An adjunct professor at the University of Maine School of Law flubbed an elementary question about constitutional law and the U.S. Bill of Rights during a Wednesday hearing over a proposed gun control law.
Margaret Groban, a retired federal prosecutor and law professor who specializes in gun control policies, was asked during a hearing of the Judiciary Committee whether the Bill of Rights limits the federal government or U.S. citizens.
She couldn’t answer.
“The bill of rights is a restriction upon government, not the people. That’s correct, right?” asked Rep. John Andrews (R-Paris).
“That’s a soft ball,” Andrews said, after Groban appeared tongue-tied for five seconds.
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Groban also was unfamiliar with Maine’s Constitution, which states that the right to bear arms “shall never be questioned.”
As anyone with a basic understanding of the American founding and the Constitution would know, the Founding Fathers were quite explicit that the purpose of the Bill of Rights was to encumber the federal government.
In a letter to James Madison dated December 20, 1787, Thomas Jefferson emphasized the necessity of a bill of rights: “A bill of rights is what the people are entitled to against every government on earth, general or particular, and what no just government should refuse, or rest on inference.”
In 1791, Jefferson echoed that sentiment in a letter to George Washington.
“I consider the foundation of the Constitution as laid on this ground: That ‘all powers not delegated to the United States, by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States or to the people’ [Tenth Amendment]. To take a single step beyond the boundaries thus specially drawn around the powers of Congress, is to take possession of a boundless field of power, no longer susceptible to any definition,” Jefferson said.
Madison, often referred to as the “Father of the Constitution,” was also a leading advocate for the Bill of Rights as a check on the power of the new federal government.
These finer details of American history and American philosophy seemed to elude Groban during Wednesday’s hearing.
Groban was testifying as an expert witness at the invitation of legislative Democrats who support a bill that would make gunmakers and gun dealers liable for damages individuals cause with firearms.
The proposed law would give the Maine Attorney General broad powers to target businesses in the gun industry, including, according to Groban, the ability to take action against businesses based on the suspicion that they may sell a firearm to the wrong person.
Andrews followed up with a question about whether the bill might create a precedent for holding other companies, like pharmaceutical companies, liable for damages caused by their products.
In particular, Andrews asked why Groban was advocating for new liability laws that target a constitutional right — the right to bear arms — when other potentially dangerous products, such as COVID-19 vaccines, are not similarly protected by the U.S. Constitution yet their makers enjoy legal immunity.
In response, Groban said she was not aware that vaccine manufacturers are immune from liability claims.
