The Premise

I'm looking at all major decisions, appointments and laws made by the Obama administration and Congress from the premise that anything they do is not in the best interests of the American people. A premise that did not begin with Obama but is a continuation of the ruling bodies and their actions in modern times since at least the formation of the Federal Reserve in 1913 with only a few exceptions. The appointment of Sonia Sotomayor for the supreme court is not an exception, it reinforces the rule.


A "court of appeals is where policy is made." {see video}

Would that making of policy include a reinterpretation of the 2nd amendment?

Sonia Sotomayor versus the Second Amendment


from Damon Root

Equally troubling is Sotomayor's record on the Second Amendment. 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." But contrast that with the Ninth Circuit's decision last month in Nordyke v. King, which reached a very different conclusion, one that matches the Second Amendment's text, original meaning, and history:

We therefore conclude that the right to keep and bear arms is "deeply rooted in this Nation's history and tradition." Colonial revolutionaries, the Founders, and a host of commentators and lawmakers living during the first one hundred years of the Republic all insisted on the fundamental nature of the right. It has long been regarded as the "true palladium of liberty." Colonists relied on it to assert and to win their independence, and the victorious Union sought to prevent a recalcitrant South from abridging it less than a century later. The crucial role this deeply rooted right has played in our birth and history compels us to recognize that it is indeed fundamental, that it is necessary to the Anglo-American conception of ordered liberty that we have inherited. We are therefore persuaded that the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment incorporates the Second Amendment and applies it against the states and local governments.

This split between the two circuits means that the Supreme Court is almost certain to take up the question in the near future. What role might soon-to-be Justice Sotomayor play? As gun rights scholar and Independence Institute Research Director Dave Kopel told me via email, Sotomayor's opinions "demonstrate a profound hostility to Second Amendment rights. If we follow Senator Obama's principle that Senators should vote against judges whose views on legal issues are harmful, then it is hard to see how someone who supports Second Amendment rights could vote to confirm Sonia Sotomayor."

As a respected jurist with an impressive legal resume, Sotomayor appears just as qualified to sit on the Supreme Court as any recent nominee. But from the standpoint of individual liberty and limited constitutional government, there are significant reasons to be wary of her nomination. {more}

Any "misinterpretation" of the constitution on 2nd amendment rights shows she is not qualified.


In the forward to "The International Judge," Sotomayor makes another statement on 'interpreting' our constitution.

"The question of how much we have to learn from the international community when interpreting our constitution is not the only one worth posing."

I don't like that 'opinion.' It's not in our best interests.