Further evidence the gun prohibition lobby is frustrated by federal court rulings upholding the Second Amendment came Wednesday when the Everytown for Gun Safety “Action Fund” joined forces with the Planned Parenthood Action Fund to support federal legislation to create term limits for Supreme Court justices.

The groups have thrown their support behind a bill introduced last year, H.R. 5566, known as the Supreme Court Tenure Establishment and Retirement Modernization Act of 2023. The bill, not surprisingly, has gone nowhere in the U.S. House, which is controlled by as narrow Republican majority.

In a prepared statement, Everytown President John Feinblatt asserted, “This Supreme Court is deeply out of step with the American people on both reproductive rights and gun safety, which is why Everytown is joining Planned Parenthood Action Fund in supporting the TERM Act.”

The Everytown news release also quotes Christina Harvey, executive director at Stand Up America.

“A single justice remaining on the Supreme Court for decades can shape federal law for generations,” Harvey said. “Right now, the Roberts Court is advancing a far-right agenda that undermines our freedoms, including the freedom to live free of gun violence and the freedom to make choices about our own health and bodies.”

Second Amendment advocates see it differently where gun rights are concerned. The Roberts Court has been responsible for three significant decisions since 2008, affirming the right to keep and bear arms is a fundamental, individual right not dependent upon service in a militia.

High court rulings in Heller, McDonald and Bruen have done much to fully restore the Second Amendment as the cornerstone of the Bill of Rights. Recent surveys have shown that liberals and supporters of the Biden-Harris administration still consider the right to bear arms as a government-regulated privilege.

According to a Pew Research report from June 2023, “A majority of Americans (61%) say it is too easy to legally obtain a gun in this country. Far fewer (9%) say it is too hard, while another 30% say it’s about right. (Non-gun owners are nearly twice as likely as gun owners to say it is too easy to legally obtain a gun (73% vs. 38%).”

Evidently, those non-gun owners have never tried to legally purchase a firearm.

In a separate report, Pew Research confirmed, “By overwhelming margins, Joe Biden’s supporters prioritize gun control over gun rights and say gun ownership does more to reduce than increase safety; roughly eight-in-ten Biden supporters (83%) say the increase in guns in the U.S. is at least somewhat bad for society.”

It is a safe presumption those Biden supporters are now Harris supporters

Everytown and other billionaire-backed gun prohibition lobbying groups are furious over the Supreme Court ruling in Garland v. Cargill, which nullified the ban on bump stocks issued by the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives earlier this year. Everytown erroneously calls bump stocks “devices that convert semi-automatic firearms into machine guns.”

Everytown also complains that the “Supreme Court in Bruen unleashed chaos in the courts, setting the stage for challenges to even the most foundational gun safety laws, and leading courts across the country to issue wildly divergent decisions on multiple core issues.”

When it comes to core issues, Everytown might look at other revelations in the Pew poll:

• About four in ten U.S. adults say they live in a household with a gun, including 32% who say they personally own one

• Personal protection tops the list of reasons gun owners give for having a firearm. 

• Gun owners tend to have much more positive feelings about having a gun in the house than nonowners who live with them do

All Everytown has really accomplished here is to remind U.S. gun owners that their rights are on the line in this year’s presidential and congressional elections and likely all the way down the ballot to state gubernatorial and legislative races.

For example, Washington’s race for governor pits Democrat Attorney General Bob Ferguson, an extremist anti-gunner who lobbied for passage of bills banning so-called “assault weapons” and “large-capacity magazines” against former sheriff and Congressman Dave Reichert, who is running on a campaign to restore responsible law enforcement, fiscal responsibility and holding criminals accountable.

This makes it all the more important for gun owners to vote in November. Activists at the state level will be promoting voter registration between now and the end of October, and conducting other efforts to get out the “gun vote” in November.

About Dave Workman