U.S. Sen. Kamala Harris, left, and Vice President Mike Pence during the Vice Presidential debate Oct. 7, 2020. (Photo courtesy of NSSF)
October 08, 2020
By Larry Keane
Asked repeatedly in the debate against Vice President Mike Pence if a Biden-Harris administration would pack the Court should they win the election, Sen. Harris blinked. She didn’t answer , leaving gun owners deeply concerned the Supreme Court will be politicized for gun control and the Second Amendment will continue to be relegated to a second-class right if the Heller (5-4) decision isn’t reversed altogether.
Vice President Pence didn’t wait for the moderator to bring it up. He did it himself.
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Asked, Not Answered “Are you and Joe Biden going to pack the Court if Judge Amy Coney Barrett is confirmed?” the Vice President asked Sen. Harris, explaining Supreme Court vacancies have been filled 29 times during election years. “But your party is actually openly advocating adding seats to the Supreme Court which has had nine seats for 150 years if you don’t get your way. This is a classic case of if you can’t win by the rules, you’re going to change the rules.
“Now, you’ve refused to answer the question,” he added. “Joe Biden has refused to answer the question. I think the American public would really like to know.”
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The question is valid not just to pry answers out of the Biden-Harris campaign, which has refused to answer and refused to disavow the court-packing scheme of Democratic politicians. The Biden-Harris concern is that Judge Barrett is an admitted originalist much like her mentor, the late Justice Antonin Scalia. She believes the law is what it reads and that it’s not a Supreme Court justice’s duty to twist and bend the letters of the law to meet a predetermined end.
That’s an obstacle to pushing through their radical gun control agenda, which includes invalidating the Second Amendment, confiscating lawfully-owned semiautomatic firearms, stopping the online sale of replacement parts, repealing the bipartisan Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act to then bankrupt the firearm industry through harassing, frivolous lawsuits and revoking federal firearm licenses for a single clerical paperwork error.
Pivot to Talking Point No direct answer was offered by Sen. Harris. She spun a tale of President Abraham Lincoln not sending a nominee in an election year, which proved to be false, as reported by National Review . Sen. Harris retreated to campaign talking points that President Donald Trump should abandon his duty to nominate to a Supreme Court vacancy just because an election is close.
The firearm industry and law-abiding gun owners across America deserve an answer, not the worn-out non-answers and pivot to memorized sound bites. The answer is critical to Second Amendment rights. Just this last June, the Supreme Court turned away 10 pending cases all dealing with gun rights. These cases were denied a hearing for what can only be assumed ; that the four justices, who are originalists, didn’t trust at least one more justice to faithfully apply the law, Constitutional rights and the Heller precedent.
The addition of Judge Barrett to the Supreme Court reassures America there will be a justice that faithfully applies the law as it is written. Both Biden and Sen. Harris, though, dance with the notion that the way to defeat that is to add seats to the bench, giving a liberal progressive supermajority that would legislate from the court, setting policy by judicial fiat.
Both Biden and Sen. Harris had the opportunity to put that ugly tactic to rest. They didn’t. Instead, they refused to give an answer. Vice President Pence refused to let Sen. Harris off the hook.
“You once again gave a non-answer. Joe Biden gave a non-answer,” he said. “The American people deserve a straight answer and if you haven’t figured it out yet, the straight answer is they are going to pack the Supreme Court if they somehow win this election.”
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National Shooting Sports Foundation aims to promote, protect and preserve hunting and the shooting sports. Formed in 1961, NSSF has a membership of thousands of manufacturers, distributors, firearms retailers, shooting ranges, sportsmen's organizations and publishers nationwide.