With a confirmation vote coming on Judge Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court, will the outcome of that vote have an impact on the midterm elections, and if he is confirmed, will the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms be secured?
Those are questions that both Democrats and gun owners are asking, and they are intertwined with a gun control drama that is now playing in Washington State, which has become the political test tube of gun prohibition activism.
According to Fox News, the Senate Judiciary Committee has received the FBI report on sexual misconduct allegations leveled against Kavanaugh in the aftermath of his first appearance before the committee, a grueling two-day Q&A that was frequently interrupted by seemingly deranged protesters. That report does not appear to corroborate any of the allegations, which Kavanaugh steadfastly denied in a follow-up appearance ten days ago, according to the Fox report.
Kavanaugh is seen by many grassroots pro-rights activists as solid Second Amendment adherent, an issue recently discussed in the National Review, and that appears to be one reason his confirmation will be opposed by perennial anti-gun Democrats if, and when, the confirmation vote comes to the Senate floor.
That opposition, according to some reports, could wind up costing Democrats dearly Nov. 6.
What’s this have to do with the Evergreen State? Plenty, according to Second Amendment advocates now engaged in an increasingly visceral fight over a gun control initiative backed by a billionaire-supported gun prohibition lobbying group in Seattle. Initiative 1639 is getting quiet national attention because pro-rights activists and anti-gun zealots both believe that if the measure passes next month in Washington, similar efforts will follow in all the other states with the citizen initiative process.
But there are lots of issues with I-1639, which have been carefully detailed in an analysis published this week by the Washington Policy Center.
Three of the state’s most prominent law enforcement organizations—the Washington State Sheriffs Association, Washington Council of Police and Sheriffs and Washington State Law Enforcement Firearms Instructors Association—are opposed to the measure. However, this law enforcement opposition is getting little, if any, attention from the establishment media. Some grassroots activists believe this lack of media attention is because “media elites” don’t want the public to know that lawmen are lined up against the 30-page initiative.
If it passes, there will almost certainly be court challenges, and if those cases go all the way to the Supreme Court, a “Justice” Kavanaugh could strongly influence which way a ruling might lean. Proof of that was found in anti-gun Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s grilling of Kavanaugh on the first day of the earlier hearings.
And readers will recall what Sen. Ted Cruz said in reaction, which essentially put all the cards on the political table:
“And finally, let’s take the Second Amendment.
“In the presidential debates, Hillary Clinton explicitly promised to nominate justices who would overturn Heller v. District of Columbia. Heller is the landmark decision issued by Justice Scalia, likely the most significant decision of his entire tenure on the bench, and it upheld the individual right to keep and bear arms.
“Now Hillary Clinton was quite explicit. She wanted justices who would vote to overturn Heller and indeed a number of our democratic colleagues, that’s what they want as well.
“Overturning Heller, I believe, would be a truly radical proposition. To understand why, you have to understand what the four dissenters said in Heller. The four dissenters in Heller said that the Second Amendment protects no individual right to keep and bear arms, whatsoever. That it protects merely a collective right of the militia.
“The consequence of that radical proposition would mean that Congress could pass a law making it a felony; a criminal offense for any American to own any firearm. And neither you nor I nor any American would have any individual right whatsoever under the Second Amendment. It would effectively erase the Second Amendment from the Bill of Rights.
“That is a breathtakingly extreme proposition. It is what Hillary Clinton promised her justices would do. And at the end of the day it’s what this fight is about.”
