WASHINGTON - October 31 - How could it have gone in any other direction, from a White House that just gave blanket immunity to the gun industry, which refuses to bar terrorists from buying  guns, that broke a campaign promise and put Uzis and AK-47s back on America’s city streets, and insisted that records of gun purchases be destroyed before the sun sets on them twice?

It had to be a Supreme Court pick that favors legal machine guns.

In 1996, Judge Samuel Alito was the sole judge who dissented from his Third Circuit Court of Appeals colleagues when they upheld the authority of Congress to ban fully automatic machine guns.  

“Earth to Sammy - who needs legal machine guns?” asked Jim Brady, chair of the Brady Campaign.  “The Chicago mobsters of the 1930s would be giddy.  But the man I worked for, who gave us Sandra Day O’Connor and signed the 1986 machine gun ban, would be shaking his head.”

“Judge Alito’s ludicrous machine gun decision is bad enough.  But it also indicates that a Justice Ilito would attempt to prevent Congress from passing other laws to protect Americans from gun violence,” said Michael D. Barnes, President of the Brady Campaign.  “If Judge Alito had his way, the federal machine gun ban would have been struck down as unconstitutional, and the private possession of these weapons would have become legal.”

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