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In a move calculated to make it difficult for GOP members of the Senate to keep their promise to block any election year Supreme Court nominee, President Obama has today nominated Merrick Garland, chief judge for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. Garland’s being characterized — at least my many in the media — as a moderate with a long paper trail, particularly on issues such as criminal justice and the federal government’s powers to fight terrorism. It will probably shock you to learn, however, that on gun rights, he’s not quite so middle-of-the-road . . .

Back in 2008, Dave Kopel wrote a prescient post on the potential effect on gun rights an Obama presidency would have and wrote the following regarding Garland:

Merrick Garland is a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. He could be counted on not only to oppose Second Amendment rights in general, but even to nullify explicit congressional statutes that protect those rights.

In 2007, a three-judge panel of the D.C. Circuit ruled against the D.C. handgun ban in the case of Parker v. District of Columbia (which was the name of the case that eventually became District of Columbia v. Heller when it went before the Supreme Court). The D.C. government asked for a rehearing of the case, before all 10 judges of the D.C. Circuit.

Six judges voted not to rehear the case, while four judges voted for a rehearing, presumably because they disagreed with the three-judge panel that had ruled against the handgun ban. Garland was one of the four judges who wanted a chance to validate the handgun ban.

In 2000, Garland was on a three-judge panel that heard the case of NRA v. RenoIn that case, the Janet Reno Department of Justice had flouted the congressional statutes that prohibit the federal government from compiling a registration list of gun owners, and which required the destruction of national instant check (NICS) records of lawful, approved gun purchases.

Judge Garland voted to let Reno get away with it. He said that registering all the people who were approved by NICS was permissible because Reno was not registering every gun owner in the country. And he said it was fine for Reno to keep gun buyer records for six months because although Congress had said the records must be destroyed, it did not say “immediately.”

So it should surprise no one that in his choice for a Scalia replacement, Obama would select someone with a dim view of Americans’ Second Amendment freedoms. Will the GOP Senate majority hold firm in their pledge to block all nominees until a new president is inaugurated? Watch this space.

[h/t Johannes Paulsen]

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144 COMMENTS

    • That’s just it, they won’t take them. They will wait you out and take them when you are dead or say get too many traffic tickets.

      If your wife or kids don’t turn them in they will make felons out of them.

      Not a great time to be Liberty minded.

      • It’s been a bad time to be liberty minded since Lincoln the tyrant took the throne and killed half a million Americans to cement his power.

        • You cannot be serious with that rant of a post about Lincoln. Either that or you live in the South and are still fighting the Civil War longing for the good old days of slavery and racism. I just finished watching a special on President Lincoln and he is revered as America’s greatest president. His presidential campaign was against slavery and it got him elected and almost assassinated on his way (train ride) to his inauguration. Were your relatives part of the “hit squad” that tried to kill him. Inquiring minds would like to know.

        • @ jlp
          Sure Northerners thought treatment of the slaves was cruel, but they weren’t exactly pounding at the doors to enlist if you recall the draft riots. Lincoln himself said if he could restore the Union without freeing the slaves, he would. He also suggested sending the freed ones back to the African coast en masse. After the Emancipation Proclamation, the Army got the bright idea to allow freed men to enlist, both because they were fanatical fighters and so more white guys wouldn’t have to die. True abolitionists were few and far between.

          After the war, instead of amending the Constitution to say “Slavery is illegal,” it was written “The Fed Gov has absolute power over the states forever; any time, anywhere, for any reason, no justification necessary.” Today we have rogue agencies like the ATF and EPA holding unlimited power, answerable to no one but themselves. This doesn’t make Lincoln & Co. bad men. Their eventual goal of freeing the slaves was entirely just, but their lack of foresight is astounding. Washington and Jefferson may have opted for a centralized government, but they never would have made its word absolutely beyond critique and appeal.

        • Lincoln grew the Federal Government more than any president preceding him. The biggest problem facing free men then, now, always and forever, has been governments that are too big and too powerful. Against that background, anything else he may or may not have done, pales to the level of significance of a single atom in the entire universe.

          Mechanization makes slavery unsustainable. Destroying the capital structure that employed slaves, certainly speeded things up, in much the same way the plague, by destroying entire production chains and societies, ended up weakening the hold feudal lords had over their serfs. But less than 50 years hence, paying one guy to whip another guy to drive a harvester around, wouldn’t exactly the most rational nor economical use of scarce resources.

    • Ditto.
      Also, if you’re a Republican who stayed home in 2012 because Mitt Romney wasn’t as conservative as we would all have liked him to be…, you did this.

        • The outright disgust for Obama may have indeed propelled gun rights these past 7 years. If it was Romney instead, do we think that people would have been so motivated to fight for them?

    • I guess now would be a bad time to remind you (or inform you, if you weren’t a TTAG reader back then) that Rob shilled very hard for Obama and wrote many an article on this site about how “Obama is basically pro-gun”.

        • Ah yes, the classic “I made a dubious claim and now you have to find the evidence which, if I’m wrong, would be non-existent.”

        • I don’t remember RF ever saying barry was pro gun. What I remember him saying was that barry wasn’t after our guns.

          Had adam lanza never been born would barry have finished out his second term with no movement on guns? No way to know.

      • RF didn’t shill for Obama, he was saying that claims that Obama would come for our guns were hyperbolic. RF has since apologized profusely.

    • Where’s my big wooden paddle with NO carved into it?

      This guy has had too many appointments. Enough is enough. All he nominates will be left wing radicals.

    • Agreed. If a natural right is arbitrarily erased from the Constitution, and Kim Kardashian isn’t there to tweet about it, does it make a sound?

    • Close. Here is what will happen:

      The GOP will initially fight. Then the Democrats and the State Propaganda Machine news media will scream and yell that government will shut down without a replacement on the U.S. Supreme Court … and yell even louder that REPUBLICANS ARE GOING TO BE RESPONSIBLE FOR THE SHUTDOWN. At that point Republicans will give in and confirm this bozo.

      • Just remember when Republicans confirmed the nomination of the rabid gun hating Sotomayor after she let them know in no uncertain terms that she had every intention of destroying the Second Amendment. It shows you that the Republicans only pay lip service to the Second Amendment because they have exempted themselves from gun ban laws. The GCA Gun ban law of 1968 excluded themselves.

        I think all this shows what a complete farce the Constitution really has always been. Its about impossible to overturn anything the Supreme Court declares. One of the biggest screw ups the founding fathers ever made was to have Constitution in the first place. If we would have adopted the English Parliamentary system it is much easier to overturn a bad law by passing a new one. With the inferior Constitutional system it becomes a religious icon that no one dares go against or change even when it is obvious that it does need to be changed. Even the self evident “equal rights amendment” never passed. I think that one really proved how inferior our system is to the English Parliamentary system. Just another reason our “Revolution” was a mistake from the very beginning.

        • …as opposed to the ease with which parliamentary systems do stupid stuff by legislation.

          I’m not advocating one way or another, right now. Just pointing out some additional facts.

          Parliaments can pull back judges run amok. They tend to run amok themselves. Turkey is being a nice example right now. As English examples, consider the state expansion before Lady Thatcher, or the pull back during her ainisttation.

        • Your ‘Parliamentarian’ system is just a renamed ‘living, breathing Constitution.’ It’s like the foundation and frame of your house being made of Play-Dough…

        • Precisely my point. When you need to get rid of something or change it you can do it more quickly with a Parliament that being saddled with a “religious icon” that cannot be changed.

          Another case in point. When Britain needed to do something about carbon emissions it sailed through Parliament but in the inferior American system they tried for several years to form a coalition and it still failed to get anything done.

          The last 8 years of grid lock in Washington has really pointed out what a failed system American democracy is and it is so contentious nothing is getting done as opposed to the far less contentious Parliamentary system.

          For a run down on how bad the American system really is take a look at this comparison.

          http://www.rogerdarlington.me.uk/USvsUK.html

        • jlp,

          The last 8 years of grid lock in Washington has really pointed out what a failed system wild success American democracy really is. There, fixed that for you.

          Government is not God. Please move yourself to some place in the U.K. where you can worship their government.

        • Actually I would like to see the out house gang leave so we Socialists could move American into the 21st Century instead of still being stuck in the 18th Century.

        • Smells like tea in here. Yuck. I’ll take some good ol’ American gridlock any day. We need LESS government, not more. The less they can get done in DC, the better.

        • @jlp

          Quite frankly most of the stuff someone in power wants to get done, shouldn’t be.

          Gridlock is the preferable option in that case, much as some lackwit will condemn us for not doing anything. As if doing something, no matter what, is always a good thing.

        • Last year the stingy,tightwad Republicans blocked money for railroad safety switches which resulted in not one but two train crashes that killed people. Its just one example of grid lock that prevents necessary legislation from passing. The equal rights amendment was another one in the past that was scuttled. A high speed rail system that every industrialized country in the world has but us has also not been passed. They can always vote the money for wars of rape, pillage and conquest but when it comes to passing legislation to help the American people the corrupt system of the rich and powerful considers us working people expendable.

          When you look at the tremendous Social programs of Europe compared to the troglodyte existence of the average “slave Wal-Mart worker” you begin to see what a mistake not having a Parliamentary system with multiple “centrist” political parties was.

        • @jlp Who’s to say that the point of American government *isn’t* to be perpetually gridlocked, only coming together when something is unbelievably obvious? Gun control? Gridlock. Carbon emmisions? Gridlock Declare war on Germany on another continent? Gridlock. Declare war upon Japan when they sucker punch us? Cooperation.

          Maybe a lithe, quick moving government isn’t the way to go.

        • jlp. Socialists? Just another spawn of that ideology of tyranny and mass murder called communism.

          “We socialists to move america into the 21st century”?

          Yeah. The America of the 21st century that would be a virtual prison; where everyone gets 3 hots and and a cot with “free health care and free education”, but if they dare to disobey the current mind control as enforced by “political correctness” , will be called a “racist, homophobe, xenophobe, intolerant hatefilled bitter clinger” in the main stream media; and be charged by the department of just us for “crimes” against humanity.

          Socialism as invisioned by jlp, a nightmare of tyranny with a free persons face ground into the ground by the jack boot of an all powerful government for enternity.

        • Yes and the Socialists made it possible for “the people” to demand strong unions that resulted in the passing of Social Programs like Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, aid to education, just to name a few. In Europe no student is denied “higher education” because he cannot afford it while here in the U.S. we waste many of our brightest minds and those that do go on to College go into debt the rest of their lives. Socialism and Unions made it possible for the “workers” to get a decent wage for a days work but today with the Unions castrated we have C.E.O. making obscene billion dollar salaries while Wal-Mart workers get part time minimum wage jobs. Anyone not wanting more Socialism is either part of the “rich obscene ruling elite” or is totally ignorant of History.

        • Tell the Australian, British, German, and Irish gun owners how lucky they are to have a fast moving parliamentary system.

        • I would suggest you watch the video on this site of the German man and his gun collection one of which appears to be an MP5 which you cannot own because of the Reagan full auto ban (I am speaking of a brand new one)

        • Umm, wrong again jlp. This is a reply on another post I made about Trevon getting shot and killed for B and E. But it is appropriate to repost it here. After all, if I’m against socialism, I must be part of the “rich, obscene, ruling elite, or ignorant of history”. Yep, wrong, again.

          “I started a business at twenty years old, cleaning chimneys in the winter, and windows in the summer. I didn’t have any credit built up so I couldn’t get any bank loans and my mom and dad were fairly poor, all they provided growing up was room and board. This was also without any loans or grants because I was not a minority that got special privileges or loans for starting a business. So I just used money I had saved to start my business. I ended up making alot money after building a solid clientele after working seven days a week, twelve to fourteen hours a day for the first year.

          Then I went back to school to get a degree, but I was making too much money to qualify for any scholarships or grants, and because i was not a minority that got special grants of loans for going to school, I paid my own way. while managing my own business.

          But I guess with my “white privilege”; I didn’t need any “special” advantages. I bet if Trevon had taken all those special advantages, combined with working hard and not breaking the law. he might not have ended up on slab”

          “Or ignorant of history”? No jlp. History is simply those with power using the current chic ideology to rally the ‘useful idiots” to help them over throw the old tyranny to impose the “new” tyranny and mass murder under their rule. It was the kings and the clergy using Christians as the useful idiots to impose tyranny and mass murder in the past, now, the current “useful idiots” are the socialists, you being a prime example.

          You are simply a pawn to be used to impose the new tyranny, and if they succeed; you will end up in a ditch with a bullet in the back of the head, by your masters, like all the “useful idiots” , if it serves their “collective good”.

        • >> If we would have adopted the English Parliamentary system it is much easier to overturn a bad law by passing a new one.

          Pause for a moment, reflect back to September 11, 2001, and think about all the laws that would have been passed back then if not for the Constitution.

          Actually, you don’t even have to think about it. Just look at UK. You know, the country where if you have something that looks like encrypted information, and they believe it’s relevant to their investigation, they can demand that you provide the key, and lock you up for 2 years if you refuse or tell that you don’t know it (so long as you can’t actually prove that you don’t know it).

        • Wow do you have a short memory. Remember the un-Constitutional Patriot Act. It gave the Government free right to abolish all right to privacy and even after the Edward Snowden Revelations the reforms are all smoke and mirrors. French24 News interviewing several American experts revealed that the U.S. Government is now doing the exact same illegal spying on its own citizens but it is getting around the new reforms by having foreign governments do it for them and then they read the results and can claim that “we did not spy, the foreign governments did” . So did the Constitution do you any good. No it did not. The U.S. Government always has done what it pleases and continues to do so Constitution or no Constitution.

        • I remember the PATRIOT Act very well. And parts of it were dismantled on Constitutional grounds, in fact.

          And compared to what UK got in the same deal, PATRIOT Act is practically a libertarian paradise.

          So yes, the existing system isn’t perfect, and constitutional protections aren’t foolproof. But they help.

          Freedom of speech is another good example. Try to find a European state where “hate speech” and/or historical revisionism isn’t a crime. Or look up the track record of the Canadian Human Rights Commission. Compare and contrast to the ruling in Brandenburg v. Ohio, and how it is applied in practice.

        • The Patriot Act never went before the supreme court. It expired and was renewed but modified. But as I said the Government is just ignoring it by having foreign countries that are friendly to us spy on us and then the Government then reads the info so they can claim that they themselves did not spy on us.

          Actually hate speech should be a crime and if I remember correctly under certain conditions you can be prosecuted here in the U.S. for hate speeches also. Its just less stringent then say in Germany but it should be stringent. Remember what happened in Nazi Germany with hate speech.

        • >> The Patriot Act never went before the supreme court. It expired and was renewed but modified.

          I never said it was. Some of its provisions were ruled unconstitutional by federal courts, however. NSLs are one good example that was striken down. Warrantless search provisions were another:

          http://www.wired.com/2007/09/court-strikes-2

          https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Civil_Liberties_Union_v._Ashcroft

          >> Actually hate speech should be a crime and if I remember correctly under certain conditions you can be prosecuted here in the U.S. for hate speeches also.

          You can be prosecuted specifically for inciting “imminent lawless action”, which is a very far cry from the generic “hate speech” – it is a much higher bar. Once again, have a look at Brandenburg v. Ohio, which set the standard:

          https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brandenburg_v._Ohio

          And no, hate speech should not be illegal in and of itself. When it is, it starts a slippery slope of what exactly constitutes hate speech, since that is defined by the government. In an oppressive regime, it becomes the favorite tool to use against opponents. For example, in Russia today, there is a law called Article 282, titled “promoting hatred or enmity towards identifiable social groups”, and most people persecuted for political views are targeted with that law. The courts have conveniently ruled that “identifiable social groups” include, for example, politicians and government workers…

          You might say that Russia is a dictatorship. Fine, have a look at where the same thing got Canada:

          https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_Human_Rights_Commission_free_speech_controversy#Controversial_Cases

          So, no. If you believe that free speech should be severely regulated under the guise of fighting “hate speech”, there are plenty of countries in the world already that do just that. US, with its strict adherence to freedom of speech, is unique in a good way, and that is something that should be cherished and preserved.

        • Jlp – would you be in favor of a fast acting parliament system that adopted an official religion? Outlawed homosexuality? Deported all non native born residents to their country of origin regardless of previous legal status? Or perhaps equated socialism with treason? Be careful what you wish for.

        • And how soon we all forget Roosevelt putting all Japanese Americans in Concentration camps and he came close to doing the same thing with Italian Americans. He could not put all the German American citizens in Concentration camps because they made up the bulk of America’s white population at that time. Its called executive order and that is worse way worse than a parliamentary system.

        • Executive orders exist in any political system that has an executive branch (which is basically all of the modern ones) – after all, the head of the executive does need some means to tell the rest of it what exactly to do.

          The problem with EOs is when they overstep the legal boundaries. Which, again, can happen just the same in any system.

          The reason why Roosevelt got away with internment camps EO was largely because the Supreme Court agreed to “look the other way”, because war. All checks and balances are threatened during a major crisis, and occasionally they do fail. It doesn’t mean that we should throw them away completely.

        • @jlp

          Since you seem a wee bit confused, the 18th century was the high point of civilization and all that is worth vile about it. The high point of freedom, of championing natural rights, of enlightenment etc., etc. And then, only 50 or so years past it’s end, we had the Civil war over here, while Europe gave rise to the religions that culminated in such wonders as the death camps and the gulag. And it’s only been downhill ever since. Until we are where we are today, where even the 14th century, represented by the resurgent Eastern tribes, are wlking all over “us.” And thank goodness for that.

        • 18th century as the “high point of freedom”, seriously? When only white male landowners could vote, slavery was legal and widely practiced, and women were in most respects a property of their father if unmarried, and of their husband after marriage?

          If that’s what you consider the high point of freedom, it sounds like your free society has to consist mostly of non-free people…

        • Don’t listen to Jlp, he gets his history from Howard Zinn, his hero’s include Marx, Lenin, Stalin, Mao and Che and his idea of a good time is shooting and starving Kulaks on the plains of the Ukraine. Jlp is worse than a useful idiot. He is a true apparatchik for the cause of communism. Btw if you defeat him in an argument he simply stops responding or more likely simply continues to spout the same thing he stated a year ago.

        • @int19h
          There was plenty of land available back then. Land owning wasn’t an onerous restriction. Big country, few white males.

          One vote per household, which is essentially what male vote means in civilized societies, is a good thing. All female suffrage accomplishes, is to make breaking up families politically expedient for anyone wishing to get and stay elected.

          The whole “black people meaningfully different, read lesser, than white”, was a mistake, albeit one common of the era. Remove references to racial differences from 18th century America, and you’ve got yourself a fairly free society. Pretty simple and straightforward. To go from today’s totalitarian progressive dystopia to a fairly free society, OTOH, involves removing, uh, everything.

          Size of government, along with differences in armament between said government’s standing army and the people it purports to rule over, are the ultimate determinants of freedom. In the 18th century, “the people” could say no to nonsense, and back it up if need be. While the government couldn’t afford much nonsense to begin with. Not so today, on either count.

        • >> There was plenty of land available back then. Land owning wasn’t an onerous restriction. Big country, few white males.

          Wasn’t it? Then why did they get rid of it so fast?

          >> One vote per household, which is essentially what male vote means in civilized societies, is a good thing. All female suffrage accomplishes, is to make breaking up families politically expedient for anyone wishing to get and stay elected.

          Right. And, of course, the male is the sole representative of the family, while the female has no voice at all. Nor property rights, for that matter.

          Families don’t need outside assistance to stay or break up. It’s not a choice that anyone outside of the family can or should make. If giving females voting and property rights makes some families break up as a result, those families didn’t deserve to exist in the first place (and by forcing them to exist, you imposed a burden on females who got tangled in them).

          Pray tell, are you of the “dark enlightenment” crowd?

          >> The whole “black people meaningfully different, read lesser, than white”, was a mistake, albeit one common of the era.

          Regardless of whether it was a mistake or not, it was in effect. So when you start talking about “removing and then …”, you’re talking about some hypothetical society, not what actually existed in the 18th century.

          >> Size of government, along with differences in armament between said government’s standing army and the people it purports to rule over, are the ultimate determinants of freedom. In the 18th century, “the people” could say no to nonsense, and back it up if need be.

          Right. Again, except if said people were women or non-white. In which case, when they “said no to nonsense” on any sort of massive scale, it was considered a thread to public order, a rebellion – and dealt with as such by the “small government” in power. How many slave rebellions did state governments suppress, again? How many people were executed for participating in them or assisting them? I suspect it would be more than the total number of people executed by both federal and state governments in US in the 20th century.

        • Socialism leads to communism (Lenin) and good Ameticans died and shed first much British and then more commie blood to keep the ideas of rump ranger gun grabbing wannabe be dictators like you stuffed in the toilet where you belong.

          You come here pushing communism you better make out your will.

        • What we should never thank them for, is ending the shutdown.

          As long as even people who ought to know better, cave in, for any reason, much less something as universally positive as shutting down a 100% destructive institution, we’ll forever remain enslaved.

      • Yeah, right. Like the republicans have never thrown a tantrum and shut down or threatened to shut down the gov.

      • Emailed Toomey last week about this and already received a response. He opposes a nomination before the election.

        • This state is fairly purple these days, all depends on how much he thinks it will affect his own chances in November. When it comes to gun rights, I don’t think he would have any problems with this nominee based on his own attempts to enact universal background checks.

    • Everyone calm down. In a surprise move McConnell just stated the senates job is to act as a check on the president, and said there will not be a hearing. Maybe he found his balls?

    • That’s the article I was about to post. 🙂

      Two things stand out:

      (1) Moreover, in the case mentioned earlier, Garland voted with Tatel to uphold an illegal Clinton-era regulation that created an improvised gun registration requirement. Congress prohibited federal gun registration mandates back in 1968, but as Kopel explained, the Clinton Administration had been “retaining for six months the records of lawful gun buyers from the National Instant Check System.”

      (2) Garland thought all of these regulations were legal, which tells us two things. First, it tells us that he has a very liberal view of gun rights, since he apparently wanted to undo a key court victory protecting them. Second, it tells us that he’s willing to uphold executive actions that violate the rights of gun owners.

      Combine this wanker with Hillary as president… Watch as those executive actions are rolled out rolling back Heller/McDonald, banning evil black guns and handguns.

  1. I foresee yet another run on ammo and guns!

    Barry is stat padding for the greatest gun salesman of all time at this point…

  2. Agreed.
    I bought, registered ( maybe my first mistake), and permitted legally. I will not surrender them just because some low brained nitwit tells me to.
    First guns to go should be the ones protecting the politicians, judges, etc.

    • who says they arent smart?????! its not that, its a lil more nefarious…. they dont trust you, not that they cant read etc, they are VEEEEEEEEEERY smart, and you shouldnt forget it…. LAO TZU: “there is no greater danger than underestimating your enemies”

  3. I guess I have to credit President Obama on this one. He scoured the country and found a judge with a long moderate history, but that hates civilian ownership of guns just as much as he does. This is a win-win for him. If the Senate bows to the pressure and approves Judge Garland, then US gun rights will be in a very precarious position. If the Senate rejects him, then the President gets to call them partisan racists right through the election.

    Well played Mr. President…..well played…..

    • Not really. The DC Circuit Court of Appeals is where they find most Supreme Court nominees. He didn’t put much work into it at all, things just happened to fall into his lap. He saw an advantage to put the GOP on the spot, picking an alleged moderate and ran with it. If Hillary gets elected, Ginsburg retires, and we all get the chance to prove our mettle.

    • They have already started to crack

      “New Hampshire Sen. Kelly Ayotte, who’s facing a tough reelection fight, said that while she still opposes moving on a nomination ahead of the presidential race, she would take the time to explain her position to Garland. When the nomination was still conceptual, Ayotte had said she would not meet the nominee.

      Sen. Jeff Flake, a Republican who sits on the Judiciary Committee, said he would also meet with Garland. And Sen. Susan Collins, a Maine Republican, added that she’d take a meeting with Garland.”

      Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2016/03/kelly-ayotte-to-meet-merrick-garland-220868#ixzz435bEhfNn

  4. Republicans often only pay lip service to the Second Amendment. Kasich who pretends to be pro gun actually voted for Clintons rabid Assault Rifle ban. People in power want absolute power over everyone. Did you know that under the Metzenbaum Gun Ban Law of 1968 that all the U.S. Congressmen and Senators are exempt from it. So that is the real reason the people in power like gun ban laws because they exempt themselves from it.

    • Yeah, I am still seething that I had to turn in my assault weapons under the Boehner-McConnell assault weapons ban of 2013. /sarc.

  5. If the man is anti-second Amendment, He is anti-Constitution. A person who cherry picks the Constitution will not be true to it. We already have the actions of a president, house of representatives, senate, and supreme court that prove up that fact. (lower case is intentional)
    [W3]

  6. You should all be more concerned with the “I saw terror=I know better than the constitution” speech he and the president gave at the nomination ceremony.

  7. A Chicago born-and-raised lawyer? What could possibly go wrong?
    That said, he is only one man. We are many. I don’t want to cede Garland too much power. If decisions on our rights come down to him being the decision-maker on what we keep or give up, then the fault lies with us for not doing more before it gets to that point.

    • “That said, he is only one man. We are many. I don’t want to cede Garland too much power. If decisions on our rights come down to him being the decision-maker on what we keep or give up, then the fault lies with us for not doing more before it gets to that point.”

      Wait. Huh?

      He’s only one man, but he’d be the tie breaking vote on the Supreme Court. Right now, the court pans out to be 4-4 on gun rights cases. He’d make it 5-4 against us, so he’s actually kind of in a very unique position for “decisions on our rights come down to him being the decision-maker.”

      We’re talking about court cases … a decision making process we have zero input in before the case gets to him. I fail to see how the “fault likes with us for not doing more before it gets to {the Supreme Court}.”

  8. The R’s will roll over and show their bellies…

    They are just as Statist as the D’s.

    Hopefully, the Contested Convention of Trump and the Nomination are back to back.

    Maybe folks will finally wake to BS.

    • There’s some interesting news today on that ‘Contested Convention’ possibility. Check *this* out:

      We choose the nominee, not the voters: Senior GOP official

      ” Political parties, not voters, choose their presidential nominees, a Republican convention rules member told CNBC, a day after GOP front-runner Donald Trump rolled up more big primary victories.

      “The media has created the perception that the voters choose the nomination. That’s the conflict here,” Curly Haugland, an unbound GOP delegate from North Dakota, told CNBC’s “Squawk Box” on Wednesday. He even questioned why primaries and caucuses are held. ”

      http://www.cnbc.com/2016/03/16/we-choose-the-nominee-not-the-voters-senior-gop-official.html

      This is my surprised face…

        • No the party will survive. The Neo-Cons, Cuckservative and Churchian set will be driven out, violently if need be.

          One thing is certain, the politics of the right will look a whole lot different after the convention.

      • I figured as much.

        Once the GOPe started talking about the CC, my vote for Trump in the primary was solidified.

        I hope the false illusion of choice, that is the two party system, will finally be realized.

        I hope Trump runs has an independent and puts the final nail in the coffin of the GOP. The D’s will still fail in line behind the establishment, as evident by Clinton pulling head, primary by primary.

        • Your post really does highlight the fact that “the people” are living an “illusion of democracy”. Rather it is the “power elite” that determine who runs for President in both corrupt political parties.

  9. Why would a president pick a SC nominee who is so old?

    The admin does not believe this one will get approved. It’s a sacrificial element while they gear up for the young lib that can spend 40 years on the bench.

    Of course, the RINOS will roll over, surprising even the administration.

  10. We are going to lose our Second Amendment rights because of the kind of mindlessness and ignorance on display here. The Republican leadership stopped Obama’s assault on the Second Amendment in its tracks. For a bunch of single issues voters your dissatisfaction with the Republican leadership is just plain stupid. This is why we are going to get a Trump-Clinton race. Ted Cruz is a joke. His strategy was to make nice with Trump and let Trump kill off his opponents. How’s that working out for you Ted?

    • There is no WE when it comes to rights, they are all individual rights. You can and most likely will surrender yours, because GOP establishment types only know surrender.

      What kept Obama’s gun control from passing were the rest of us letting our elected reps know that they would either be run out of office or shot in the street if it passed. Not some magical materialization of spinal fortitude from Republican leadership.

      The rest of the voters that are helping trounce the establishment agenda, are hard working middle Americans who are smart enough to know that protecting the sovereignty of Americas trade and borders is more important than an individual right, which they would never surrender in the first place.

      • You largely live in a world of illusion. The powerful rich and greedy have passed the unfair free trade laws. First, the Republican God Reagan broke the Unions so they could ship jobs overseas and every President after that let big business know they would not be prosecuted for crushing the rights of the people to form a legal strong union. Wal-Mart simply shuts down an entire store when the workers vote union. Something that was not tolerated not so long ago.

        As far as illegals, the very people the Conservatives vote for, the Republicans, are prostitutes of the rich who have been luring in illegals for decades and decades to be used as “slave labor” to harvest our fruits and vegetables and work in the meat packing industry just to name a few businesses. With todays computerized systems laws could be passed that would eliminate illegal employment overnight. No such laws have ever been passed and they never will. Slave labor pays in millions of taxes that will never be claimed in Social Security or income tax returns either. Another reason Government wants illegals here. Trump rants against illegals and he was caught numerous times using them and not even paying them what little wages he promised. Is anyone ignorant enough to think corrupt Congressmen (i.e. the Republicans) would ever seriously consider stopping illegal immigration, they would be cutting their own greedy throats.

        • Another know nothing. For every job shipped overseas another job got imported. The most American car is the Toyota Camry. It has a higher domestic content than any Ford, GM or Chrysler product. You know all those drug companies clustered in the Research Triangle of North Carolina? Most of them are foreign companies. Manufacturing jobs have disappeared because of digitization not because of free trade. You want those jobs back ban robots and go back to analog manufacturing. That means no internet, which from I have come to see would be a good thing.

        • Your speaking largely pure nonsense. Here in Ohio the auto companies use imported parts to make automobiles and at one time even tractor engines which I helped to produce years ago. The many small satellite companies that produced parts for our automobile industries are now extinct in Ohio. This amounted to tens of thousands of jobs. The machine tool capital of the world was once Cleveland, Ohio. Now extinct. I remember there used to be machine shops catering to local industry on every corner and in every town. The majority of our Ohio industries and satellite companies and are now extinct. At one time our local industry hired people before they graduated from High School and gave them “training in house” or while on the job and many even became engineers through training in their company. A concept now extinct. Your in over your head on this one. I saw it all change in the last 50 plus years while you were still not even created.

        • A know nothing with tunnel vision. Sure some jobs have left and other have arrived.

          Everybody loves a profit system. Nobody likes a profit and loss system. (Attributed to Tom Sowell)

          The market produces winners and losers. Ohio lost and North Carolina gained. Globalization works both ways. That is why Toyota, Honda, BASF and Siemans shipped jobs from Japan and Germany to the US.

        • Your the one who lives in la la land. In Ohio Honda uses foreign made parts screwing local industry from supplying parts and since the plant was built back in the 80’s they still do not have a union and work for less and have no rights as compared to the unionized old line American auto companies. You call this good? Its obscene. Its C.E.O’s and foreign companies making billions and the American worker being an economic slave.

          Now you know why we need more Socialism now. Stronger Unions. Better jobs. So we can hammer the greed mongers in big business, the enemy of the people.

        • Jlp why did the Soviet Union fall? Why did communist china open up their markets and people to capitalism>? Why is Cuba broke? Why is Venezuela about to go to civil war? Why did Romanians brutally depose Ceausescu? Why did the Czech’s and Hungarians rebel against the socialists? Why were people celebrating at the fall of the Berlin wall? Why is the state of California broke, a state with more natural resources than probably 20 mid western states combined? Why was Great Britain broke until Thatcher was elected? Why is the per capita income of Germany comparable to the worst five states in the United States? I could do this all day. Socialism also ends in failure. Get out of your college indoctrination and read some Adam Smith.

        • quote————————

          Why is the per capita income of Germany comparable to the worst five states in the United States.————–quote

          Your posts get more bizarre every time you post them. Germany is one of the richest countries in the world. According to GPS Fareed Zacharia the socialist country of France created more new high tech jobs in 2015 than the U.S. which is 50 times larger. Where in the world do you come up with all this nonsense about the failure of Socialism. The French in Paris according to a report on French24 news paid its workers $33.00 an hour overtime on Sunday at a store equivalent to the American Home Depot slave chain which pays minimum wage part time slave wages. U.S. slave workers at Wal-Mart get part time work which averages out below minimum wage.

          Business success and start ups in the Socialist States of Norway and Denmark far exceed U.S. business start ups and success and their workers get fair representation in the government through strong Unions which guarantee livable wages unlike the slave state of America where workers must sign up for welfare to exist even though many are working 2 and 3 part time slave wage jobs. No livable wages are guaranteed because America is not a civilized socialist country. It has become the industrialized slave state shit hole of the world.

        • Can we please stop calling countries with relatively high taxes and relatively comprehensive public welfare programs “socialist”? Socialism is when the state owns all the industries outright (or people do directly; but such has never been implemented in practice, and it is doubtful that it could be implemented). If a private individual can actually own a hundred acres of land, say, or a factory, or a bank, it’s still capitalism, even if they pay 90% of their income in taxes (indeed, historically, in US, top marginal income tax rates were in excess of 90% – but no-one called US “socialist” back then).

          The proper term for this is “welfare state”. Or “social democracy”, which is a bit more specific, but in practice the two nearly always coincide (a non-democratic welfare state usually reserves welfare to the ruling class/caste/…, and so it’s not truly universal).

      • This is a prime example of the stupidity I am talking about. On the one hand you claim the establishment ignores you and does what it wants and in the next breath claim you made them do it. So using your own logic the Establishment must support the Second Amendment since they only do what they want.

  11. Predict the Republicans will fold and allow a vote for Judge Garland.

    Don’t hold your breath for NRA to save you. After attorney Alan Gura & SAF toiled away on the McDonald v. Chicago case, NRA hired former Solicitor General Paul Clement to barge in at the last minute and steal 10 minutes from Gura’s 30 minute oral argument time. NRA is all about appearances. The confirmation of an anti-gun rights judge like Garland benefits NRA fundraising, and that’s what NRA is all about- money. The sellout bureaucrats at NRA HQ are happy about this, it keeps them in business.

    If Chris Cox & Chuck Cunningham at NRA-ILA let NRA state lobbyist Todd Vandermyde betray Otis McDonald and 12 million people in Illinois by selling out to police unions and putting Duty to Inform in Illinois 2013 carry bill, why wouldn’t NRA sell out the rest of their 5 million members? Watch what NRA does, not what they say.

      • Thanks Steve. I get tired of hearing the BS demo girl(boy?) spews. And if RF posts another drivel filled “article” by jlp I may take a vacation from TTAG…

    • Pray tell, why shouldn’t they allow a vote? It’s part of their job to have a hearing, look at the candidate, and vote. It’s what they were elected there for, among other things.

      Now, they don’t have to vote to confirm him. But they should vote for or against based on the merits (or lack thereof) of the candidate. Not stall because they hate the president who nominated him, or because of that “oh it’s the last year of the presidency” bullshit (the government doesn’t stop working in the last year – why should it suddenly do so on this particular matter?).

      If they vote no and provide an explanation, they would have fulfilled their duty, and then the ball is back in Obama’s court to nominate someone else whom they would find more agreeable.

      But as it is, Republicans in Congress just look like a bunch of whiny kids.

      The irony of that is, this “strategy” of postponing it till after the election is far more likely to hurt their supposed agenda – by all accounts, Democrats, and specifically Hillary, still have a higher chance to win (go look at the current bets on candidates on any site that takes them). And worst case for GOP, Democrats win some Senate seats, as well, and then Hillary gets to appoint basically whoever she likes, as opposed to a compromise candidate. The fact that Obama is even making this offering is an olive branch (or epic trolling, depending on how he assesses the likelihood) – he’s offering Republicans a compromise that they can accept now on guaranteed terms that are mildly beneficial to them (the guy is center-right, not center-left), as opposed to making a risky bet with odds not in their favor.

      And, of course, most GOP senators know that. They’re not idiots. But they also know that their voters will eat them alive if they show any sign whatsoever of cooperating with Obama on anything. And they care about their careers and re-election more than they care about long-term effects of SCOTUS appointment, so…

  12. It’s a one party nation. Obama gets his 3rd appointment and completes the fundamental conversion of the country. This is going to get real, right quick is this libertard get a new black robe.

  13. Just remember, if you vote Democrat in November, you’re not only admitting you support Obama’s actions over the last eight years, you’re saying you don’t think he went far enough.

    • In regards to the crooked drug companies Obama care did indeed not go far enough. Obama brought the crooked insurance companies to their knees but he failed to go after the crooks in the drug companies. This needs changed and quick.

        • Sorry skin flint but requiring insurance, in the end insured more people in the U.S. than ever before. And the corrupt insurance companies cannot now drop you when you need insurance the most because “caps” are now illegal. The “caps” were the biggest corrupt rip off in the industrialized world (which no one else had except the inferior health car system of the U.S.). Pre-existing conditions are now illegal which again denied millions of people coverage. Would any moron want to go back to the way things were before? Ranting against Obama care is about as ignorant as not buying insurance because you want to save a penny today and lose your entire fortune tomorrow. And we would not even have to be buying our own insurance if it were not for the corrupt Republicans (prostitutes of the Insurance Companies) which blocked “true civilized National Health Care” the rest of the industrialized world has had for decades and decades. Ever let the dim light bulb come on and wonder why every industrialized Nation in the world has embraced it and none have ever gone back and done away with it? Surveys taken in various countries, including Canada resulted in the average person saying they would not even think about going back to “the way it was before they had National Health Care”.

      • Yep, this is exactly the kind of rhetoric I expected from a “pro-gun” socialist. If socialism fails, the answer is always more, because your ideology would NEVER have fundamental flaws, right? The state is just going to take all our guns anyway, so we all may as well vote Sanders and join the glorious people’s collective of Amerika, right? Toss your degenerate ideology across the pond where it belongs. You’re no friend of gun rights or freedom in general.

      • MSNBC News also reported that Trumps x-Wife reported that Trump keeps a copy of Hitler’s speeches by his bed. HIs recent oath ceremony at one of his rally’s was right out of Nazi German and Hitler’s ranting’s. I am waiting for Trump to mimic Mussolini when he did his comical facial expression while on his balcony speaking to the crowds. I think Trump would love to copy it. I am surprised he has not done this yet.

  14. Who didn’t expect this? Who doesn’t expect the repub establishment to roll over, again on this. Paper tigers, all of them. It’s going to take rank and file civilians like you and me to stand up to these tyrannical jokers.
    Molon Labe!

  15. I, for one think than one who would vote for a chance to overturn a decision he doesn’t like is exactly the kind of false – flag advocate President Obama would prefer. At least he’d have some academic cover now from Crazy Lancet-Lady. Declare it a health issue and roll it up under “general welfare.”

    It turns out some folks think themselves only bound by the court decisions, or words in laws, that they happen to agree with. “General welfare” in the preamble vs. explicit wording elsewhere n pick the one you like. Others forget the transition from advocating for an outcome, for one side, to interpreting what’s there for all. Any Judge who continues to act like an advocate is immediately disqualified. That’s most of them, and all nominated by this President. Frakking lawyers.

    It is exactly because a President might nominate an agenda-monger, that dine and dash nominations at the end of a term are a problem.

    We know it’s a priblem because we’ve been told by Reid, Schumer, Biden, and A I R some one-term Senator from Illinois. Of course, these are honorable men, so it can’t have been politically convenient fir them to say one thing about nominations by R presidents and another when it’s their guy.

  16. We’re screwed. In Illinois we have a choice between Mark Kirk(RINO) and legless vet Duckworth. Since his stroke Kirk has cried on cue and broke with the republitards. Anyone notice this Garland pos choking up ala Barry Soetoro? Off to put a gun on layaway…paid for with my gubmint check.

  17. So far I have contacted my both my Senators:Isakson and Perdue (Judiciary Committee), as well as Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley, and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. I have done this twice and will do so again within a day or two. If you have not done this yet, you need to. If you need a easy way to do so Gunowners of America has a pre-written letter ready to go, or edit till it says what you want it to say.

    • If all judges would read and follow the constitution, yes. Let me know when that happens, Heller was a 5 to 4 decision and Scalia wrote the majority opinion. If the Senate does not stand firm that could be easily undone.

  18. Isn’t the DC circuit the most overturned by the supreme in recent years? On Govt (over)reach, mostly.

    What they want keeps getting overturned, so the move is to pack the court w/ a (nother) judge who agrees who it their policies.

    I think there’s a “change the nature of the court, on the sly” argument based on the appeal history. I’m not hopeful the R’s will use it.

    • “Isn’t the DC circuit the most overturned by the supreme in recent years? ”

      I believe that ‘honor’, *cough*, goes to the Ninth Circus, er, Ninth Circuit in California…

  19. Here is what is going to happen. The republican children get their way. So far so good. Whoops. Miss Hillary is elected president and the Dems take control of the senate. Old bird what’s her name promptly retires fom the bench and Miss Hillary promptly nominates a raging liberal plus Obama to the two vacant seats. That’s called pay back. That’s called the first law of karma, one gets precisely what one deserves. And the republican children can spend the next four to eight years pounding sand and whining and complaining. Idiots.

  20. Best case scenario: Replicans locate their balls where there was only a soft, fleshy patch. Trump or Cruz gets elected and the nation moves a little to the right. We get voter ID and Democrats lose massive power because only the living can vote and they can only vote once. Better yet, Hillary goes to prison.

    Worst case scenario: Republicans cave in a couple months. Hrod wins. The court “affirms” that the 2nd Amendment is no longer an individual right. Climate change deniers and those who don’t adore Islam get prosecuted – the 1st Amendment is toast also. The 4th Amendment is toast when SCOTUS rules phones can be searched “for our safety.” The 5th Amendment falls when SCOTUS rules that magazines with more than 10 rounds can’t be grandfathered and must be confiscated.

    • He probably wants us to be put into a position where we are forced to shoot, so that there’s an excuse to declare martial law and leave his good buddy Obama in power indefinitely.

      Soros and his ilk have longed to see the United States destroyed by way of UN/NWO mechanisms ever since the Soviet Union fell.

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