Senator Coburn gets Sotomayor to reveal that she doesn't believe in a right to self defense

http://johnrlott.blogspot.com/2009/07/senator-coburn-gets-sotomayor-to-reveal.html

COBURN: Thank you.

Let me follow up with one other question. As a citizen of this
country, do you believe innately in my ability to have self-defense of
myself -- personal self-defense? Do I have a right to personal self-
defense?

SOTOMAYOR: I'm trying to think if I remember a case where the Supreme
Court has addressed that particular question. Is there a
constitutional right to self-defense? And I can't think of one. I
could be wrong, but I can't think of one.

SOTOMAYOR: Generally, as I understand, most criminal law statutes are
passed by states. And I'm also trying to think if there's any federal
law that includes a self-defense provision or not. I just can't.

What I was attempting to explain is that the issue of self- defense is
usually defined in criminal statutes by the state's laws. And I would
think, although I haven't studied the -- all of the state's laws, I'm
intimately familiar with New York.

COBURN: But do you have an opinion, or can you give me your opinion,
of whether or not in this country I personally, as an individual
citizen, have a right to self-defense?

SOTOMAYOR: I -- as I said, I don't know.

COBURN: I'm talking about your...

SOTOMAYOR: I don't know if that legal question has been ever presented.

COBURN: I wasn't asking about the legal question. I'm asking about
your personal opinion.

SOTOMAYOR: But that is sort of an abstract question with no particular
meaning to me outside of...

COBURN: Well, I think that's what American people want to hear, Your
Honor, is they want to know. Do they have a right to personal
self-defense?

Do -- does the Second Amendment mean something under the 14th
Amendment? Does what the Constitution -- how they take the
Constitution, not how our bright legal minds but what they think is
important, is it OK to defend yourself in your home if you're under
attack?

In other words, the general theory is do I have that right? And I
understand if you don't want to answer that because it might influence
your position that you might have in a case, and that's a fine answer
with me.

But I -- those are the kind of things people would like for us to
answer and would like to know, not how you would rule or what you're
going to rule, but -- and specifically what you think about, but just
yes or no. Do we have that right? SOTOMAYOR: I know it's difficult to
deal with someone as a -- like a judge who's so sort of -- whose
thinking is so cornered by law.

COBURN: I know. It's hard.

SOTOMAYOR: Could I...

COBURN: Kind of like a doctor. I can't quit using doctor terms.

SOTOMAYOR: Exactly. That's exactly right, but let me try to address
what you're saying in the context that I can, OK, which is what I have
experience with, all right, which is New York criminal law, because I
was a former prosecutor. And I'm talking in very broad terms.

But, under New York law, if you're being threatened with eminent death
or very serious injury, you can use force to repel that, and that
would be legal. The question that would come up, and does come up
before juries and judges, is how eminent is the threat. If the threat
was in this room, "I'm going to come get you," and you go home and get
-- or I go home.

I don't want to suggest I am, by the way. Please, I'm not -- I don't
want anybody to misunderstand what I'm trying to say.

(LAUGHTER)

If I go home, get a gun, come back and shoot you, that may not be
legal under New York law because you would have alternative ways to
defend...

COBURN: You'll have lots of 'splainin' to do.

SOTOMAYOR: I'd be in a lot of trouble then.

But I couldn't do that under a definition of self-defense. And so,
that's what I was trying to explain in terms of why, in looking at
this as a judge, I'm thinking about how that question comes up and how
the answer can differ so radically, given the hypothetical facts
before you.

COBURN: Yes. You know...

SOTOMAYOR: Or not the...