Supreme Court nominee and the 2nd amendment

[Guest sammyboy]

Not that its much of a surprise, but it appears heshe Kagan isn't a friend of the gun owner...

Kagan Was

“I’m not sympathetic.â€

[Guest HvyMtl]

Mixed bag. Her Heller statement (more recent) shows improvement.

“There is no question, after Heller, that the Second Amendment guarantees Americans ‘the individual right to possess and carry weapons in case of confrontation.’”

Solicitor general confirmation hearing, 2009

Effectively, we have a near total unknown. The benefit is, IF she goes full Liberal, she is merely replacing one, and may not have the persuasiveness needed to get Judge Kennedy to go along...

But, due to the fact she is roiling more Liberals than Conservatives right now, it gives me (faint) hope she may be closer to moderate than liberal...

Edited May 14, 2010 by HvyMtl

[Guest sammyboy]

Unlike you, I assume when she said "There is no question, after Heller..." she was simply STATING the law of the land AFTER the supreme court made it clearly so. As opposed to her AGREEING with the decision.

See how that's two different things? Its subtle, but important.

[Guest 6.8 AR]

“There is no question, after Heller, that the Second Amendment guarantees Americans ‘the individual right to possess and carry weapons in case of confrontation.’â€

Solicitor general confirmation hearing, 2009

It would have been good enough if she would have said 'keep and bear arms'. It may not seem like much, but she is an idealogue and will twist and distort until the phrase has no meaning. If you think she has the potential of being a moderate on the bench, remember they will say anything and will promptly forget everything they said afterward. How many moderate democrats voted for the healthcare bill.

If Obama appointed her, what makes her any different from Van Jones, Cass Sundstein or Tim Geittner?

Credibility? Her paper trail won't get out until they confirm her, just like "voting on the healthcare bill to find out what's in it".

This has happened too many times in HIS administration.

[Guest PapaB]

Unlike you, I assume when she said "There is no question, after Heller..." she was simply STATING the law of the land AFTER the supreme court made it clearly so. As opposed to her AGREEING with the decision.

See how that's two different things? Its subtle, but important.

Absolutely correct. If she had been on the Court at the time, she would have ruled against Heller. Fortunately she isn't going to change the complexion of the Court so we're no worse off.

[Tim Nunan]

Ken Klukowski : Elena Kagan

A third instance of Elena Kagan opposing Americans’ Second Amendment right to own a gun has now become public, and is sure to become a major issue in her Supreme Court confirmation hearings. And it confirms that President Obama’s gun-control agenda is to create a Supreme Court that will “reinterpret†the Second Amendment until that amendment means nothing at all.

This year, no case on the Supreme Court docket is more important than McDonald v. Chicago, where the Court is deciding whether the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms is only a right you have against the federal government, or instead if the Second Amendment (like most of the Bill of Rights) also secures a right you can assert against state and local governments. At issue is whether Chicago’s law banning all guns—even in your own home—is constitutional.

When the Supreme Court considered its last Second Amendment case, District of Columbia v. Heller in 2008, then-U.S. Solicitor General Paul Clement filed a brief in the case, and then requested and received time to argue the federal government’s position in that case as to the meaning of the Second Amendment.

When the McDonald case was argued before the Court on March 2 of this year, current Solicitor General Kagan argued… Nothing. Not only did she not ask for time during oral argument, she didn’t even file a brief (which the solicitor general routinely does in important constitutional cases—and the McDonald case is monumentally important).

If someone asserts that the solicitor general shouldn’t file a brief because it’s a state matter as to whether the Second Amendment is “incorporated†to the states through the Fourteenth Amendment (which is the issue in McDonald) the record speaks to the contrary. The last time the Supreme Court “incorporated†a right from the Bill of Rights to the states, in the 1969 case Benton v. Maryland, the solicitor general filed a brief, and then (just like Heller in 2008) got divided argument time to express the government’s views in front of the Court.

Why wouldn’t Kagan file a brief expressing the view of over 75% of Americans that the Second Amendment is an individual right, one that every American citizen has against all levels of government?

Aside from her shocking decision not to file a brief in McDonald, we’ve learned that Elena Kagan was part of the Clinton White House’s gun-control efforts, where a Clinton staffer said, “We are taking the law and bending it as far as we can to capture a whole new class of guns.â€

Then it became public that when the Supreme Court was asked in 1987 to decide if the D.C. gun ban was unconstitutional (the same law that the Court eventually struck down in Heller), Kagan wrote to Justice Marshall on the Court that she was “not sympathetic†toward the argument that the Second Amendment doesn’t allow D.C. to completely ban all guns.

Three anti-gun decisions. Three strikes, and you’re out.

The bottom line is that Barack Obama supports the Chicago gun ban, a position he publicly repeated as recently as June 26, 2008 (the day the Heller decision was released). President Obama believes that there’s nothing unconstitutional about the city—or even the whole state—where you live completely banning you from having any firearms for hunting or self-defense, even in your own home.

As my coauthor Ken Blackwell and I discuss in our new bestselling book, The Blueprint: Obama’s Plan to Subvert the Constitution and Build an Imperial Presidency, President Obama’s gun-control agenda is to create a Supreme Court that will repeatedly rule that whatever gun-control laws come before it are okay. No matter how severe the anti-gun measure is, the Court will say, “This is constitutional.â€

President Obama—the most anti-gun president is American history—has nominated for our highest court a close personal friend of his. And now we see that Obama has every reason to believe that his close personal friend shares his radical view on the Second Amendment, one that will work against the constitutional rights of 90 million American gun owners.

Elena Kagan’s confirmation hearings this summer could get very interesting. America’s gun owners have a way of making their voices heard.

[TNRobocop]

Absolutely correct. If she had been on the Court at the time, she would have ruled against Heller. Fortunately she isn't going to change the complexion of the Court so we're no worse off.

Except that she will be on the court a long time considering her age, so it has the ability to influence decisions for a long time.

[Guest HvyMtl]

Guys, she was trying to get the position of Solicitor General, so she could not give opinion, but had to make the statement a "statement," indicating she as going to enforce the law.

I dont trust any of them...

[byrnemm]

Guys, she was trying to get the position of Solicitor General, so she could not give opinion, but had to make the statement a "statement," indicating she as going to enforce the law.

I dont trust any of them...

I agree..

I don't think you are going to find a more open minded to the conservative viewpoint supreme court justice candidate chosen by President Obama than Elena Kagan.

In other words, if she isn't confirmed I don't think the next candidate is going to be Ron Schmeits.

[Guest sammyboy]

Hard to feel comfortable knowing we are all ONE clogged artery (of a conservative Justice) away from losing our gun rights.

[Chief07]

Hard to feel comfortable knowing we are all ONE clogged artery (of a conservative Justice) away from losing our gun rights.

Now you are scaring me.

I think the GOP should show her the same respect the Dems showed Bush's nominees. Filibuster her and bring up every mistake she made. She does not support the Constitution.

[eapking]

I agree..

I don't think you are going to find a more open minded to the conservative viewpoint supreme court justice candidate chosen by President Obama than Elena Kagan.

In other words, if she isn't confirmed I don't think the next candidate is going to be Ron Schmeits.

Agreed. For the conservatives this might be a "take what you can get, it could be worse" situation. Hard to say how she'll go, with NO JUDICIAL EXPERIENCE!!!!

[Guest HvyMtl]

Um. Yeah, about the "no judicial experience..."

FindLaw Supreme Court Center: Supreme Court: Justices Without Prior Judicial Experience

The judicial experience thing, seems to be a more recent view...

Hmm interesting, not too liberal, as the liberal left are demanding she answer on abortion issue. Seems she wrote Clinton advising him to ban late term abortions...

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100519/ap_on_go_su_co/us_kagan_supreme_court

So, it seems she ticks off both sides of the isle.

So, will she be more moderate than the Justice she is replacing? Will she be more moderate then the replacement candidate, if she is not voted thru?

Edited May 19, 2010 by HvyMtl

[Guest sammyboy]

Just becaues she ticks off the liberals, doesn't make me want her as a judge.

Its time we start looking for folks with the moral aptitude to choose right from wrong, and stop there. As conservatives, we've chosen our people every wrong way imaginable. From "they look good in a suit" to "his daddy was a fine man" and now variations on the "the liberals dont like her so we should".

[eapking]

I don't care what side is played, not qualified for job (re: no experience) means you don't get the job. So, this mistake has been made before, throughout history...so what?

You've got one sitting at 1800 Penn. Ave who has no experience that qualifies him, and plenty being swept under the rug that should have quickly disqualified him.