Gun groups rejoice at Trump’s new federal court nominations

Gun groups rejoice at Trump’s new federal court nominations

“Gun owners certainly welcome the courts becoming more ‘gun friendly’ under a Trump presidency,” Pratt said. “Gun Owners of America has been involved in several gun cases, including the recent Peruta case — now up for consideration by the Supreme Court — which challenges state laws that effectively prohibit concealed carry.”


Gun groups rejoice at Trump’s new federal court nominations

“When Senate Democrats obliterated the filibuster for federal judges in 2013, Obama was able to pack the courts with scores of liberal, anti-gun judges,” Pratt told Guns.com in an email Monday. “So the question of who would pick judges to both the Supreme Court and the lower courts was the most important issue for many Americans last November.”

Two of the picks — Justice Joan L. Larsen, who clerked for Second Amendment champion Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, and Justice David R. Stras, former law clerk for Justice Clarence Thomas — came out of the presidential campaign. Larsen will be nominated to the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati and Stras to the Eighth Circuit in St. Louis.

The administration’s list was developed with heavy input from conservative think tanks the Heritage Foundation and the Federalist Society, who also helped the president put together his list of 21 potential Supreme Court picks to fill the void left by the death of Scalia last year. Trump’s appointee, Justice Neil Gorsuch, was on that list.

With 120 such openings in the lower federal courts, critics say the Trump administration is behind in filling them.

During a press briefing Monday, the White House said it had a “very robust schedule” of releasing names of nominees and that the process is different because the names are going through the Office of Government Ethics and the FBI.

Part of the role of government is looking at these positions and making sure the tax payer is getting a better “bang for their buck,” said White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer.

The White House plans on releasing more names in the coming months.

There’s no doubt a bench filled with Republican-backed judges will have a positive impact on the gun rights side of that debate.

“Gun owners certainly welcome the courts becoming more ‘gun friendly’ under a Trump presidency,” Pratt said. “Gun Owners of America has been involved in several gun cases, including the recent Peruta case — now up for consideration by the Supreme Court — which challenges state laws that effectively prohibit concealed carry.”

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