Sotomayor worries gun rights groups

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By Tom LoBianco

Mr. Helmke said it's hard to determine Judge Sotomayor's standpoint on gun control because as an appellate judge she was constrained by the Supreme Court's ruling in the D.C. gun case and precedents set in the late 1800s that have long stood as the judicial benchmark on gun rights.

While Judge Sotomayor has not said outright what her stance is on gun control, she ruled last year that the Second Amendment right to bear arms does not automatically transfer to the states - a decision gun-control opponents have read as a clear stance on the issue.

"Stating the obvious that Heller [the D.C. gun case known as District of Columbia v. Heller] is settled law doesn't tell us much," Mr. DeMint said. "What's more important is that Judge Sotomayor has recently ruled that Heller only applies to federal lands like Washington, D.C., and her opinion was that the hundreds of millions of Americans in the 50 states do not have a fundamental right to bear arms. She refused to back away from that opinion in my meeting with her this week."

Judge Sotomayor ruled against a man possessing nunchakus (or "nunchucks") as part of a three-judge panel last year. In the ruling, which was unsigned, the panel determined that while the Supreme Court struck down the D.C. gun ban, its rationale did not expressly extend the Second Amendment right to bear arms to the states.

Earlier this year, the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals ruled comparably in a lawsuit seeking to strike down Chicago's ban on handguns. The three-judge panel reached a similar conclusion as the Sotomayor panel, saying that the Supreme Court determined the Second Amendment right to bear arms is applicable only on federal land - including the nation's capital.

But a panel of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled recently that the Second Amendment right to bear arms does extend beyond federal jurisdictions to the states, creating a "circuit split" among the federal appeals courts that could lead to the Supreme Court reviewing any or all three cases in its next session.

Gun Owners of America has had little hesitation in lobbying Democratic and Republican senators to oppose Judge Sotomayor's confirmation, arguing that previous votes in favor of gun rights pale in comparison to their upcoming Supreme Court vote.

"We're conveying on the Hill that this is the big one, anything you might have done in the past was wiped clean," said Larry Pratt, executive director of Gun Owners of America.

"We want Republicans deciding they're going to fight this. This needs to be something that goes on the record," he said.

Mr. Helmke said he doesn't see a knock-down, drag-out fight over the Sotomayor nomination, but that if Second Amendment questions become a problem, his group will join the fray.

"We might take a more active role if it looks like she's going to be contested," he said.