Fat lot of good it’ll do you with people like McCain in the Senate, but Orin Hatch tends to be good on these-type fights, so maybe he’s the Senator to get energized (in conjunction, of course, with the TEA Party Senators, who tend to do the right things without having to be reminded), given that he carries weight with the establishment Republicans.  Otherwise, the long and incremental march toward overriding the 2nd Amendment will continue from yet another progressive angle, that of holding firearms manufacturers liable for misuse of their products.

Which is a lot like holding Country Buffet responsible for Michael Moore.

From Powerline:

Caitlin Halligan is the general counsel for the Manhattan district attorney’s office. President Obama nominated Halligan to the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals in 2010. In 2011, she failed a cloture vote by a count of 54 for proceeding with her nomination to 45 vote against.

Since then, Obama has re-nominated her four times. But until recently, Harry Reid has not brought her nomination back to the Senate floor for a vote. Now, however, Halligan’s nomination has cleared the Senate Judiciary Committee on a party-line vote and the Senate once again will have to decide whether to proceed on it.

There are two good reasons why Senate Republicans should again block the nomination. First, Halligan’s leftist views are outside of the mainstream. Second, she did not testify candidly during her confirmation hearing.

[…]

As to Halligan’s leftism, let’s start with national security, since the D.C. Circuit, where she would serve, is heavily involved in such cases. In 2004, Halligan signed a report issued by the Association of the Bar of the City of New York’s Committee on Federal Courts. As Ed Whelan has shown, this report, called “The Indefinite Detention of ‘Enemy Combatants’ and National Security in the Context of the War on Terror,” took extreme positions regarding the meaning of Due Process in the War on Terror — positions that the courts have rejected and that the Obama administration has had to retreat from.

To take just one example, the Report Halligan signed argues vigorously against the use of military commissions to try alien terrorists for violations of the laws of war, on the theory that the same constitutional protections afforded ordinary criminals should presumptively extend to those believed to be alien enemy combatants. In Halligan’s view, then, these individuals have a right to be tried in federal court. But even the Obama administration has abandoned the view that alien enemy combatants whose only connection with this country consists of their acts of war against it should enjoy the constitutional rights that American citizens have.

Halligan has also tried to bankrupt gun manufacturers by urging in court that they be held liable for the actions of those who misuse their product when harm results to others. And she opposed the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act (PLCAA).

Given this record, it isn’t surprising that the NRA opposes Halligan. It does so “based on [her] attacks on the Second Amendment rights of law-abiding Americans,” specifically her efforts “to undermine the [PLCCA]” which “was an essential protection both for the Second Amendment rights of honest Americans and for the continued existence of the domestic firearms industry as a supplier of arms for our nation’s defense.”

[my emphasis]

According to Powerline, the Senators most crucial to the vote are “Graham (naturally), McCain, Flake, Rubio, Alexander, Kirk, Murkowski, Thune, and McConnell.”

Frankly, it is unconscionable that a prospective DC Court of Appeals nominee can even make it out of the Judiciary Committee having shown herself to support the unlawful and unconstitutional abridgment of a basic natural right, even though she has done so by trying backdoor routes.  Forcing firearms manufactures to demand much higher prices for their products — or even driving them out of business entirely — is the intent of laws designed to assign liability for second-order uses of a legal product, and it is clear that Halligan is not above using the law against constitutional protections for individuals.

That there are no Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee who opposed the nomination is merely an indication that law has become entirely politicized, and that our system is undergoing a demonstrable unraveling.

All we can hope to do here is convince people like John McCain and Princess Lindsey that, should that unraveling not at least be slowed, their power becomes illusory:  because as Glenn Reynolds among others have pointed out, once we decree the Constitution a dead letter by determining that legislators and justices can essentially pick and choose which parts to uphold and which to ignore, the first thing many liberty-loving people will do is ignore the lawmakers and justices whom they will hold accountable for having attempted to enslave them.

At which point, the tar-and-feathers portion of American history may become a lesson they’ll quickly need to review.

(h/t Terry H)