On March 10th, while gun owners were watching Nancy Pelosi’s House ram through H.R. 8 and H.R. 1446, over in the Senate, something just as bad was happening. On that Wednesday, the Senate voted to confirm Merrick Brian Garland, Joe Biden’s nominee for Attorney General.
Garland, a federal appeals court judge, passed the Senate confirmation hearing by a vote of 70 to 30 and was sworn in the very next day. More on that vote later.
Merrick Garland Hates The Second Amendment
During his confirmation hearing, Garland faced a question from Republican Sen. Mike Lee of Utah on whether it would be possible to ban certain types of guns.
On banning guns, Garland said, “where there is room under the law for the president’s policies to be pursued, then I think the president is entitled to pursue them.”
When asked what his thoughts were on the Second Amendment and gun control, Garland said:
“As I’m sure you know, the president is a strong supporter of gun control and has been an advocate all of his life, professional life, on this question. The role of the Justice Department is to advance the policy program of the administration so long as it is consistent with the law. Where there is room under the law for the president’s policies to be pursued, then I think the president is entitled to pursue them.” “
Listen to him here:
Of course, the anti-gun Democrats are trying to pass all sorts of gun control into law, which would mean that Garland would have no problem with upholding all of it!
But this one comment during his confirmation hearing is FAR from Garland’s only example of being anti-gun.
In the middle of February, when asked, again by Senator Mike Lee of Utah, about the implications of allowing firearms manufactures to be held liable for injuries or deaths caused by their firearms, the nominee said that while the president may have pushed that, “I have not thought myself deeply about this. I don’t think it raises a Second Amendment issue.”
Get that? Suing the gun manufacturers into oblivion won’t be a big problem for the Second Amendment! Of course, why would the left need to outlaw guns, when they can just bankrupt the companies that make them, instead?
Not A One Off, By A Long Shot!
But the truth is simple. Second Amendment issues have come before Garland, at least four times. He voted anti-gun every time.
In 2007, Garland was one of four judges on the District of Columbia Circuit who voted for the full court to rehear a pro-gun holding of a three-judge panel overturning Washington’s draconian gun ban in District of Columbia v. Heller.
And, yes, although Garland was joined by A. Raymond Randolph, appointed by George H.W. Bush, Garland’s vote was not merely a matter of intellectual curiosity. A comparable case, Seegars v. Gonzales, was decided differently two years earlier by an anti-gun panel of the same court. That time, Garland voted against a rehearing by the full court.
In 2000, Garland voted to allow the FBI to retain background check records well beyond the immediate destruction required by the Brady Law. I drafted the original version of the Smith Amendment that prohibits the FBI from keeping such records and taxing gun transactions that require a background check, which was in effect at the time. And, as the draftsman, I can tell you that Garland’s position was contrary to statutory law.
Finally, in 2012, Garland voted to allow prosecution (with a 30-year mandatory minimum sentence) of automatic firearms offenses without the prosecutor having to prove the accused knew the weapon was automatic, known as a showing of mens rea or a guilty mind, a requirement common in criminal law.
Merrick Garland is going to make Eric Holder look like weak sauce. He’ll be the most anti-gun Attorney General in American history.
Gun owners, it looks like we’re in for some bumpy roads ahead.