The Middletown Press (Middletown, CT)
Gun camps polarized on Supreme Court nomination
WASHINGTON — For gun-control activists, Sen. Richard Blumenthal said, President Donald Trump’s Supreme Court pick is their “worst nightmare.”
The Connecticut Democrat’s remark wasn’t isolated. After Trump nominated Judge Brett Kavanaugh on Monday to replace Justice Anthony Kennedy on the Supreme Court, gun-control groups quickly condemned the choice, while pro-gun organizations applauded the pick for the nominee’s pro-Second Amendment views.
“If you want background checks or bans on assault weapons or any other of the other commonsense, sensible measures that we have in Connecticut or California or New York, Judge Kavanaugh will strike them down,” Blumenthal said on the steps of Supreme Court Tuesday morning. “That’s in his record, it’s indisputable.”
While serving in the U.S. Court of Appeals here, the conservative-leaning judge wrote a dissenting opinion in 2011 that Washington D.C.’s semi-automatic rifle ban and registration laws are unconstitutional. Siding with gun-rights groups, he said all firearms legally marketed and sold have “absolute constitutional protections” under the Second Amendment.
‘Common use’
The opinion came after a 2008 Supreme Court case — D.C. vs. Heller — which ruled that handguns are of “common use” — meaning they are distinguishable from “dangerous or unusual weapons.” The implication was that “common use” weapons have Second Amendment protection while “dangerous or unusual weapons” such as machine guns do not.
The ruling also stated there are limitations on gun rights, giving a green light to Connecticut and other states to ban semi-automatic rifles and other weaponry.
Kavanaugh dissented when D.C.’s assault weapons ban case before the appeals court, saying that semi-automatic rifles — “like semi-automatic handguns” at issue in Heller — are also in common use “by law-abiding citizens.”
“There is no meaningful or persuasive constitutional distinction between semiautomatic handguns and semi-automatic rifles,” Kavanaugh wrote in the dissent.
Other gun-control activists voiced concern about the nominee’s potential to redefine gun laws. Kavanaugh’s argument that all semi-automatic rifles should be constitutionally protected poses a threat to semi-automatic and IR-15 bans in states such as Connecticut.
“If Judge Kavanaugh’s nomination goes forward, we may well face a day when these weapons of war are constitutionally protected,” said Kristen Rand, the Violence Policy Center’s legislative director.
Sen. Chris Murphy, DConn., went as far as to say that Kavanaugh is a “true Second Amendment radical.”
“He believes assault weapon bans are unconstitutional — a position way out of the judicial mainstream, far to the right of even late Justice Scalia,” Murphy said.
Possible legal challenges
Jeremy Stein, the executive director for Connecticut Against Gun Violence, said states have the constitutional right to self-regulate with gun laws, such as Connecticut’s ban on semi-automatic weapons, that are “in the best interest of the state.”
“It’s troubling to think that there is a Supreme Court that would undo commonsense gun laws in Connecticut,” Stein said.
A spokeswoman for Sandy Hook Promise declined to comment for this story, saying the organization is not releasing a statement about the nominee. But gun-rights organizations, including the Newtown-based National Shooting Sports Foundation, sided with Trump’s pick.
“We are confident that Judge Kavanaugh will serve our nation with distinction as an associate justice of our nation’s highest court and that he will make decisions that will serve to protect the Second Amendment,” said Larry Keane, the NSSF’s senior vice president and general counsel.
In the wake of another mass shooting in Parkland, Fla., gun-rights groups are counteracting new gun legislation with court challenges, according to the Giffords Law Center. If those cases reach the Supreme Court, Kavanaugh could be the vote needed to strike down stricter gun measures.
The National Rifle Association, a longtime Second Amendment advocacy group, mirrored the NSSF, saying Kavanaugh would be a strict follower of the Second Amendment.
“We urge the Senate to swiftly confirm Judge Kavanaugh to the U.S. Supreme Court, just as it confirmed him to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit,” said Chris Cox, the NRA’s executive director.
After undergoing confirmation hearings, Kavanaugh will need at least 50 Senate votes to become a justice. Republicans hold 51 seats in the Senate, which could sweep him into the Supreme Court, but some have voted against Trump’s wishes in the past.