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The National Rifle Association says today it's opposing Elena Kagan's nomination for the Supreme Court and will score her vote, which could further discourage Republicans from voting for her.
"This vote matters and will be a part of future candidate evaluations," the NRA says.
Excerpts from an NRA statement follow:
In testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee, she refused to declare support for the Second Amendment, saying only that the matter was "settled law."
This was eerily similar to the scripted testimony of Justice Sonia Sotomayor last year, prior to her confirmation to the Court. When pressed on the Second Amendment then, Sotomayor also referred to the issue as "settled law."
But in the recently decided case of McDonald v. City of Chicago, Sotomayor ignored the "settled law" of the Heller decision and signed a dissenting opinion that declared, "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."
It has become obvious that "settled law" is the scripted code of an anti-gun nominee's confirmation effort. The NRA is not fooled. No member of the U.S. Senate should be either.
With no judicial record, only Kagan's political career can be reviewed. And this provides no reason to trust her with Americans' firearms freedom. Throughout her career, she has repeatedly demonstrated a clear hostility to the fundamental, individual right to keep and bear arms under the U.S. Constitution.
As a clerk for Justice Thurgood Marshall, Kagan said she was "not sympathetic" to a challenge to Washington, DC's ban on firearms. As a domestic policy adviser in the Clinton White House, a colleague described her as "immersed" in Clinton's aggressive assaults on the Second Amendment. She was involved in Clinton's scheme to ban more than 50 types of commonly-owned semiautomatic firearms - an effort described as "…taking the law and bending it as far as we can to capture a whole new class of guns."
As U.S. Solicitor General, Kagan chose not to file a brief last year in the landmark McDonald case, thus taking the position that incorporating the Second Amendment and applying it to the states was of no interest to the Obama Administration or the federal government.
These are not the positions of a person who supports the Second Amendment and, in fact, represent a clear and present danger to the right to keep and bear arms.
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Who Really Cares what the NRA thinks? The last time I checked they have NO voting rights when it comes to confirming a US Supreme Court Judge! Unless they have bought and paid for a few politicians to vote against her. But Naaaaa that kind of thing don't happen in Washington! Its Illegal!
Really, Who cares about the NRA or any other lobby. Aren't our Senators suppose to represent US?????
Wow, guns are more important than an impartial judge. ALL of the judges on the SCOTUS are impartial? Right?
None have a POLITICAL agenda? Correct?
There is absolutely nothing "impartial" about Kagan. Within a short period we will find out that she is a lesbian and gun grabber, . . which means that she is lying through her teeth right now in the hearings.
She has been up front about her lesbian preferences. She will be objective about many many topics. When we appoint a Supreme Court Justice we are relying on the thousands of topics she can be completely objective about, not the few that may be more difficult for her to be objective about. We all, because we are humans, have those few weaknesses, so we do the best we can, that's why we have nine justices instead of relying on only one. If justices were all perfect only one would be needed.
N.R.A. "National - "Republican" - Association",, and all this time many of you thought it stood for what they'd like for you to think it means,,, Natioal Rifle Association,,, as long as your willing to shell out money every year to give to them,, they'll tell you anything ! All they are is a Republican Lobbying Group, mainly filled with Republi-Goons, who are Arrogrant, overweight, Ignorant, and easily Brainwashed and Manuiplated and will believe anything their told by this group ! and this is coming from a Gun owner of both Hand guns, shotguns and rifles and some archery equipment, I don't need to belong to some group like this, who's going to eventually sell you down the drain,, and I sure don't want my name in their data base,,, for who really knows what they'll do with those names in the future under some other leadership,,,,, but join as you may,,, and be like the rest of the sleepy eyed sheep,,, its been done before with Disasterous results !
This law was written when the word gun referred to a single shot weapon. Something that took forever to load. Handguns and assault rifles are something that no person should own outside the military. A rifle works just fine to protect your families. But of coarse most of you that oppose gun reform don't care about the thousands of people that are killed each year in our country by these unnecessary weapons. My little sister died at the age of three. She was shot while my family spent the day in Seattle. A man pulled a gun from his belt and shot another but my sister was hit as well. This could have never happened if he was not allowed to own a pistol. He could never have gotten a rifle into that park unnoticed. I die a little every day as I think of her. Anyone who says that pistols and assault rifles are necessary, its your opinions that killed my sister that day. Its you who should be guilty for her and all others who have died in this way. I beg you to reexamine this issue so that others won't feel this pain that my family feels. You could be saving your own family members by changing your minds.
Oh waht a crock.My niece was SAVED from an escaped convict because my brother was ARMED when he he broke into their home.Sorry for your loss but don't think your going to shove that one down our throats.
So many people die in automobile accidents where the person who caused the accident was drinking a soft drink. Do you think we need to outlaw soft drinks? Sorry about your sister, but one could come up with countless non sequitur arguments similar to yours. It has been shown beyond the shadow of a doubt that letting citizens carry concealed weapons results in less violent crimes and reduces the crime rate in places which allow for Concealed Carry Licenses.
If you sister would have been killed by a baseball, would you suggest we outlaw baseballs?
Matt,
Your story is horrible and no one should have to suffer that, the terrible truth is that gun restrictions don't work. America is possessed of hundreds of millions of guns of all types and it is impossible to regulated their use, and it would be impossible for the government to confiscate all those weapons. Guns are a fact of life in America. We need to get a lot more like Switzerland in this regard. #1) we need to regard weapons seriously and respect their true role in our lives. #2, we need to understand that people pull the trigger and we can effect how people react to and regard weapons, #3, We need to have the government involved in this aspect of our lives in a proactive and positive way instead of a restrictive way. #4 It is very hard for one person to kill another. This respect for life is inborn and we need to understand and respect the fact that its opposite is both abnormal and obvious. Killers and Shooters have objectified their targets, made them the hardened enemy. That is what military training is all about. Normal people have to be trained to kill. As a society we are sophisticated and smart enough to figure out who these abnormal people are before they committed some horrible crime.
Thank God for the NRA.Just put one brain dead person on SCOTUS don't need another.
Ok, I'm a liberal, I like Kagan, and Obama, Pelosi, etc. all the folks you right-wingers hate. But, I will tell you that if we're going to get along we have to try to be objective and fair even when it means the other guy's right. In this case, the conservatives are right about the 2nd amendment. Oh yes, it does say blah blah "a well regulated militia" but that's no argument against gun ownership, that's just an anachronism. If my fellow liberals (actually, I call myself progressive now) want to say, as I've heard from time to time, that the state national guard IS the "well-regulated militia" then that's just like saying there is no right for citizens to own a gun because the state national guard IS the government. They're sent off to Iraq at the order of the US military, so they are the Government! Now maybe passing the 2nd amendment was a mistake by our revered founders, I mean they did a great job overall, but nobody's perfect. But they did pass it, and there's no mistaking that. So let's admit the truth and then we can argue about how best to keep people from blowing each other away.
Dancer, I too consider myself a Liberal when I read what the idiot conservatives have to say on these blogs. I don't consider the Second Amendment a problem. We have the right, and as always, also the choice, to bear arms. This is what America is all about as far as I am concerned. We, the United States of America, give you the right, and it is your choice to bear arms, or not. If you don't like weapons, don't pick them up, if you feel you need them or want them, use them responsibly. If all you anti-gun folks want to stop gun violence stop those who would perpetrate violence with a gun but stop trying to take my weapon away, because when the crap hits the fan I will be protecting you with my gun!
Of course where I run a foul of the conservatives is when I apply the same general principle to Abortion! LOL
My family has been in this country since the 1700's, all of them gun owners. It is in their mentality and hearts that they have the right to bear arms. It is definitely "settled law" in their opinion. I know there are millions of other people in this country who think and feel the same way. Any attempt to disarm these people, I fear, would bring about a conflict the likes I almost shiver to even contemplate. The vast majority of crimes are not committed by legal gun-owners, but if these people who are law-abiding citizens are told they are to become criminals if they do not part with what they see as the weapons of defense for themselves and their families and their property, I can only imagine the war that will follow upon our own soil. Let us look closely at facts and figures, use our powers of reasoning, review our nations history, before we can come to a well-formed opinion in regard to how this issue should be handled - and that would be, it has been handled, it is "settled" and that is the end of the story.
For every murder by firearm crime committed, I can show you where a child killed hmself or another child by playing with a gun, where a husband or wife shot their spouse, where the most normal guy in the world walked into his workplace and killed his coworkers. You can't just lay the blame on criminals for giving guns a bad name and only criminals commit crimes with guns.
Thats why as much as I support the right to own, I stongly support needed regulation.
I truly hope they do not go down the road of taking guns away from us. Stacking the supreme court to do this and bending the LAW to achieve this would without doubt start a new revolution in our great nation. Let us keep in mind this nation is only great due to our rights and freedoms. Take these rights and freedoms away and we are just another 3rd world dictatorship.
Interesting that people here are saying cities/states have the right to establish gun laws. On the other hand, many of the same folk don't think AZ has a right to enforce its border. Hypocrites.
Nope, both are wrong, both issues are the perview of the United States of America and not within the individual states jurisdiction. AZ is wrong, and so are the Gun restricters. Go with it or not, but you can't have one without the other. So kiss a Mexican and keep your gun in your pocket!
I voted for Obama because I though maybe he would have a commonsense approach to the Second Amendment and other things. Unfortunately, I was very wrong. As much as I dislike the ranting GOP types like Limbaugh and Palin, I detest even more the destruction of the American way of life that Obama has been foisting upon us.
No Gun Grabbers,
No Homos,
No Illegal Aliens,
No Obama.
Obama has not taken a position on gun rights. He is from Chicago and he understands why you might want one, believe me on this. He also knows that gun restrictions do not work. I think he is ok with the good guys fighting it out with the bad guys if that what it takes.
Of course Elena Kagan would oppose the NRA, after all she is Jewish, and her religious beliefs coincide with biblical scripture. "Those who live by the sword, will die by the sword.
The NRA opposes Kagan, but God opposes the NRA.
Don't you recall from scripture "those who live by the sword will die by the sword."
Just because we own a gun doesn't mean we live by the gun. Then of course my brother pulling his 44 on a group of Mexicans, probably illegals, stopped them from robbing us. Of course the dumb asses brought knives to a gun fight, talk about dying by the sword.