Senate Republicans scrambling for a foothold in their uphill battle against Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor hope gun rights can do the trick.
At 2:15 p.m. Wednesday in the Senate Radio/TV Gallery, Republican Sen. Jeff Sessions of Alabama and three of his conservative colleagues gather to, as they put it, "discuss" Sotomayor and the Second Amendment. "Concern" will be voiced, one can be sure.
Sotomayor hasn't given the gun guys a lot to work with, save the 2009 opinion in Maloney v. Cuomo. Sotomayor was part of a three-member panel that produced an unsigned opinion upholding New York's ban on nunchuks. Also known as: nunchaku.
Yes, Suits & Sentences looks forward to Sen. Orrin Hatch et. al. delivering an impassioned defense of how the Founding Fathers wanted us all to have a set of whirling wooden sticks connected by a chain. Or, as the weapon is described in the New York statute:
"Any device designed primarily as a weapon, consisting of two or more lengths of a rigid material joined together by a thong, rope or chain in such a manner as to allow free movement of a portion of the device while held in the hand and capable of being rotated in such a manner as to inflict serious injury upon a person by striking or choking."
No, wait, that isn't the issue. Rather, conservatives will opine about the Maloney v. Cuomo statement that:
"It is settled law that the Second Amendment applies only to limitations the federal government seeks to impose on this right."
In other words: the states aren't covered. Recall: the Supreme Court's landmark Heller decision finding an individual right to gun ownership, outside of the strictures of a militia, covered the federal jurisdiction of the District of Columbia. Its applicability to states remains unclear. The Republican stage thrusts Wednesday will set Sotomayor up for what is, in fact, a reasonable question: Judge Sotomayor, do you believe the Second Amendment extends to the states?
I believe the old wisdom is that when you're in a hole, stop digging.
To the GOP I offer free shovels, and encourage more excavation.
Posted by: American | June 24, 2009 at 06:53 PM
Also:
"It is settled law that the Second Amendment applies only to limitations the federal government seeks to impose on this right."
Doesn't this merely restate the old legal point that the Amendments are there to restrict federal government power? In other words, isn't this exactly what a non-activist judge would believe?
Posted by: American | June 24, 2009 at 07:02 PM
I'd take Scalia's majority opinion in the Heller case with more seriousness if he'd bothered to include in his atomistic analysis of the prefatory clause a discussion of how "being necessary" should be given no weight at all. Seems to me when you do include it, the prefatory clause suddenly becomes more than merely prefatory and in fact informs the meaning of the rest of the amendment, especially in an 18th century English grammatical viewpoint. Otherwise the man wasn't being an honest analyst but instead was advocating for a position he'd already determined to support.
Posted by: borisjimski | June 25, 2009 at 12:34 AM
Oh nice once. I see you deleted my comments on your poor reporting on "numchucks" (wherein it was abundantly clear you failed to read the opinion in question) . . . I note this only because I caught you AGAIN mis-quoting Ginsberg's Ricci dissent, even AFTER a reader called you out on your error. P-A-T-H-E-T-I-C. You going to delete all these comments too? Have you no shame, sir?
Posted by: scoff | July 02, 2009 at 03:06 AM