The Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms today launched the first phase of its “Petition to Reject” the nomination of Judge Merrick Garland to the U.S. Supreme Court by President Barack Obama. The “Petition to Reject” campaign kicked off with Internet ads urging people to sign an online petition and will be followed with direct mail, radio and TV as well as telephone outreach.
“Judge Merrick Garland has a long record of being anti-gun that threatens Justice Antonin Scalia’s most important decision in District of Columbia v. Heller, a case that affirmed the Second Amendment and a person’s individual right to keep and bear arms,” said CCRKBA Chairman Alan Gottlieb. “Obama is trying to change the makeup of the Supreme Court in an effort to undermine the cornerstone of our Bill of Rights.”
Even the Associated Press has acknowledged that confirming Garland to fill the seat left vacant by the death of conservative cornerstone Justice Scalia would shift the court to the left, Gottlieb noted.
“Both the landmark Supreme Court victories in Heller and McDonald were won on 5-4 decisions,” Gottlieb recalled. “Replacing Justice Scalia with a gun prohibitionist is a death blow to our gun rights.
“A few days ago,” he continued, “the New York Times editorialized that Garland fits the description of an ‘ideal moderate’ to fill Scalia’s seat. Gun owners don’t want an ‘ideal moderate’ to replace Scalia, they want a pro-Second Amendment jurist to fill that seat, to retain the current balance on the high court.
CCRKBA’s effort hopes to raise funds to help print and distribute millions of additional petitions, plus fund radio, television, newspaper and Internet impact activities.
“Just as Second Amendment advocates have feared,” Gottlieb observed, “President Obama is trying to change the court’s makeup to destroy the individual right to keep and bear arms. This administration has done everything it can to erode the Second Amendment, and turn this important right into a government-regulated privilege. We can’t allow that to happen.”