A special message from Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms:
July 7, 2009
Dear Senators:
As Americans who have dedicated themselves to protecting the Second Amendment right of U.S. citizens to keep and bear arms, we urge you not to confirm Judge Sonia Sotomayor (pictured right) as the next associate justice of the United States Supreme Court.
It is extremely important that a Supreme Court justice understand and appreciate the origin and meaning of the Second Amendment, a constitutional guarantee permanently enshrined in the Bill of Rights. Judge Sotomayor’s record on the Second Amendment causes us grave concern over her treatment of this enumerated constitutional right.
Last year, the Supreme Court decided the landmark case District of Columbia v. Heller, holding that the Second Amendment guarantees to all law-abiding, responsible citizens the individual right to keep and bear arms, particularly for self-defense. Following Heller, the Supreme Court is almost certain to decide next year whether the Second Amendment applies to states and local governments, as it does to the federal government (see NRA v. Chicago and McDonald v. Chicago.) While on the Second Circuit,Judge Sotomayor revealed her views on the right to keep and bear armsin Maloney v. Cuomo, a case decided after Heller, yet holding that theSecond Amendment is not a fundamental right, that it does not apply tothe states, and that if an object is “designed primarily as a weapon”that is a sufficient basis for total prohibition even within the home.Earlier in a 2004 case, United States v. Sanchez-Villar, Sotomayor andtwo colleagues perfunctorily dismissed a Second Amendment claim holdingthat “the right to possess a gun is clearly not a fundamental right.”Imagine if such a view were expressed about other fundamental rightsguaranteed by the Bill of Rights, such as the First, Fourth and FifthAmendments.
Surprisingly, Heller was a 5-4 decision, with some justicesarguing that the Second Amendment does not apply to private citizens orthat if it does, even a total gun ban could be upheld if a “legitimategovernmental interest” could be found. The dissenting justices alsofound D.C.’s absolute ban on handguns within the home to be a”reasonable” restriction. If this had been the majority view, then anygun ban could be upheld, and the Second Amendment would be meaningless.