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Some of the top Republican’s are dissatisfied with sotomayor’s Answers concerning the Second Amendment

Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) stated that he is not satisfied with Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor’s answers to questions about the Second Amendment, particularly her ruling that the right to bear arms does not apply to the states.

This leaves unresolved the depth of her understanding of the Second Amendment, as well as a 2008 Supreme Court case, District of Columbia v. Heller, which ruled that individual Americans have the right to keep and bear arms, said Sessions.

When CNSNews.com asked whether he was satisfied with Sotomayor’s answers about the Second Amendment, Sessions said: “Not really. I think that remains a huge issue.

“The reason that it is really important is that post-Heller, after the Heller decision, she rendered an opinion,” said Sessions, ranking member of the Judiciary Committee. “She’ll soon be on the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court alone can reverse that opinion.”

In the Heller case, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit first ruled in 2007 that gun ownership is an “individual right” guaranteed by the Second Amendment to the Constitution. Then, in June 2008, the U.S. Supreme Court affirmed the appeals court’s ruling.

Writing for the majority, Justice Antonin Scalia wrote, “In sum, we hold that the District’s ban on handgun possession in the home violates the Second Amendment, as does its prohibition against rendering any lawful firearm in the home operable for the purpose of immediate self-defense. … We affirm the judgment of the Court of Appeals.”

Despite those rulings, in June 2009, Sotomayor denied a claim that a ban on a man’s martial arts weapon violated his Second Amendment rights in the Maloney v. Cuomo case in New York.

She justified her position by maintaining that the Second Amendment only applies to the federal government.

Currently, Sotomayor is a federal judge for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second District that ruled on the Maloney v. Cuomo case.

Sessions warned that if Sotomayor’s decision remains in its present condition, it will be detrimental to the rights guaranteed by Second Amendment.

“If they do not reverse her opinion, it will disarray the protections of the Second Amendment, because any city like D.C. could vote to eliminate firearms, even handguns in your home,” Sessions told CNSNews.com. “So it’s a huge issue, and it’s not settled yet.”

During the July 16 Judiciary Committee hearing on Sotomayor’s nomination, committee member Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) continued to question her on issues largely dear to conservatives, including how citizens will be able to enjoy their right to keep and bear arms if it only pertains to the federal government, as the Maloney case holds.

Coburn asked Sotomayor: “Tell me how American citizens will be able to enforce their individual constitutional rights to bear arms if you’re holding that it does not apply to the states?”

Sotomayor responded with what has become her generally predictable answer to all questions pertaining to court rulings: “precedents.”

“Maloney was decided on the basis of precedent, it was decided on precedent the Supreme Court recognizes as precedent,” Sotomayor told Coburn. “It [the court] decided it on the rule of law.”

The 14th Amendment established the Doctrine of Incorporation, which holds that
“[n]o State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”

Prior to the enactment of the 14th Amendment in 1868, it was the Supreme Court’s position in Barron v. Baltimore (1833) that the Bill of Rights only applied to federal law and that states were able to pass laws based on their individual constitutions.

Later on, the Supreme Court recognized that the Bill of Rights should provide individual Americans with basic liberties and that states could add more freedoms but could also contravene fundamental constitutional rights.

The Ninth Circuit Court has been the only one to incorporate the Second Amendment while federal appellate courts in the Second and Seventh circuits have denied incorporation.

Sotomayor’s stance on incorporating the Second Amendment is important to conservatives – and many others who cherish their right to keep and bear arms – because if she rules against it, that right could be infringed.

Despite the uncertainty among Republican senators about how Sotomayor will rule on Second Amendment issues, Sessions conducted a press briefing after one of the July 16 hearing breaks, where he indicated that there would be no attempt to filibuster any decision to confirm her, placing the Democrats at an advantage.

This means the judge only needs a 51-vote majority to be confirmed.

In addition, during the July 13 hearing, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R- S.C.) told Sotomayor, “Unless you have a complete meltdown, you’re going to get confirmed.”

Although Sotomayor had acknowledged before the committee that the Heller ruling holds the Second Amendment as an “individual right,” the question of whether it is a “fundamental right” remained unanswered.

“I do believe, at the end of the day, you’re not going to find a law book that tells you whether or not a fundamental right exists vis-à-vis the Second Amendment, that you’re going to have to rely upon your view of America, who we are, how far we’ve come and where we’re going to go in our relationship to gun ownership,” said Graham.

He added: “You may not agree with that, but I believe that’s what you’re going to do, and I believe that’s what every other justice is going to do.”

Graham kept probing to get a sense of Sotomayor’s personal views of the Second Amendment rather than a list of legal “precedents.”

“You hire judges for their judgment, not their personal views or what their sense of what the outcome should be,” said Sotomayor. “You hire – you appoint judges for the purpose of understanding whether they respect law, whether they respect precedent.”

Graham continued to question how she would rule in a case questioning whether the Second Amendment is a “fundamental right.”

“I don’t doubt that you respect the law, but you’re going to be asked along with eight other colleagues – if you get on the court – to render a decision as to whether or not the Second Amendment is a fundamental right shared by the American people,” said Graham.

He added, “There is no subjective judgment there?”

“The issue will be controlled by the court’s analysis of that question in the case fundamental as defined by the incorporation, and likely will get by the court, a case that challenges state regulations,” said Sotomayor.

“At that point, I will presume that the court will look at its older precedent in the way it did in Heller, consider whether it controls the issue or not,” she said. “It will decide – even if it controls it – whether it should be revisited under the [incorporation] doctrine.”

Graham was unsure how Sotomayor would rule on a case involving Second Amendment incorporation, adding that he expects her to stay away from being an activist judge and that he thinks she is open-minded.

“I think and believe, based on what I know about you so far, that you’re broad-minded enough to understand that America is bigger than the Bronx, it’s bigger than South Carolina,” he said.