Giffords Law Center Condemns Senate for Confirming Nominee with Dangerous Gun Lobby Positions to Lifetime Appointment on Federal Bench       

May 22, 2019 — Today, Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence condemned the United States Senate’s confirmation of Howard C. Nielson, Jr., to a lifetime appointment as a federal judge. The organization spoke out because of Nielson’s record of advocating dangerous gun lobby positions that would undermine public safety laws.

Robyn Thomas, Giffords Law Center Executive Director:

“The federal bench in Utah is no place for a jurist who has taken his marching orders from the gun lobby. But that’s exactly where a Washington, DC lawyer who spent his career advocating a radical view of the Second Amendment is headed. The President long ago caved to pressure from the lobbyists and gun-industry executives who bankrolled his campaign and demanded he stock the courts with extremist judges. But the Senate had a chance to stand up for the rest of the country, and it’s shameful that a majority in the Senate rubber-stamped a radical judge who will shape the law for a generation. Time will show they chose to back a reckless gun lobby agenda over upholding laws that keep Americans safe.”

Giffords Law Center previously spoke out against the Senate Judiciary Committee for advancing the nomination of Howard C. Nielson, Jr., for an opening on the U.S. District Court for the District of Utah. A letter to committee leadership warned that the nominee’s extremist views and his absolutist interpretation of the Second Amendment have consistently led him to push for the weakening of gun safety laws. With a history of working for the National Rifle Association and other gun lobby groups, Nielson’s ability to remain independent and impartial in cases pertaining to gun laws and the Second Amendment is in doubt.

 In the letter, the Giffords Law Center noted that the Supreme Court in District of Columbia v. Heller ruled that the right to keep and bear arms was “not unlimited,” yet Nielson has worked on cases to undermine public safety laws backed by Heller.

Nielson has made the following arguments for the NRA and other gun lobby groups:

• The federal law barring handgun sales to people under 21 must be struck down under the Second Amendment. Congress has barred federally licensed gun dealers from selling handguns to young people under 21because they are four times more likely to commit gun homicides than older adults.
• The Texas law that limits concealed carry permits to law abiding adults at least 21 years old must be struck down under the Second Amendment. The decision to not allow young adults to carry hidden, loaded weapons in public was derided by Nielson as unconstitutional; in a separate case, he argued it violated the Second Amendment to require a good reason to receive a permit to carry a hidden, loaded gun in public.
• A city in Illinois was violating the Second Amendment by restricting access to military-style assault rifles and large capacity ammunition magazines that were used in mass shootings in Aurora, Newtown, Orlando, Las Vegas, Sutherland Springs, and Parkland. Neilson’s argument for the Illinois Rifle Association that these weapons were not “dangerous” and actually “safer” than other firearms did not persuade the US Supreme Court and has been rejected by every federal Court of Appeals that has considered similar restrictions on assault weapons and large capacity magazines.