The Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms has called on U.S. Senator Charles Schumer to apologize to the Supreme Court and then resign for making what amounted to threatening remarks aimed at Associate Justices Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh during a Wednesday rally outside the Supreme Court.
“Can you imagine the reaction if a Republican senator had made a similar remark about Justices Sonya Sotomayor and Elena Kagan at a gun rights rally,” CCRKBA Chairman Alan Gottlieb wondered in a prepared statement. “This is the real Chuck Schumer, a Capitol Hill bully who has engaged in political demagoguery for decades in an effort to crush the Second Amendment and silence citizens and organizations who have defended the right to bear arms.”
Thursday morning, Sen. Schumer reportedly tried to walk back his remarks, saying, “I should not have used the words I used yesterday.”
What Schumer said raised eyebrows.
“I want to tell you, Gorsuch. I want to tell you, Kavanaugh,” Schumer declared. “You have released the whirlwind and you will pay the price! You won’t know what hit you if you go forward with these awful decisions.”
Fox News reported that Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., introduced a resolution calling for Schumer, a New York Democrat., to be censured. Schumer made the comments Wednesday during an abortion rights rally held as the court heard arguments in a high-profile case focusing on a law that restricts who can perform abortions. Since then, he has been chastised by a number of federal and state officials.
“The First Amendment protects speech,” Gottlieb said, “except when used to threaten someone. How would Chuck Schumer react if our office declared the Second Amendment protects the public from people like him? He would probably whine that some ‘gun nuts’ had threatened him.”
Gottlieb said he agreed with comments made by Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who reminded his colleagues that a group of four anti-gun-rights senators also threatened the high court last summer in a brief relating to a Second Amendment case challenging an egregious New York City gun control law.
That was the case that went to the high court in December. The law was so egregious that New York authorities scrambled to amend it almost immediately after the Supreme Court agreed early in 2019 to hear the case, known as New York State Rifle and Pistol Association v. City of New York. NYSRPA is a CCRKBA affiliate in the Empire State.
“Intimidation and thuggish behavior seems to be a pattern among anti-gun Democrats in the Senate,” Gottlieb observed. “Regardless the issue, nobody of Schumer’s stature should ever engage in the kind of boorishness that produced the senator’s vile remarks. Schumer’s problem is that he’s made a habit of it, and he’s always gotten a pass. Maybe that might come to a halt after being rebuked by McConnell, but unfortunately, I doubt it.
“Chuck Schumer has made a career of trying to bully gun owners and gun rights groups, but yesterday he crossed the line,” Gottlieb said. “What Schumer did wasn’t just disgusting, it was despicable. He should hand in his resignation, the sooner the better.”
