Sonia Sotomayor

Sonia Sotomayor, President Obama's choice for the U.S. Supreme Court, defended her views that the Second Amendment right to bear arms is not binding on states – declaring that she has friends who hunt.

At today's Senate confirmation hearing, Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., asked Sotomayor, "Is it safe to say you accept the Second Amendment is an individual right?"

Sotomayor, 55, told the Senate Judiciary Committee: "I understand how important the right to keep and bear arms is to many people; one of my godchildren is a member of the NRA. I have friends who hunt."

She attempted to reassure lawmakers that she wouldn't bring "preconceived notions" about guns to the Supreme Court if she is confirmed as a justice.

On Jan. 28 Sotomayor was a member of a three-judge panel of the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New York that ruled that the Second Amendment does not apply to the states.

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Even though the Supreme Court had struck down a Washington, D.C., gun ban only seven months earlier, the panel upheld New York's law prohibiting private possession or use of a martial arts weapon, known as a nunchaku, stating, "It is settled law . . . that the 2nd Amendment applies only to limitations the federal government seeks to impose on this right."

In Maloney v. Cuomo, defendant James M. Maloney, an attorney, was charged with six violations including a felony, for possession a nunchaku in his private residence.

In June, Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., accused the panel of making a concerted effort to voice its views on the Second Amendment, saying Sotomayor used language "that was not necessary to decide the case in front of her."

The panel's reasoning, Sessions told the Los Angeles Times, "would eviscerate the 2nd Amendment in many parts of the country."

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