This week a federal appeals court held that the Second Amendment does not apply to state or city gun laws. Supporters of Judge Sonia Sotomayor incorrectly argue that this affirms her recent gun-control case. Now the NRA is petitioning the U.S. Supreme Court to take the case, and in doing so heats up the gun-rights issue to potentially become the dominant topic in Sotomayor’s confirmation hearings.

On June 2, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit handed down its decision in NRA v. Chicago. The city of Chicago has a ban on handguns almost as severe as the one invalidated by the Supreme Court last year in D.C. v. Heller. The National Rifle Association filed suit, seeking to have the Chicago gun ban struck down.

The Seventh Circuit held that the Second Amendment right to bear arms does not apply to state or city laws. All three judges on the panel hearing the case were appointed by Republican presidents. In January, Sotomayor was on a three-judge panel from the Second Circuit that similarly held that the Second Amendment affects only federal law, not state or local law. Supporters of Sotomayor are touting the Chicago ruling as proof that her Second Circuit case, Maloney v. Cuomo, was a mainstream opinion, arguing that the Seventh Circuit agrees with her.

But that’s not exactly correct. It’s true that both courts reached the same conclusion. It’s also fair to say that this is not a “pro-gun” opinion, so gun owners shouldn’t be thrilled with it. But it’s not an “anti-gun” ruling, either. The circuit court here released a nine-page analysis delving into this issue in an even-handed manner, written by one of the best-regarded appellate judges in the nation.

Originally, the Bill of Rights applied only to the federal government. Then during the 1900s, the Supreme Court began applying (or “incorporating”) most of the Bill of Rights to the states through the Fourteenth Amendment. Before that time, the Supreme Court had held back in 1876, and again in 1886, that the Second Amendment does not apply to the states. But it never had an occasion to revisit the Second Amendment during the 1900s incorporation cases. It also did not need to do so last year in the Heller case because Washington, D.C. is a federal enclave, not a state, and is therefore directly controlled by the Bill of Rights. Read more

Source: Fox News Blog

Fairfax, Va. – Today, the National Rifle Association filed a petition for certiorari to the U.S. Supreme Court in the case of NRA v. Chicago. The NRA strongly disagrees with yesterday's decision issued by a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, holding that the Second Amendment does not apply to state and local governments.

“The Seventh Circuit got it wrong. As the Supreme Court said in last year's landmark Heller decision, the Second Amendment is an individual right that ‘belongs to all Americans'.

Therefore, we are taking our case to the highest court in the land,” said Chris W. Cox, NRA chief lobbyist. “The Seventh Circuit claimed it was bound by precedent from previous decisions.

However, it should have followed the lead of the recent Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals decision in Nordyke v. Alameda County, which found that those cases don't prevent the Second Amendment from applying to the states through the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.” Read more

Source: National Rifle Association – Institute for Legislative Action

Sotomayor was labeled “anti-gun” by Gun Owners of America for refusing to extend to the states the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2008 decision overturning a Washington, D.C., handgun ban. The group said a January ruling by a three-judge panel that included Sotomayor displayed “pure judicial arrogance” for declining to throw out a New York state weapons law.

Richard Posner and Frank Easterbrook, appointed to the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago by President Ronald Reagan, signaled at a May 26 hearing in a separate weapons case that they side with Sotomayor’s hands-off approach.

“It’s nice to have two leading conservative judges” for support, said Washington lawyer Patricia Millett, a Supreme Court specialist. It “will really take the steam” out of accusations Sotomayor, 54, is hostile to gun rights, she said.

Posner and Easterbrook are leaders of the so-called law and economics school of thought that espouses free-market principles to help resolve legal questions.

They said in court arguments last month in a gun rights case that it is up to the Supreme Court — not appellate judges — to extend the Constitution’s Second Amendment protection for gun owners to the states. Posner and Easterbrook are members of a three-judge panel that is deciding whether to invalidate gun- control ordinances in Chicago and suburban Oak Park, Illinois. Read more

Source: Bloomberg

WASHINGTON — Gun-rights advocates are using Judge Sonia Sotomayor's involvement in two Second Amendment cases as ammunition to challenge her nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court, threatening to draw the Obama administration into a debate over firearms laws that it has tried hard to avoid.

The clash between gun-control laws and the breadth of the constitutional right to bear arms is one of several social issues being scoured by people on both sides of the ideological spectrum for clues to Judge Sotomayor's leanings. Her record on the bench provides few hints of her views on such hot-button issues as abortion or gay marriage.

The gun owners' opposition stems from two rulings in which Judge Sotomayor took part while on the federal appellate bench. The January 2009 Maloney v. Cuomo decision involved a challenge from a New York resident arrested for possessing nunchakus, a martial arts weapon made of two thick sticks joined at the ends by a short length of chain or cord. The defendant said the state's ban on nunchakus violated his Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms.

A three-judge panel including Judge Sotomayor rejected the claim in an unsigned opinion. The court cited earlier rulings, including an 1886 Supreme Court decision, in holding that “the Second Amendment applies only to limitations the federal government seeks to impose on this right,” not to state legislative efforts. Read more

Source: Wall Street Journal

Judge Sonia Sotomayor could walk into a firestorm on Capitol Hill over her stance on gun rights, with conservatives beginning to question some controversial positions she's taken over the past several years on the Second Amendment.

Earlier this year, President Obama's Supreme Court nominee joined an opinion with the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals ruling that Second Amendment rights do not apply to the states.

A 2004 opinion she joined also cited as precedent that “the right to possess a gun is clearly not a fundamental right.”

Ken Blackwell, a senior fellow with the Family Research Council, called Obama's nomination a “declaration of war against America's gun owners.”

Such a line of attack could prove more effective than efforts to define Sotomayor as pro-abortion, efforts that essentially grasp at straws. Sotomayor's record on that hot-button issue reveals instances in which she has ruled against an abortion rights group and in favor of anti-abortion protesters, making her hard to pigeonhole.

But Sotomayor's position on gun control is far more crystallized.

Blackwell, who also ran unsuccessfully to head the Republican National Committee, told FOX News her position is “very, very disturbing.”

“That puts our Second Amendment freedoms at risk,” he said. “What she's basically saying is that your hometown can decide to suppress your Second Amendment freedoms.” Read more

Source: Foxnews.com

BELLEVUE, WA – The nomination of Second Circuit Court Judge Sonia Sotomayor to replace retiring Justice David Souter on the U.S. Supreme Court is a slap at gun rights and the Second Amendment, the Second Amendment Foundation said today.

Judge Sotomayor, a New York native, ruled on a Second Circuit Appeals Court panel that the Second Amendment is not a fundamental right and does not apply to the states in the case of Maloney v. Cuomo. This ruling is in direct conflict with a Ninth Circuit Court ruling in the Nordyke v. King case in California that the Second Amendment is incorporated through the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.

“While Democrats in Congress have been making great strides in the gun rights arena, refusing to consider a renewal of the Clinton gun ban, and offering overwhelming bipartisan support for legislation allowing citizens to carry firearms in national parks, President Obama just demonstrated that he prefers judges who oppose Second Amendment rights,” said SAF founder Alan M. Gottlieb.

Incorporation may be taken up by the high court during its next session beginning in October, because attorneys in the Maloney case plan to appeal in late June.

“If the Maloney appeal is accepted by the Supreme Court,” Gottlieb wondered, “would Justice Sotomayor – provided she is confirmed – recuse herself from deliberations?”

Judge Sotomayor has written an opinion that declined to order the release of certain information under the Freedom of Information Act. In one case, according to SCOTUSblog, she wrote that the “unwarranted invasion of privacy” for individuals whose names would be release under an FOIA request outweighed the public interest.

“Would a Justice Sotomayor be just as protective of the privacy rights of concealed carry permit holders if a newspaper wanted to publish that information,” Gottlieb asked. “We hope that during Senate confirmation hearings, someone asks about her positions on incorporation and the privacy rights of gun owners. The Second Amendment needs to be expanded, not eviscerated.”

Source: Second Amendment Foundation