Joe Biden’s Cabinet Nominees are Terribly Anti-Gun

Demand Congress Vote “NO!”

Dear John,

Do you remember when Joe Biden campaigned for president on the promise that he would de-politicize the Justice Department?

Biden has nominated gun-hating Merrick Garland to be the next Attorney General.

And he is pushing political hack (and non-doctor) Xavier Becerra to head the department responsible for fighting COVID.

Will a Failed SCOTUS Nominee Rule the Department of Justice?

You may remember Merrick Garland from five years ago when GOA killed his nomination for the Supreme Court over his consistently anti-gun record. 

In an article for USA Today by GOA’s legislative counsel, we noted that Garland had four chances to vote against gun rights during his tenure on the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals -- and he took them all.

On the Heller case itself, Garland was one of four judges who took up the Heller case, prior to its going before the Supreme Court.

Garland voted against Dick Heller, which puts Garland in a class of people who actually voted that the Second Amendment was nothing but the right of a governor to raise a militia.

Incidentally, when considering whether to rehear an ANTI-gun, three judge decision of the D.C. Circuit, Garland sided with the anti-gunners and opposed rehearing.

At his Judiciary Committee hearing this week, Senator Cruz asked him point blank if his DOJ would “argue for the Supreme Court to overturn Heller v. District of Columbia?”

His response?

“Look, the Department makes all kinds of judgments like that. I can’t promise [that I won’t argue for overturning Heller]” (Emphasis added; found at 6:53:38).

But that’s not all. 

Senator Mike Lee also asked Merrick Garland, “Do you support banning certain types of firearms?”

In response, Garland unfortunately responded:

“Well, as I’m sure you know, the president is a strong supporter of gun control and has been an advocate all his professional life on this question.”

“The role of the Justice Department is to advance the policy program of the administration as long as it is consistent with the law. Where there is room under the law for the president’s policies to be pursued, I think the president is entitled to pursue them” (emphasis added; found at 2:33:02).

Senator Lee further questioned the nominee about his stance on another of President Biden’s key gun control proposals. Lee asked whether Garland supports “holding firearms manufacturers liable for damage caused by people using firearms they produce to commit a crime.”

Garland either feigned ignorance or is unqualified to serve as Attorney General for this response alone, as he stated:

“I have not thought myself deeply about this. I don’t think it raises a Second Amendment issue itself – the question of the liability protection. But I have not addressed this in any way, and I need to think about this considerably more” (emphasis added; found at 2:34:45).

Seriously? Garland hasn’t thought about whether fraudulently putting the gun industry out of business is a Second Amendment issue? He is either a liar or is horribly incompetent -- not that both of those options have to be mutually exclusive.

In 2000, Garland voted to allow the FBI to retain background check records well beyond the immediate destruction required by statutory language. So, Joe Biden’s promise to de-politicize the Justice Department was a filthy lie. Surprise, surprise.  

But if Senate Democrats rally around this anti-gun loon in 2021, we’ll know what to do when they run for reelection in 2022.

Proven Anti-Gunner Headed to Health and Human Services

When gun owners challenged the Standard Capacity Magazine Ban in California’s Duncan v. Becerra, Xavier Becerra defended the measure in court, calling the measure “sensible and constitutional.”  

Then-California Attorney General Xavier Becerra also happily helped implement California’s so-called “Assault Weapon” Registration mandate and defended it in court in Miller v. Becerra.

He also wrote a brief defending California’s handgun ban, known as the so-called Unsafe Handgun Act in a case known as Pena v. Horan.

Becerra also defended California’s failed and unconstitutional Ammunition Background Check System, even though it had a false positive denial rate of over 97 percent at the time in a case labeled Rhode v. Becerra.

Gun Owners of America has done its best to challenge Becerra’s anti-gun agenda. You can read GOA’s amicus briefs by following the links in Duncan and Rhode.

If confirmed, Xavier Becerra will surely use the 80,000 HHS employees and $1.3 trillion budget to circumvent the Dickey Amendment to advocate and promote gun control using a loophole created recently by the passage of the anti-gun Fix NICS legislation.  

The U.S. Senate Judiciary and HELP Committees just held hearings on both of these nominations. So now is a critical time. We need to get as many Senators as possible on record in OPPOSITION to these two.

So please urge your two U.S. Senators to vote NO on Biden’s anti-gun picks for Attorney General and HHS Secretary.

In Liberty,

Aidan Johnston
Director of Federal Affairs
Follow me on Twitter @RealGunLobbyist

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Gals: Make Sure to Join Us at 8pm EST for Empowered 2A!

In other news, GOA is launching our first Empowered 2A zoom event tonight at 8pm eastern time.  Empowered 2A is a coalition exclusively for our female GOA members, and we will be featuring personal defense champion, Nikki Goeser. Make sure you register online for tonight's event here -- that way you'll receive the information for joining the zoom meeting.