The Sotomayor hearings

Between visiting a couple of gun stores yesterday, and mowing the lawn, I managed to look in on Fox News coverage of the Sotomayor hearings, though I didn't follow them closely. I found Senator Coburn's question very interesting. He asked point blank if she believed in a right to self defence. She answered that people had other means of defence. Huh? What other means would those be? In the dark of night, when no one is around, who defends the young woman who just came out of her building at 10:00 pm from a rapist who has been lurking for several hours? Does she believe that Superman will come to her rescue, hearing her screams with his super hearing? Then she proposed to go home, get a gun, and come back and shoot the Senator. It was all a joke, we are to understand by the laughter. That, Judge, would be murder, not self defence. Too bad Coburn didn't follow up the question. If that is what she thinks of as self defence, no wonder she is anti gun. On the other hand, if her view of the law is skewed, won't her rulings only serve to further skew the law? I suspect she needs a remedial course in the law, not to be set up as the final arbiter of the law.

I also found it interesting that she backed away from many of her previous sayings. For instance, she claimed the "Wise latina" line was a rhetorical flourish that back fired. Now, many people do not use language all that well, and can fairly claim that what they said wasn't what they meant. But lawyers believe in the power of words to control men. Judges should be precise in their language, meaning what they say, and saying what they mean. Therefore she is either incompetent, or she is committing perjury now. Either way, she should not be confirmed.

By the way, one of the gun stores I visited yesterday had .45ACP ammunition in abundant supply. In fact, they had both Magtech and PMC. The sale that drew me in was 10% off on guns and optics. There was one Henry lever action, in .30-30 that called my name, but I resisted.