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.
WATCH:
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.
<span class="dsq-postid" data-dsqidentifier="24730 https://www.themainewire.com/?p=24730">12 Comments
This lawyer is not aware that vaccine manufacturers are immune from liability claims? Holy smokes! Maine is being led by the blind into the abyss.
she knows. she just doesn’t want to say so, because the truth doesn’t support her position. If she can’t be this simple honest then what crap is she teaching our children? Another enemy of the republic.
Another Piled High & Deep at Useless of Maine.
What did she plagiarize to get a high paying do nothing job?
The sheer incompetence is mind boggling.
I’m sure she would also find it difficult to define what a “woman” is….and I’m not convinced it’s entirely due to lack of knowing, though no doubt she is incompetent, but lack of a backbone that is required to speak truthfully.
What these Leftist Democrat morons never understood is that the Bill of Rights doesn’t grant rights it RECOGNIZES the intrinsic / natural rights of all people.
You have the right to defend yourself, your family and your country by nature not granted by government
Those pesky citizens.
This “professor” is typical of the rot within our institutions of higher learning.
Fyi, “Vaccine” manufacturers are protected under the PREP Act….unless there is fraud such as inadequate clinical trials or the claim that they are “safe and effective”. The weasel, Fauci, Collins, Baric, Daszak, and so on should all be in prison by now for their illegal involvement in GoF bioweapons research while using multiple millions of taxpayer dollars to finance their projects that facilitated1.2m American deaths.
Anyone still wondering what’s wrong with American colleges and universities?
UNBELIEVABLE!!! Thank God Almighty for legislators like Rep. John Andrews (R-Paris)!
No, I think she is correct. The second amendment is an affirmative right to gun ownership. If the restriction was against the government, the amendment would read, “the government shall not take any persons firearms.” There are rights and liberties. Rights are granted to the individual, liberties restrain the government from action. An example of a liberty is the establishment clause, a right is the second amendment. Overall, yes, the Bill of Rights is to restrain the government. Largely a semantic argument.