In an attempt to hide Judge Sonia Sotomayor’s radicalism, President Obama characterized her as a judicial moderate first appointed to the federal bench by a Republican president.

However, the president’s nomination of Judge Sotomayor is nothing short of a declaration of war against America’s gun owners. If gun owners mobilize and unite, it’s possible to stop this radical nominee.

Last year the Supreme Court handed down the landmark decision in D.C. v. Heller, holding that the Second Amendment right to bear arms applies to individual citizens in their private lives. The ruling marked a turning point in gun rights in this country.

In the past year, the biggest question courts now face is whether the Second Amendment applies to the states. That may sound crazy, but the reality is that the Bill of Rights only controls the federal government, it doesn’t apply directly to states or cities. Only the parts of the Bill of Rights that are “incorporated” through the Fourteenth Amendment apply to the states.

Since the Heller decision, only two federal appeals courts have written on the Second Amendment. That’s six judges out of about 170. Of those six, three said the Second Amendment does apply to the states. And those judges were out of the liberal Ninth Circuit in California, and included a judge appointed by Bill Clinton and another appointed by Jimmy Carter. — Even leftist judges can get this.

But not Judge Sonia Sotomayor. She is one of only three federal appellate judges in America to issue a court opinion saying that the Second Amendment does not apply to states. The case was Maloney v. Cuomo, and it came down this past January.

That means if Chicago, or even the state of Illinois or New York, wants to ban you from owning any guns at all, even in your own house, that’s okay with her. According to Judge Sotomayor, if your state or city bans all guns the way Washington, D.C. did, that’s okay under the Constitution.

This issue could not be more important. Yesterday, on the very day President Obama has announced Judge Sotomayor’s nomination, the National Rifle Association is arguing Second Amendment incorporation in court before the Seventh Circuit in a case challenging the Chicago ban on handguns.

If this case, or one like it, goes to the Supreme Court, Justice Sotomayor would say that Chicago can ban all your guns. If she can persuade her liberal colleagues on the Court to join her, it could become the law of the land that states and cities can ban guns. Should that happen, then you can expect anti-gun liberals in state legislatures to rush to pass new state laws doing exactly that.