NEOAVATARA

c/o Michael Ramirez, IBD

Sotomayor is a classic liberal, in the mold of Barack Obama.  But one position that she may have trouble with in her confirmation hearing is on her view on the 2nd amendment.

The Supreme Court, in a landmark ruling last year n D.C. v. Heller, stated that the Second Amendment right to bear arms applies to individual citizens in their private lives.  This was a major victory for gun rights supporters.

The one caveat, however, has been whether these rights apply to the states as well.  I frankly think it is a ludicrous argument.  Who would argue that the first amendment right to free speech is only protected from federal intervention, and not from lower governments?  The same should hold true for other constitutional amendments.  No?

This past January, the Second Circuit issued its opinion in Maloney v. Cuomo, which Sotomayor joined, ruling that the Second Amendment does not apply against state and local governments. At issue was a New York ban on various weapons, including nunchucks. After last year’s District of Columbia v. Heller, which struck down DC’s handgun ban, attention turned to whether state and local gun control laws might violate the Second Amendment as well.

“It is settled law,” Sotomayor and the Second Circuit held, “that the Second Amendment applies only to limitations the federal government seeks to impose on this right.”

This wholly does not make sense.  Is Ms. Sotomayor then arguing that free speech can be infringed by the states and localities, because it is a right only protected from federal government power?  How about the fourth amendment then?  Can localities barge into your home without warrant?  How about the supposed right to privacy?  Is the judge arguing that regardless of Roe v. Wade, states have an absolute right to ban abortion, at any point after conception?  That would be the natural progression of her logic, no?

Basically, in this ruling, Sotomayor is pushing for state nullification.  Is she defending John C. Calhoun’s stand that states have the right nullify federal acts?  Who is John C. Calhoun, and what the heck is the nullification crisis of 1828?   South Carolina at the time wanted to nullify a federal law called the Tariff of 1828, and almost went to war over the issue.  It also presented the seeds of the rationale for the eventual secession of South Carolina in 1861.  If a state can nullify a Constitutional amendment, certainly they can nullify ordinary federal laws, right?

This is where Ms. Sotomayor’s intelligence and judicial knowledge must be questioned.  The 2nd amendment by no means is settled law. If so, a case will never arrive on her docket on the Supreme Court.  The Supreme Court specifically deals with law that, by definition, is not settled.   She used a complete falsehood to support her own opinion that the 2nd amendment should not be an absolute right, without ever referring to other standing precedent and law, including Supreme Court rulings.

Her logic, especially in this case, is severely waning.  I have to be honest…I have heard almost nothing about this yet in the press.  Wonder when this will hit the fan.