Kagan: "Well, they might be infringed"

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1. Elena Kagan said as a U.S. Supreme Court law clerk in 1987 that she was "not sympathetic" toward a man who contended that his constitutional rights were violated when he was convicted for carrying an unlicensed pistol.

   Kagan, whom President Barack Obama nominated to the high court this week, made the comment to Justice Thurgood Marshall, urging him in a one-paragraph memo to vote against hearing the District of Columbia man's appeal.

   The man's "sole contention is that the District of Columbia's firearms statutes violate his constitutional right to 'keep and bear arms,'" Kagan wrote. "I'm not sympathetic."

2. While in the Clinton White House, Kagan took on gun (and tobacco) industries.

   During her confirmation as solicitor general, Kagan said the Second Amendment, like freedom of speech, enjoys "strong but not unlimited protection."

   In a questioner from Sen. Chuck Grassley (R) about gun rights during her confirmation to be Solicitor General, Kagan had this to say:

   "Once again, there is no question, after Heller, that the Second Amendment guarantees individuals the right to keep and bear arms and that this right, like others in the Constitution, provides strong although not unlimited protection against governmental regulation."

Article the third [Amendment I]

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Article the fourth [Amendment II][3]

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.