President Donald Trump is reportedly planning to announce his nominee to fill the vacancy on the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) Tuesday evening, and many believe that person will be Judge Neil Gorsuch of the Tenth Circuit Court.
According to Townhall.com, “Gorsuch is said to be an avid outdoorsman” who is “almost a carbon copy of the last Justice Scalia, with SCOTUSblog noting that the parallels between him and the late justice, concerning his writings and judicial philosophy, is ‘downright eerie.’”
This is an important nomination because it will show once again that Trump is moving fast to fill his campaign promises. He had indicated several times on the campaign trail that he would nominate someone like Scalia.
Such a person would be expected to look at cases from the same perspective as the late justice, who passed away in Texas nearly one year ago. That is critical for Second Amendment advocates who were concerned that the 2008 Heller ruling and 2010 McDonald decision, both on a narrow 5-4 margin, could be threatened by a Hillary Clinton presidency and liberal nominees to the high court.
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There are some warnings, however, from Larry Pratt, executive director emeritus of Gun Owners of America, and attorney William J. Olson, writing the other day at American Thinker.
Fox News is reporting that President Trump has narrowed his short list to Gorsuch and Third Circuit Judge Thomas Hardiman.
According to SCOTUSBlog, Hardiman has some good credentials as well. “During his nearly ten years as a federal appeals court judge, Hardiman has weighed in on a variety of hot-button topics important to Republicans, and his votes in these cases have consistently been conservative,” SCOTUSBlog said.
The online publication also said this: “Hardiman’s opinion in Drake v. Filko is a strong statement of his commitment to a more expansive view of the Second Amendment. The case was a challenge to a New Jersey law regulating the issuance of permits to carry handguns in public. Among other things, the gun owner seeking a permit is required to show that he has a “justifiable need” to carry the gun. The panel ruled in favor of the state, but Hardiman dissented from that ruling. He emphasized that the Supreme Court’s decisions in District of Columbia v. Heller and McDonald v. City of Chicago both “indicate that the Second Amendment extends beyond the home,” and that – at least in his view – the law violates the Second Amendment. After considering the case at three different conferences, the Supreme Court declined to review the case on the merits, as it did with several other cases presenting the same question.”
No doubt the nomination will give liberals yet more to whine about, and Trump has only been in office ten days. For the far left, the Trump presidency is shaping up to be a dose of reality they had nightmares about.
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