Alan Gottlieb
When all 53 Senate Republicans, led by Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, openly criticized five Democrats who openly threatened the U.S. Supreme Court with political retribution if it does not dismiss an important Second Amendment challenge to a New York City gun control law, the Second Amendment Foundation supported the move.
In a blistering news release, SAF—which filed an amicus brief in the case, urging that the Supreme Court overturn New York City’s infringement of Second Amendment rights—criticized the Democrats for trying to keep the case of New York Rifle & Pistol Association v. City of New York out of the high court. The organization called the Democrat amicus “demagoguery.”
McConnell and his colleagues sent a strongly-worded letter to Supreme Court Clerk Scott S. Harris, blasting a Democrat amicus brief to the court urging dismissal of the case, which challenges the law that was so egregious that it was amended after the high court agreed to hear arguments.
“Democrats in Congress,” the McConnell letter stated, “and on the presidential campaign trail, have peddled plans to pack this Court with more justices in order to further their radical legislative agenda.”
Senators Sheldon Whitehouse (RI), Mazie Hirono (HI), Kirsten Gillibrand (NY), Dick Durbin (IL) and Richard Blumenthal (CT) filed an amicus brief that essentially accused five justices, including Chief Justice John Roberts, of accepting the case for the political purpose of creating a precedent that will allow other gun laws to be challenged. The law was amended earlier this year it in an attempt to avoid a court showdown.
“If the court dismisses this case,” said SAF founder and Executive Vice President Alan M. Gottlieb, “there is nothing to prevent New York City from re-enacting the statute. In addition, the gun prohibition lobby is rightly concerned that a ruling against New York City could also apply to other states and cities’ infringements on Second Amendment rights.”
“We’re proud of Sen. McConnell and his colleagues,” Gottlieb stated. “We have never before seen such an outrageous effort by anti-gun extremists on Capitol Hill to subvert the constitutional process. I was personally appalled by the brief. Just when you think opponents of the Second Amendment can’t sink any lower, they surprise you.”
In their brief, Whitehouse and his fellow Democrats said, “The Supreme Court is not well. And the people know it. Perhaps the Court can heal itself before the public demands it be ‘restructured in order to reduce the influence of politics.’ Particularly on the urgent issue of gun control, a nation desperately needs it to heal.”
“The implication,” said McConnell in his response letter, “is as plain as day: Dismiss this case, or we’ll pack the court.”
“Evidently,” Gottlieb observed, “the five senators signing onto this brief are terrified that the nation’s high court is about to examine the extreme nature of local gun control laws and their constitutionality under the Second Amendment.
“Instead of the Supreme Court dismissing the case,” Gottlieb stated, “we believe the court should reject the amicus brief. It is an insult to the court’s integrity, and to the Constitution, itself.
“Contrary to what the Whitehouse Five contends in their brief,” he said, “the nation needs the Supreme Court to take Second Amendment cases and determine whether laws such as the one in New York are infringements, and then provide guidance to the lower courts about where the constitutional line may be drawn.
“McConnell and the Senate Republicans have clearly had enough of Democrat demagoguery,” Gottlieb observed. “Their amicus brief is further evidence that they would happily erase the Scone Amendment from the Bill of Rights, but they want the Supreme Court to do that, rather than risk the political fallout. Sen. McConnell and the Senate Majority are telling them ‘No.’
“Having crossed the line in their attempt to coerce the court, Whitehouse and his four colleagues have shown their disdain for constitutional rights and our system of checks and balances against unconstitutional laws,” he concluded.
