration, and at worst as extremist, were based on the spectre of Obama being given the opportunity to appoint a new Supreme Court justice during his time in office.

Now, just 9 months before he exits, the lame duck president is trying to take advantage of that very opportunity for a THIRD time. And this time, it is to replace a pro-Second Amendment justice with one who is anything but. In fact, the Washington Times is reporting that the Judicial Crisis Network has evaluated President Obama's appointment, Judge Merrick Garland, and found the nominee is the exact sort of judge Second Amendment advocates feared most.

From the article:

The conservative Judicial Crisis Network, which plans to spend at least $2 million on an advertising campaign to oppose Judge Merrick Garland’s nomination, says the nominee “has a very liberal view of gun rights.”

JCN chief counsel Carrie Severino said in a blog post that Judge Merrick’s record on the bench since 1997 “leads to the conclusion that he would vote to reverse one of Justice Scalia’s most important opinions, D.C. vs. Heller, which affirmed that the Second Amendment confers an individual right to keep and bear arms.”

Severino wrote that when the D.C. government asked for a rehearing of the Heller case before all 10 judges of the appeals court, six judges voted not to rehear the case, but four, including Judge Merrick, voted for a rehearing.

The Times notes that conservatives say that’s presumably because he disagreed with the three-judge panel that had ruled to overturn the handgun ban.

Judge Garland was appointed to the bench by Democratic President Bill Clinton in 1997, winning Senate confirmation by a vote of 76-23. Prior to that, he served in the Justice Department during the Clinton administration.

The article states that Mr. Obama had considered Judge Garland for the high court in 2009, but instead chose Sonia Sotomayor, another anti-Second Amendment justice who worked to destroy the Second Amendment in the McDonald v. Chicago case. Obama's other Supreme Court nominee, Elena Kagan, has been equally abysmal on the issue of the Second Amendment.

In response to President Obama's nomination, NRA-ILA's Chris Cox stated "With Justice Scalia's tragic passing, there is no longer a majority of support among the justices for the fundamental, individual right to own a firearm for self-defense. Four justices believe law-abiding Americans have that right - and four justices do not. President Obama has nothing but contempt for the Second Amendment and law-abiding gun owners. Obama has already nominated two Supreme Court justices who oppose the right to own firearms and there is absolutely no reason to think he has changed his approach this time. In fact, a basic analysis of Merrick Garland's judicial record shows that he does not respect our fundamental, individual right to keep and bear arms for self-defense. Therefore, the National Rifle Association, on behalf of our five million members and tens of millions of supporters across the country, strongly opposes the nomination of Merrick Garland for the U.S. Supreme Court."

The Republican majority in the U.S. Senate should absolutely refuse to consider this nominee, not just pending the outcome of the November presidential election, but ever. The future of the Second Amendment individual right to bear arms is literally at stake.

Chad D. Baus is the Buckeye Firearms Association Secretary, BFA PAC Vice Chairman, and an NRA-certified firearms instructor. He is the editor of BuckeyeFirearms.org, which received the Outdoor Writers of Ohio 2013 Supporting Member Award for Best Website.

Additional Information:

Columbus Dispatch - Portman says he will oppose Merrick Garland's Supreme Court nomination