SACRAMENTO, Calif. -(Ammoland.com)- Following the Senates confirmation of Neil Gorsuch to the United States Supreme Court, Firearms Policy Coalition (FPC) released the following statement:
On this momentous occasion, we wish to thank Senate Majority Leader McConnell for his courageous leadership throughout this trying process, President Donald J. Trump for fulfilling his promise, and all of the Senators who voted to confirm Judge Gorsuch to our nation’s highest court.
We also wish to thank the thousands upon thousands of Americans who used their voice and our grassroots activism tools to support the Senate’s confirmation of Judge Gorsuch.
Since the Supreme Court’s landmark D.C. v. Heller and McDonald v. Chicago decisions, many lower courts have rebelled against these decisions and, in so doing, denied tens of millions of law-abiding Americans their fundamental, individual right to keep and bear arms.
At the forefront of this resistance is the lower courts’ refusal to follow the Court’s command, made in Heller and reiterated in McDonald, that Second Amendment claims are not to be judged by unrestrained judicial interest balancing.
Indeed, as the Supreme Court said in Heller, “The very enumeration of the right takes out of the hands of government—even the Third Branch of Government—the power to decide on a case-by-case basis whether the right is really worth insisting upon.”
The Senate’s prudent confirmation of Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court may very well have helped to avoid a serious constitutional crisis and put the Second Amendment back on the path of protecting something more than a second-class right.
Many appropriate vehicles for the Supreme Court to once more weigh in on Second Amendment rights—and correct the lower courts’ improper interest balancing approach to scrutinizing gun owner civil rights cases—are now or will soon be pending the Court’s consideration of a petition for certiorari.
We look forward to participating in these cases with a full Supreme Court and Justice Gorsuch on the bench.
About Firearms Policy Coalition:
Firearms Policy Coalition is a 501(c)4 grassroots nonprofit organization. FPC’s mission is to defend the Constitution of the United States, especially the fundamental, individual Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms, through advocacy, legal action, education, and outreach.