Reformation Faith Today

I posted previously on the DC gun ban case before the Supreme Court here. Ken Blackwell and Sandy Froman have posted part II of their series at Townhall.com. They write in part: D.C. v. Heller could become one of the most important cases in American history, with profound political and policy implications.

The case will directly affect 90 million American gun owners. Whether they have a constitutional right to own guns immediately makes their ownership either a protected right or merely a privilege that the government can restrict at will. Either way everyone else in our society is indirectly affected.

The short-term political impact of Heller might turn the 2008 presidential election. Either Senators Clinton or Obama would the most anti-gun Democrat nominee in American history. The Second Amendment is a pivotal issue in a half-dozen swing states, and other swing states have smaller gun votes, but gun owners could easily tip those states in a close election.

In addition to guns, this evaluation of the party nominees’ records is true for federal judicial nominations. Heller will fuse the issues of guns and judges in America. The four conservative justices — Justices Roberts, Scalia, Thomas, and Alito — are expected to support an individual’s right. Most or all of the liberal justices — Justices Stevens, Ginsburg, Souter, and Breyer –will oppose an individual’s right. That leaves Justice Kennedy — the only moderate on the Court — as the swing vote who could decide the meaning of the Second Amendment.

It cannot be overstated how much  Heller will make judicial nominations a campaign issue for tens of millions of gun owners, millions of whom usually vote Democrat. With John McCain naming Justices Roberts and Alito as models of who he would nominate to the Supreme Court and Senators Obama and Clinton both naming Justice Ginsburg as their model, it will be impossible to be pro-gun yet fight for a liberal Supreme Court at the same time. This also will be true for Senate seats as well, where pro-gun states will demand that their U.S. senators support nominees who will uphold their gun rights.