According to a judge appointed by President Obama, laws banning illegal aliens from owning guns violate the Second Amendment, giving Republicans an opportunity to use their party platform to demonstrate that a correct interpretation of the Constitution puts gun rights and border security on the same footing, and that the future of these issues depends on the 2024 elections.
Federal prosecutors charged Heriberto Carvajal Flores under 18 USC § 922(g)(5), a federal law that criminalizes the possession of firearms by illegal immigrants. However, Judge Sharon Coleman of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois took a different view. She ruled in favor of Carvajal Flores, striking down the law and finding that Section 922(g)(5) violates the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms.
Coleman argued that he was following the Supreme Court’s landmark 2022 decision, New York State Rifle and Pistol Association v. Bruen, in which the court held that the Second Amendment allows only those firearms restrictions that are consistent with the right to keep and bear arms as voters understood it when Americans ratified the Second Amendment in 1791.
The judges appointed by President Obama were wrong. The Second Amendment to the United States Constitution guarantees law-abiding, peaceable citizens of the United States the right to keep and bear firearms. By definition, illegal immigrants are not citizens and are not law-abiding. In 1791 there were fugitives, but the police could take their weapons away from them. The police can also take weapons away from those caught in criminal activity. An illegal immigrant arrested for a crime is both.
The court’s decision highlights several issues, all of which are important to Milwaukee’s Republican delegates as the Republican Platform Committee meets this week to craft the 2024 GOP platform.
First, border security is a top priority for American voters, and the left is desperate to create a rift between Republican base and other voters. The left is gaslighting voters by claiming that the border bill supported by Democrats is a border security measure, but in reality it is a border concession that will hinder President Trump’s ability to repair the border if he retakes the White House.
And as that false promise crumbles, the left is looking for something that will make some Americans rethink border security and how to deal with the millions of illegal immigrants who are now here because of Biden. The Constitution is no obstacle to securing the border.
Second, when it comes to the Constitution, the Second Amendment continues to play a constitutional role as an insurance policy for liberty across generations. Republicans must continue to uphold that right by defending what it protects, including the right of law-abiding citizens to own and bear firearms for everyday use. But we must not fall prey to the left’s false choice that supporting the Second Amendment means giving guns to illegal immigrants trying to flee law enforcement officers.
Third, Republicans must support justices who will correctly apply the Constitution’s original and public meaning. This Illinois federal judge got it wrong, but it may ultimately be up to the Supreme Court to get it right. From securing the border to deporting illegal immigrants to upholding the Second Amendment, Republicans must ignore the polls and the elitist pundits and demand Supreme Court justices who will be courageous and uncompromising in their work.
Republicans must be fully aware of the situation America finds itself in, with part of the current ruling party dominated by authoritarian socialists who are pushing for radical change in the country and attacking the foundations of America’s fundamental constitutional structure.
The Republican Platform has been, and must remain, a rallying cry for all freedom-loving people in 2024. It includes these three issues, and many others. Giving every member of the Republican coalition something to hold on to, it will ensure that the Republican Party remains the home of the conservative ideals that have made America the greatest nation in the history of the world.
America remains a center-right country. Most conservative issues, if properly framed and communicated, are issues that are supported by majorities of the electorate. When conservative policies are properly justified and defined, they reinforce and support each other, and are essential to Republican dominance in modern elections.
Republicans have a crucial task in Milwaukee: setting the stage in principle for President Trump to launch a general election campaign to retake the presidency.
Former U.S. Ambassador Ken Blackwell is a member of the National Rifle Association’s board of directors and chairman of the Conservative Action Project. Follow him on X (formerly Twitter) at @kenblackwell.
Breitbart News senior legal contributor Ken Klukowski has served in the White House and the Department of Justice. Follow @kenklukowski on X (formerly Twitter).
