CFJ’s Alaska Ad Warns Sotomayor is Anti-Gun

Beginning today in Alaska, the Committee for Justice is airing a radio ad discussing Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor’s Second Amendment record and urging Alaskans to tell their senators to vote against her confirmation. The 60-second ad will air in Alaska’s largest media markets, Anchorage, Fairbanks and Juneau.

The U.S. Senate is expected to vote on Sotomayor’s confirmation at the end of this week. The National Rifle Association opposes her confirmation, but Sens. Begich and Murkowski have not yet announced how they will vote.

The radio ad points out that Sotomayor, “one of the nation’s most liberal and activist judges,” has “twice ruled that Americans have no fundamental right to own firearms.” The ad goes on to put Sotomayor’s nomination in the context of the rapid expansion of government under President Obama, noting that Obama nominated “a Supreme Court justice who would allow the government to confiscate firearms owned by law-abiding Americans.”

Committee for Justice executive director Curt Levey commented today on the radio ad:

“Since President Obama nominated Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court, the Committee for Justice has been educating Americans about her record of judicial activism, her support for racial preferences, and her hostility to gun rights and property rights. Sotomayor’s belief that the Second Amendment is less important than the rest of the Bill of Rights and doesn’t apply to the 50 states has now emerged as the biggest issue in the debate over her confirmation.

“Sotomayor’s Second Amendment record is so bad that the National Rifle Association has come out against her confirmation – the first time in its history that the NRA has taken a position on a Supreme Court nominee.

“Given the high percentage of gun ownership and NRA membership in Alaska, we feel it is important that Alaskans get all the facts about Sotomayor’s Second Amendment record before the confirmation vote later this week. Neither Sen. Begich nor Sen. Murkowski has announced how they will vote, so Alaskans are in a great position to make a difference on this issue.”