The National Rifle Association is already jumping into the 2012 election, warning that a Democratic Senate and reelected president could get a shot at changing the political makeup of the Supreme Court and raining a hail of gun fire on the Second Amendment.
“We can’t afford a strategy of praying for the health of five Supreme Court justices,” said Chris Cox, director of the NRA’s Institute for Legislative Action, in a reference to the one-vote GOP majority on the court of nine aging justices.
Cox said the NRA isn’t waiting for the presidential election to get involved, turning to key Senate races to endorse pro-gun candidates even in primaries. Wednesday, for example, the powerful lobby backed Indiana Treasurer Richard Mourdock over Sen. Dick Lugar in the GOP primary. “The Supreme Court is certainly running in every Senate race in the country,” he told Secrets.
Cox said that his political shop will be helping to arm the public with the administration’s targeting of the Second Amendment and Constitution in what could end up being a historic campaign for the NRA.
Besides warning about how Obama could get another court pick–his third–if one of the older Republicans retired or dies, the NRA plans to remind voters of the Justice Department’s ill-fated “fast and furious” gun running program and other gun issues.
What’s more, his NRA-ILA is drawing attention to how some liberal court justices have been questioning the Constitution. On the group’s website, for example, the NRA is drawing attention to Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg comments in a recent New York Times story that she wouldn’t look to the U.S. Constitution if drafting a new constitution and instead would look to the South African Constitution or Canadian Charter of Rights.
“None of this should come as a surprise. One wonders, for example, if Justice Ginsburg even looks to the United States Constitution when interpreting it in 2012,” said the NRA.
