The Gun Owners of America said Wednesday that it would oppose the nomination of U.S. Appeals Court Chief Judge Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court because he "is not only anti-gun, he supports the ability of a president to illegally use executive power to advance liberal causes."
"If Garland were confirmed, we can expect to see more gun registration, more gun bans, more limitations on ammunition — and all of it would be approved by the Supreme Court," said the group's executive director, Erich Pratt. "As a practical matter, good people will go to prison for exercising their constitutionally-protected rights."
President Barack Obama nominated Garland, 63, to replace Associate Justice Antonin Scalia, who died on Feb. 13. He was appointed to the appeals court in 1995 by President Bill Clinton and has been chief justice of the court in Washington since 2013.
Garland has long advocated for stricter gun laws.
In 2007, he voted to reverse a D.C. Circuit Court decision striking down Washington's handgun ban as unconstitutional,
The Daily Signal reports. A three-judge panel had ruled against the ban in what became known as the Heller case.
Seven years earlier, Garland backed a Clinton administration move to maintain the registration of gun owners, according to the Daily Signal.
His vote in the McDonald case supported the White House's efforts to use the instant check to illegally retain the names of gun owners for six months.
Both decisions were later struck down by the Supreme Court in 5-4 decisions. In the Heller case, Scalia cast the deciding vote and wrote the majority opinion, the Daily Signal reports.
"Hence, we don't have to speculate as to how Garland would vote on Heller if confirmed to the Supreme Court," Pratt said. "He's already voted against Heller once before, thereby showing he'd effectively rip the Second Amendment from the Constitution."
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