In the interest of clarifying why I object to Mr. Koh's nomination, I will post some quotes from his lecture “A World Drowning in Guns” (Fordham Law Review, Vol. 71).

On page 2342 (from the bottom of first paragraph):
“Those seeking to create and embed certain human rights principles into international and domestic law should promote transnational interactions, that generate legal interpretations, than can in turn be internalized into the domestic law of even skeptical nation-states.
Applying this approach to developing a global regulatory solution for small arms and light weapons, we can break down the problem into five stages:”
….
“Fourth, “horizontal process”…
The goal, as I have specified elsewhere, is creating a law-declaring forum that can operate at the global level to declare and international norm against the illicit sale, transfer and use of small arms and light weapons…”
“The fifth and final step I call “vertical process”, the process whereby rules negotiated among governments at a horizontal, intergovernmental level and interpreted through the action of transnational actors in these law-declaring fora are brought down vertically into the domestic law of each participating country –”brought home”, if you will– and internalized into the domestic statutes, executive practice and judicial systems of those participating nations.”

I oppose the confirmation of someone who wants to impose on us the citizens of the USA laws created by “law-declaring fora” composed of government bureaucrats (and maybe politicians) from various countries, none of whom are beholden to the people of our country (save perhaps a few from the US government, but even they would more likely be appointed than elected).

If that so-called “law-declaring fora” decides that no individual has the right to keep and bear arms (or do anything else), we in the US are not obligated to change our laws and surrender our rights. I am wary of any such international law-declaring fora, so far removed from the interests of, and not directly elected by, the people of any country.

One of the important founding principles of our country is that power corrupts, and therefore that those who make the laws should be elected by the people, and that the powers of the government should be strictly limited by our Constitution.

Sincerely,
S. Lan Smith

My family has owned guns for generations (four that I know personally), and I know of no incident in which any member of my family has shot anyone (although perhaps some of my great uncles, when serving in WWII might have). Most of us gun owners are not hateful killers. It is not hateful to try to defend one's rights be opposing the confirmation to a government job of someone who has stated that he wants to revoke those rights. I have tried to express my opinions calmly and respectfully.

Yo Lanimal, So far the administration has expanded gun owner rights by allowing guns in national parks. That is just extremist hate talk to get the radicals to grab their guns and head into a museum, abortion clinic or maybe shoot a few cops in PA. The hate talk is working.

I suppose it must be awfully boring for some people to see how doggedly other freedom-loving people resist the rise of great socialist leaders and try to thwart the “progressive” agendas that are supposed to work for the ill-defined “Greater Good”. I myself take heart that some of us still resist.

However, I must oppose his confirmation to this important position because of his statements that US law should defer (conform) to international law. Given Mr. Koh's, the current Attorney General's and President Obama's support for restricting our right to keep and bear arms, there is a very good chance that they will use such reasoning to impose “international” laws or treaties restricting the availability of guns (or ammunition) in our country.

The potential for imposing gun control through international laws is not the only problem with his “transnational” position, but it is a very important one. The people who founded our nation believed that each of us (as individuals, not as some “collective”) have inalienable rights, including the right to arm ourselves, individually, in order to defend those individual rights.

With all due respect, gregorywonderwheel, the fact that certain politicians of one party have violated the constitution does not justify other violations by politicians of a different party. Often when I disagree with some policy of the current presidential administration, fans of our current president bring up the horrible violations of our constitution by the previous one, which I deplore as well. Is the idea that every president should be allowed to violate our rights at least as much as those who came before him? I reject that.

I heartily encourage any member of Congress (no matter of which political party) who respects the rights granted to us US citizens by our constitution to vote against Mr. Koh's confirmation and to vocally oppose it. I am not a “Republican” or a “Democrat”. I am a concerned US citizen.