Ted Cruz: Senate Can’t Let Democrats Use Scalia’s Death to Erase 2nd Amendment

During the February 14 airing of This Week with George Stephanopoulos, Republican presidential hopeful Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) stressed that the Senate cannot allow Democrats to use Antonin Scalia’s death to erase the Second Amendment by writing it out of the constitution.

Cruz suggested the amendment’s protections of individual gun rights are “hanging in the balance” and could disappear if Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and others were to cave and confirm an Obama-nominated justice to the Supreme Court before the next president is elected.

Cruz described the Scalia-era SCOTUS as a “5-4 court” and said “the people need to decide” Scalia’s replacement by deciding who the next president will be in November.

Cruz said:

I don’t think the American people want a court that will strip our religious liberties. I don’t think the American people want a court that will mandate unlimited abortion-on-demand, partial birth abortion with taxpayer funding and no parental notification. And I don’t think the American people want a court that will write the Second Amendment out of the constitution.

Stephanopoulos tested Cruz’s commitment to defending the court by asking if Cruz would filibuster a nominee if Obama put one forth and the Senate leadership agreed to vote. Cruz said, “Absolutely.” Cruz said the coming election “should be a referendum on the court” and that he looks forward to standing on the stage with Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders and forcing them to own their liberal vision for the SCOTUS.

Breitbart News previously reported that Scalia’s death opens the door for a new justice to swing the SCOTUS in a direction that will reverse decisions which held the Second Amendment as a protection on individual rights. Liberals maintain that the Second Amendment protects collective rights, rather than individual ones and a judgement reflecting this view would not only only reverse Scalia’s position–clearly set forth in District of Columbia v Heller (2008)–but would also give the government a green light to place heavy regulations and outright prohibitions on the exercise of rights currently protected by the Second Amendment.

AWR Hawkins is the Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News and political analyst for Armed American Radio. Follow him on Twitter: @AWRHawkins. Reach him directly at awrhawkins@breitbart.com.