Washington Times: "Kagan's Snowe job on gun rights"

Obama nominee is a threat to the Second Amendment

The more it looks like the Senate will confirm Elena Kagan for the Supreme Court, the more gun owners should worry. Yesterday, Sen. Olympia J. Snowe of Maine became the fourth Republican to stand behind President Obama's nominee on the phony basis that Ms. Kagan supports gun rights.

Mrs. Snowe explained in a press release that, "as a longtime, ardent supporter of Second Amendment rights, it was critical that [Solicitor] General Kagan stated during her testimony that the precedents set by the Supreme Court in the Heller and McDonald cases - which upheld a personal right to possess a firearm - are 'deeply rooted in this nation's history and traditions' and are 'settled law'; that she has 'absolutely no reason to think that the court's analysis was incorrect in any way'; and, that she will apply these cases as law 'going forward.' "

We've been down this road before. Less than a year ago, SenateJudiciary 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."

Click here to read the editorial in The Washington Times.

Additional Information:
Last Chance To OPPOSE Elena Kagan's Confirmation to U.S. Supreme Court