7/06/2010

Fox News piece that I had last week: A Vote for Kagan Is a Vote to Take Away Your Guns

I should have probably made the piece broader to include here positions against free speech and other issues. The piece has this info:

With those words in mind, alarm bells should have gone off during Elena Kagan’s confirmation testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday. Here’s what Kagan told Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa):

It has long been thought, starting from the “Miller” case, that the Second Amendment did not protect such a right. . . . Now the Heller decision has marked a very fundamental moment in the court's jurisprudence with respect to the Second Amendment. And as I suggested to Senator Feinstein there is not question going forward that ‘Heller’ is the law, that it is entitled to all the precedent that any decision is entitled to and that is true to the ‘McDonald’ case as well...


There are two big problems with Kagan’s remarks: she inaccurately describes the 1939 "Miller" case and her claims to follow stare decisis are meaningless.

The "Miller" decision said that the Second Amendment protected civilian use of firearms that are used in the military and that a sawed off shotgun wasn't a military weapon. But the court went no farther in explaining the right. There was no discussion of the modern liberal view of a “collective right.” The very short opinion didn’t say if there was an individual right to own military weapons. The issues were never addressed.

However, Kagan’s argument is precisely what Justice Stevens wrote . . . .


Here is the worthless response from the White House:

White House spokesman Ben LaBolt said that Kagan “made clear during the hearings that Heller and McDonald are the law of the land and therefore that the 2nd Amendment guarantees an individual, fundamental right to bear arms.” . . .

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