Blumenthal incorrectly insists Barrett once called her own gun position 'radical' in opinion

Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., while asking Judge Amy Coney Barrett about her dissent in a gun rights case, incorrectly quoted her as admitting in her opinion that her position was radical, only to insist he was right when she questioned him.

Barrett's dissent was in the case of Kanter v. Barr, in which the majority opinion upheld a state law that forbade convicted felons from owning guns even when the conviction stemmed from a guilty plea to a single count of mail fraud. Barrett argued that where the defendant posed no danger to society, there was no constitutional basis for depriving them of their Second Amendment rights.

"Your opinion in Kanter goes farther than Justice Scalia in Heller," Blumenthal said Tuesday during Barrett's confirmation hearing, referencing the 2007 Supreme Court decision that upheld the right to own a firearm for lawful use not connected to a militia. "In fact, you characterize it as kind of radical. It is in effect an outlier. And it is in fact radical."