RINO Lindsey Graham's Actions on Nomination Approvals and More Undoes 'Good' Gun Votes

September 03, 2021

By David Codrea for Firearms News (Established in 1946)

“[T]he Biden administration has been completely remaking the Federal Judiciary,” Fox News commentator Tucker Carlson informed his audience in late August. “In just the past three months, without many people noticing it at all, the administration has gotten a remarkable number of its judges through. Joe Biden has nominated 33 of them, nine of those judges have already been confirmed, and many more soon will follow.”

Some of them are “full-blown political activists, they are not jurists, they’re left-wing ideologues.” One Carlson singles out is Myrna Perez, a radical immigration agitator who equates Voter ID with racist Republican voter suppression, recently appointed to the Second Circuit Court of Appeals.

Where is the vocal opposition? Not from “conservative” Lindsey Graham, who, per Carlson, “is the only Republican on the Judiciary Committee who has not voted to reject a single judge the Biden administration has proposed, no matter how crazy they are.”

Why? Especially with a split Senate giving a single vote extraordinary influential power…?

Carlson reminds us of a Politico interview from years back when Graham voiced a primary political ambition to “Stay relevant.”

That makes fair the question “To whom?”

Graham broke with Republicans and voted to confirm first Sonia Sotomayor, and a year later, Elena Kagan to the Supreme Court. Both justices had been opposed by NRA.

And it’s not just judges.

Graham supported Eric Holder for Attorney General. As an interesting side note, NRA, for reasons it has never adequately explained, declined to score a vote for Holder against a Senator’s grade, despite Holder’s well-known anti-gun positions (including signing on to Janet Reno’s amicus brief in the Heller case stating "The Second Amendment does not protect firearms possession or use that is unrelated to participation in a well-regulated militia").

Graham also supported Loretta Lynch for AG, even though she supported a ban on semiautos and went on to become an apologist for Obama’s executive actions on guns, and even though NRA had pleaded with its members to “immediately contact your Senators and ask them to OPPOSE her confirmation as U.S. Attorney General.”

“Lindsey Graham is committed to defending our Right to Keep and Bear Arms from President Obama,” NRA gushed to its members the next time Graham was up for reelection. He was opposed to “universal background checks” and “any treaty by the United Nations.” He “voted for national concealed carry reciprocity.”

That there weren’t enough votes for the first two and that the Republican leadership had no intention of actually bringing reciprocity to the floor isn’t something you want to highlight when you’re making a sales pitch.

[Graham also voted for Merrick Garland for Attorney General: 20 Turncoat Republicans Vote for Garland ]

You also don’t want gun owners to focus on “endorsements” of another kind altogether.

“Everytown for Gun Safety and Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America, a part of Everytown, released the following statement today applauding Sens. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) and Lindsey Graham (R-SC) for introducing the bipartisan Federal Extreme Risk Protection Order Act,” a 2018 press release from the Bloomberg citizen disarmament consortium celebrated. “This legislation would empower family members and law enforcement in 50 states to seek an Extreme Risk Protection Order, a federal court order that temporarily blocks a person from having guns when they pose a serious danger to self or others.”

The other thing those who would have us believe Graham is a “committed defender” don’t want to admit relevance to is his partnership with committed gun-grabber Dick Durbin in pushing what some are calling “Grahamnesty.”

“Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) urged President Trump to support a revived DREAM Act and said at the ‘snap of his fingers’ Trump could convince the Republican Party to unite behind providing a pathway to citizenship for all undocumented immigrants,” PJ Media reported in 2017. “Graham, who won re-election in 2014, also told South Carolina residents who oppose the DREAM Act not to vote for him.”

For reasons they refuse to explain beyond offering a lame “we need to focus on the single issue” excuse, national and state gun groups refuse to acknowledge that what a politician enables on immigration affects the future of the legally recognized right to keep and bear arms. That’s because all credible polls and all real-world experiences in places like California (and more recently Virginia) unequivocally demonstrate that “amnesty” and a “pathway to citizenship” for millions of foreign nationals in this country illegally (and legally, with current culturally suicidal policies) overwhelmingly favor Democrats and anti-gunners.

Democrats know this. It’s not realistic to believe cheap labor Republicans don’t so the inescapable conclusion is man of them have different ultimate priorities than the ones they campaign on.

Give Graham and Durbin what they want, and this will result in supermajorities in state and federal legislatures that will then be able to pass whatever anti-gun edicts they can dream up. It will result in nominations and confirmations of judges to the Supreme and federal courts who will uphold those edicts.

It will be “game over” as far as turning to the “law” for redress of grievances. As Dianne Feinstein fantasized, “Turn ‘em all in, Mr. and Mrs. America.”

Whatever “good” votes Graham has tossed our way over the years to win more NRA “A” ratings, to keep his seat, and to “stay relevant” will no longer matter.

[NOTE: Lindsey Graham, along with many RINOs, often appear on celebrity conservative talk shows and the hosts almost never grill them for their betrayals.]

David Codrea is the winner of multiple journalist awards for investigating/defending the RKBA and a long-time gun owner rights advocate who defiantly challenges the folly of citizen disarmament. In addition to being a regular featured contributor for Firearms News and AmmoLand Shooting Sports News, he blogs at “The War on Guns: Notes from the Resistance,” and posts on Twitter: @dcodrea and Facebook.