Second Amendment rights don’t appear to be Nancy Maldonado's strong suit. Maldonado, a district judge for the Northern District of Illinois, was nominated by Joe Biden for the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals. Being a judge in one of the most anti-gun states in the country, it’s not surprising that she supported legal arguments for a ban on so-called assault weapons. The Second Amendment should always be on the question docket, as it’s part of our Bill of Rights.
Sen. John Kennedy (R-LA) questioned Maldonado about what she thought fit this description, and it did not go well. Maldonado said she isn’t a gun expert but stands by her record (via Washington Times):
WATCH:@SenJohnKennedy: “You said, ‘assault weapons may be banned because they’re extraordinarily dangerous and are not appropriate for legitimate self-defense purposes.’ Tell me what you meant by assault weapons?”
— Carrie Severino (@JCNSeverino) March 20, 2024
Biden’s Seventh Circuit judge nominee Nancy Maldonado: “I’m not… pic.twitter.com/1ctY2E64IO
“You said, ‘Assault weapons may be banned because they’re extraordinarily dangerous and are not appropriate for legitimate self-defense purposes.’ Tell me what you meant by ‘assault weapons’?” the Louisiana Republican asked.
Judge Maldonado said she didn’t write the brief, that she was just local counsel and is not “a gun expert.”
The ban on semi-automatic assault weapons was upheld in Illinois.
“So you submitted a brief, an appellate brief, you signed it, and you don’t know what … and you said, ‘Abolish assault weapons,’ and you don’t know what you wanted them to abolish?” Mr. Kennedy said.
The judge said she doesn’t “remember the exact definition of assault weapons.”
“I was not responsible for researching the content,” she said.
Conservatives’ persistence in pushing and defending gun rights has paid off. The Bruen decision finally answered the remaining questions about gun rights in America: do we have a right to carry them outside the home, and whether justifiable need or ‘proper cause’ clauses in the concealed carry permit process are unconstitutional in may-issue states? For years, the court refused to hear arguments about justifiable need clauses. It was only when Donald Trump changed the composition of the court that things started to move.
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But even when we clinch landmark rulings on the Second Amendment, that doesn’t mean the war is over. Heller, McDonald, and Bruen delivered deathblows to the core of the gun control Left’s agenda. That doesn’t mean they will stop trying to shred the Constitution, as you can see this week. There are still plenty of jurists out to seize guns from the hands of law-abiding Americans.
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