When it comes to anti-gun legislators constantly pushing for more restrictive firearm laws, few hold a candle to gun-hater Chuck Schumer. A U.S. senator from New York and the current Senate minority leader, Schumer has spent his long career trying to make life more difficult for law-abiding gun owners, while doing very little to actually address violent crime.
Schumer seems to be an intelligent man, but his lack of understanding of America’s lawful gun owners and their (lack of) relationship to violent crime tells a different story. As does his apparent lack of understanding of one very basic political principal.
Fresh off his loss at trying to stop the confirmation of Justice Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court, Schumer is once again ignoring a fact that is currently too obvious to overlook—elections have consequences.
If you’ll remember, the Gorsuch battle was a contentious one, and extremely important to NRA members and all gun owners. Despite his outstanding qualifications, Schumer and other Senate Democrats declared war against his nomination, even attempting an unprecedented filibuster of the nomination when the confirmation vote came up on the Senate floor. Not to be deterred, Republicans, led by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Tenn., chose to use the so-called “nuclear option,” voting to let a simple majority decide the confirmation issue.
In the end, Gorsuch was confirmed to the court by a 54-45 vote, and was sworn in a week later—the end to a long, bumpy road to a freer future.
“We are grateful for Judge Gorsuch, and it’s time now for a hundred more conservative, pro-Second Amendment judges on benches throughout this country.” — NRA Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierreNow Trump is set to nominate judges for some 127 vacancies on various federal courts throughout the nation. And NRA Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre sees this as a major opportunity to counter some of the 331 liberal judges Barack Obama appointed to the federal courts during his tenure as president.
“When Obama said he wanted to transform America, he did just that,” LaPierre said at a speech during the Annual Meeting of Members in Atlanta, Ga. “The lower courts are incredibly important. They hear more than 400,000 cases a year. They are where future Supreme Court nominees are found. They are the first line of judicial defense of all of our liberties.
“We are grateful for Judge Gorsuch, and it’s time now for a hundred more conservative, pro-Second Amendment judges on benches throughout this country.”
President Trump's apparent plans to put more of these constitutionally minded justices on the lower courts is where Schumer has a bone to pick this time around.
“With this first slate of lower court nominees, it seems that the president is intent on continuing to outsource the judicial selection process to hard-right special interest groups rather than consulting with senators on a bipartisan basis,” Schumer said in a statement. “The president should work with members of both parties to pick judges from within the judicial mainstream, who will interpret the law rather than make it.”
In truth, the statement is laughable. Judges like Gorsuch are just the kind of judges who are dedicated to interpreting, not making, law, and Schumer knows that. What he wants is just enough compromise to put judges on the bench who are more likely to do his preferred bidding—legislate from the bench and drive the Constitution, including the Second Amendment, into the ground.
Here’s the deal, Sen. Schumer: Americans elected Trump to do just what he is doing, including starting to balance the courts against the activist liberal judges appointed by Barack Obama. That’s what he promised during the campaign, and he’s working to keep that promise to the American people.
You lost. Now deal with it!
Mark Chesnut has been the editor of America’s 1st Freedom magazine for nearly 17 years and is an avid hunter, shooter and political observer.
