WASHINGTON—As the confirmation process for President Trump’s Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett continues, U.S. Senator Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) on Thursday joined gun violence prevention advocates for a press conference to discuss the potential implications of Barrett’s confirmation and the consequences for gun safety laws. Connecticut Against Gun Violence’s Jeremy Stein, Moms Demand Action’s Alexis Gevanter, Kristin and Mike Song of Newton Action Alliance, and Mothers United Against Violence’s Deborah Davis joined Murphy at the press conference.

“The truth of the matter is that if Amy Coney Barrett is put on the Supreme Court, Connecticut's anti-gun violence laws will be immediately at risk. Not just our bans on assault weapons and high capacity magazines, but our system of background checks, our system of gun permits,” said Murphy. “Amy Coney Barrett is a radical on the issue of guns. She has a radical interpretation of the Second Amendment. She is far to the right of her hero, Justice Antonin Scalia, who wrote the decision striking down centuries of precedent on the Second Amendment.”

Murphy continued: “The worry is that if Amy Coney Barrett gets [confirmed], in short order, by 5-4 majorities, the Supreme Court could invalidate Connecticut's background checks law, Connecticut’s ban on assault weapons, Connecticut's ban on high capacity magazines. And this may start very quickly, because this August, the Ninth Circuit ruled by a slim majority against a state law banning high capacity magazines. So that case may come before the Supreme Court very, very quickly. And we expect that Amy Coney Barrett and four other judges will rule to take away Connecticut's right to restrict these hundred round drums that have been used by mass murderers.”

A full transcript of Murphy’s remarks are below:

“Good morning. Thank you very much for joining us here today. My name is Chris Murphy. I have the honor of representing Connecticut in the United States Senate. I'm joined here today by a cross section of anti-gun violence advocates. From the state we will [hear] from in a moment, we are here to talk about the pending nomination of Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court.

“The truth of the matter is that if Amy Coney Barrett is put on the Supreme Court, Connecticut's anti-gun violence laws will be immediately at risk. Not just our bans on assault weapons and high capacity magazines, but our system of background checks, our system of gun permits. Amy Coney Barrett is a radical on the issue of guns. She has a radical interpretation of the Second Amendment. She is far to the right of her hero, Justice Antonin Scalia, who wrote the decision striking down centuries of precedent on the Second Amendment.

“We think it's really important for people to know what is going to happen to violence rates all across this country, if Amy Coney Barrett is put on the Supreme Court. And you'll hear today from four extraordinary advocates on the issue of gun violence. Before I say a few more words about this nomination, let me just tell you how proud we all have been this week watching Senator Blumenthal stand up for what's right on the Judiciary Committee. I spoke with Dick yesterday, he sends his regards, he’ll be back up in state tomorrow. But he has done an extraordinary job of questioning this nominee, talking about the victims of gun violence, and what her radical worldview will mean in neighborhoods like South End and the North End of Hartford.

“Let me thank so many of our other great advocates who may not be speaking here today, but we've got representatives from many of the gun groups here today. Special thanks to Reverend Brown and Henrietta Beckman who have been guides for me over the course of the last seven years.

“Let me tell you why we know Amy Coney Barrett is a radical. We know she's a radical because one of the handful of cases that she wrote an opinion on during her time on the appellate court was a case on the constitutionality of background checks. The case is called Kanter v. Barr. She was a dissenting voice in Kanter v. Barr, but what she wrote is absolutely bone-chilling.

“What she said in Kanter v. Barr is that felons should be allowed to own guns. Let me say that again. Amy Coney Barrett believes felons should be allowed to own guns. She believes that it is unconstitutional for state legislatures or the Congress to stop all felons from being able to own guns. And she comes to that conclusion in two different ways.

“First, Amy Coney Barrett says that it shouldn't be up to legislatures to decide who is dangerous, it should be up to courts to make that decision. These are justices that aren't elected, these are justices that don't spend their time in the neighborhoods that are plagued with the high rates of gun violence, these are justices who don’t spend time with the victims of suicides or domestic violence or accidental shootings. But Amy Coney Barrett said in Kanter v. Barr that the legislature shouldn't make the decision about who's dangerous, judges should make that decision. That's extraordinary. That's radical. There's almost no other judge in the federal system that has come to that conclusion. In fact, there's no other court that has come to that conclusion in the federal system.

“The second thing she says is that judges should review all of the evidence to make sure that the law actually makes people more safe, and that's not what judges are supposed to do. Judges aren't supposed to come to their own policy conclusion, they're just supposed to decide whether the law is constitutional or not. But Amy Coney Barrett decides that in this case there's not enough evidence that certain classes of felons are dangerous to uphold this law.

“The problem with judges deciding to become legislators is that the NRA has funded reams of bogus research to tell you that the more guns in our communities, the safer people are. Now that's all bunk. It's not real science. It's not real data. It's just been constructed by the NRA. But, by Amy Coney Barrett's standards, as long as she's got an NRA-funded research report in front of her, she can invalidate any gun laws she wants.

“She belongs to a radical strain of jurisprudence that likely believes the Second Amendment doesn't allow for any regulation of guns. No background checks, no permits, no bans on assault weapons. And she will be joined by four other judges on the Supreme Court that likely think the same thing. It is likely that Alito and Thomas and Kavanaugh and Gorsuch also have some sort of sense of the Second Amendment similar to Amy Coney Barrett’s.

“And so what we worry is very real. The worry is that if Amy Coney Barrett gets [confirmed], in short order, by 5-4 majorities, the Supreme Court could invalidate Connecticut's background checks law, Connecticut’s ban on assault weapons, Connecticut's ban on high capacity magazines. And this may start very quickly, because this August, the Ninth Circuit ruled by a slim majority against a state law banning high capacity magazines. So that case may come before the Supreme Court very, very quickly. And we expect that Amy Coney Barrett and four other judges will rule to take away Connecticut's right to restrict these hundred round drums that have been used by mass murderers.

“And if they can take away that right, then they will move to taking away our right to stop assault weapons from being sold in stores in Connecticut. And then if they can take away that right, they will take away our ability to do universal background checks. This is a make or break moment for Connecticut's series of strong anti-gun violence measures. And we're going to fight this nomination like hell because she's a radical on healthcare, she's a radical on choice, she's a radical on pollution. But she's also a radical on the issue of guns.

“That opinion that she wrote in the Kanter case has no agreements from any other court. In fact, there are 110 other district and appellate court decisions that disagree with her opinion. There is no district or appellate court decision in the history of the country that agrees with Amy Coney Barrett’s dissenting opinion. That's how far out of the mainstream she is on the issue of guns, and that's why we worry about what her nomination will mean for our ability to keep Connecticut’s strong gun policy.

“So, with that, let me have you hear from a handful of our great advocates. We're going to go in this order. And I'll just ask you to come up to the podium in this order, if you will. First, Deb Davis from Mothers United Against Violence, then Kristin Song, who is a board member of Newtown Action Alliance, Jeremy Stein from Connecticut Against Gun Violence, and Alexis Gevanter from Moms Demand Action.”

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