Supreme Court Nominee Barrett Supports Second Amendment
Supreme Court Nominee Judge Amy Coney Barrett — A Jurist for All Rights
Story based on article by Larry Keane, NSSF
President Donald Trump’s nomination of Judge Amy Coney Barrett is again delivering on his promise to return the judiciary to jurists who will faithfully interpret law as it is written. The president delivered on his original campaign promise to nominate justices to the U.S. Supreme Court “in the mold of Justice Scalia”.
“Amy Coney Barrett will decide cases based on the text of the Constitution as written,” President Trump said of his nominee in the White House Rose Garden. “As Amy has said, being a judge takes courage, you are not there to decide cases as you may prefer. You are there to do your duty and to follow the law wherever it may take you. That is exactly what Judge Barrett will do on the U.S. Supreme Court.”
President Trump has nominated Supreme Court justices who interpret the Constitution in the same originalist manner as the last Justice Antonin Scalia. In 2016 President Trump declared: “I will appoint justices, who like Justice Scalia, will protect our liberty with the highest regard for the Constitution”.
He delivered on the promise with the nomination of Justice Neil Gorsuch. The president updated that list in 2017, including the names of Justice Brett Kavanaugh and Judge Barrett. Justice Kavanaugh was nominated to replace the retiring Justice Anthony Kennedy. Over the weekend, President Trump made his third nomination to fill a Supreme Court vacancy, again delivering on his campaign promise to submit nominations from the list of jurists presented to voters.
In her Rose Garden remarks, Judge Barrett affirmed her commitment to the Constitution as it is written:
“I clerked for Justice Scalia more than 20 years ago, but the lessons I learned still resonate. His judicial philosophy is mine too. A judge must apply the law as written. Judges are not policy makers and they must be resolute in setting aside any policy views they might hold.”
That view of the Bill of Rights (and the Second Amendment) was explained by Justice Scalia in his majority opinion in the landmark 2008 Heller decision. The Supreme Court ruled in D.C. vs. Heller that the Second Amendment protects pre-existing fundamental civil rights of individuals.
“The Second Amendment protects an individual right to possess a firearm unconnected with service in a militia, and to use that arm for traditionally lawful purposes, such as self-defense within the home,” Justice Scalia wrote. He further explained that the right isn’t derived from government, but exists outside of the whims of a government to grant or take away. “The very text of the Second Amendment implicitly recognizes the pre-existence of the right and declares only that it ‘shall not be infringed’.”
Judge Amy Coney Barrett clerked for Justice Scalia in 1998-1999. It shouldn’t come as a surprise that her understanding of fundamental rights, especially those included in the Second Amendment, follow Justics Scalia’s faithful reading of the Bill of Rights.
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