Last week, two armed federal marshals providing security for Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor shot and killed a man who attempted to carjack her in self-defense, calling into question the Supreme Court’s 2010 co-signed condemnation of firearm protection as a Second Amendment right.
Kentrell Flowers, 18, was shot Friday after approaching an unmarked sheriff’s vehicle near Sotomayor’s home. Police reports say Flowers pointed a handgun at one of two deputies on duty through the driver’s side window in an apparent attempt to commandeer the vehicle.
Flowers was arrested at the hospital. Be indicted armed auto robbery, possession of an unlicensed handgun and possession of a large-capacity ammunition feeding device.
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U.S. Supreme Court Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Amy Coney Barrett (not pictured) speak with moderator Eric Liu, co-founder and CEO of Citizen University, during a panel discussion at the Civic Learning Week National Forum at George Washington University on March 12, 2024 in Washington, DC. (Jahi Chikwendiu/The Washington Post via Getty Images)
The case prompted criticism of Justice Sotomayor’s Second Amendment positions during her time on the Supreme Court, including a dissenting opinion she co-signed that found the Constitution does not protect “a private right of armed self-defense.”
In that case, McDonald Vs.. In a 2010 case decided in Chicago, then-Justice Stephen Breyer dissented from a majority ruling that the Second Amendment guarantees an individual right to own guns despite state or local regulation.
“In short, the Framers did not draft the Second Amendment to protect a private right of armed self-defense,” Breyer wrote.
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Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor gestures and speaks about her childhood home life and what inspired her to become a lawyer at the Mississippi Book Festival in Jackson, Mississippi, on August 17, 2019. (AP Photo/Rogelio V. Solis, File)
Ryan Petty, a school safety activist whose daughter was killed in the 2018 Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting, commented on X’s post about the incident, calling it “defensive gun use.”
“Sotomayor is protected by the same guns she has repeatedly said civilians don’t need and shouldn’t own,” Capital Research’s Parker Thayer said of the X.
““Justice Sotomayor has dissented in several important Second Amendment cases over the years and has been a staunch opponent of an individual’s right to self-defense,” Eric Pratt, executive vice president of the National Gun Owners Association, told Fox News Digital.
“It is incredibly ironic, even hypocritical, that her own bodyguards were forced to exercise this fundamental and universal right to protect themselves in an extremely dangerous situation. I hope, but am not hopeful, that this incident will open her eyes,” he said.
This term, Sotomayor wrote a dissent in a case that argued that a ban on firearm accessories called “bump stocks” is unconstitutional.
Attempted carjacker targets security officer for Supreme Court Justice Sotomayor, suspect shot dead
“Today the Supreme Court has put bump stocks back into civilian hands. In doing so, it has ignored Congress’ definition of ‘machine gun’ and adopted a definition that is inconsistent with the ordinary meaning of the statutory text and unsupported by context or purpose. If I see a bird that walks like a duck, swims like a duck and quacks like a duck, I call it a duck. A semi-automatic rifle equipped with a bump stock ‘automatically fires multiple rounds with a single pull of the trigger without the need for manual reloading.’ Like Congress, I call this a machine gun, and I respectfully dissent,” she wrote.
Nominated to the Supreme Court by then-President Barack Obama, Sotomayor drew criticism from lawmakers concerned about her Second Amendment principles.
In 2004, she co-authored an opinion citing precedent that “the right to bear arms is clearly not a fundamental right.”
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In 2009, she also voted in favor of the Second Circuit Court of Appeals’ ruling that Second Amendment rights do not apply to the states.
Fox News Digital’s Steven Sorellese contributed to this report.
