Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor joined the dissent but was escorted by armed guards. McDonald’s v. Chicago (2010), which denied the “private right of armed self-defense.”
In July, one of Sotomayor’s armed guards shot and killed a man attempting to carjack her outside her home.
by New York PostIncident Occurred Shortly after 1 a.m. on July 5, 2024, Kenneth Flowers, then 18, allegedly pointed a gun at a U.S. marshal assigned to guard the judge, causing the marshal to return fire, leaving Flowers with non-life-threatening injuries.
From 5 to 4 McDonald’s In its decision, the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) held that Second Amendment rights are incorporated through the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution.
Justice Samuel Alito wrote the majority opinion, with two dissenting opinions, one by Justice John Paul Stevens and one by Justice Stephen Breyer, and, importantly, Justice Breyer was joined by Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Sotomayor.
Breyer/Ginsburg/Sotomayor Claimed“I can find nothing in the Second Amendment’s language, history, or underlying rationale to warrant characterizing it as ‘fundamental’ insofar as it seeks to protect the right to keep and bear arms for private self-defense purposes.”
In his dissenting opinion, he criticized the previous Supreme Court decision and then District of Columbia v. Heller (2008) Breyer/Ginsburg/Sotomayor further stated, Heller is fundamental.”
In the opening paragraph of their dissenting opinion, Breyer/Ginsburg/Sotomayor argued, “In short, the Framers did not draft the Second Amendment to protect a private right of armed self-defense. There has never been, and there is no, consensus that that right is or ever was ‘fundamental.'”
Sotomayor, who was under armed guard, denied the claim that the Second Amendment was enacted to protect people’s “right of private self-defense.”
RELATED — AWR Hawkins: ‘Self-defense’ is ‘Central Element of the Second Amendment’
Ahawkins
AWR Hawkins is an award-winning Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News and the author and curator of Down Range with AWR Hawkins, a weekly newsletter focused on all things Second Amendment, also for Breitbart News. He is a political analyst for Armed American Radio, a member of Gun Owners of America, and the Global Marketing Director for Lone Star Hunts. He was a visiting scholar at the Russell Kirk Center for Cultural Renewal in 2010 and earned his PhD in military history. Follow him on Instagram: FollowYou can subscribe to Downrange at breitbart.com/downrange . To contact me directly, please email awrhawkins@breitbart.com
