Thomas Hardiman

“In the legislative branch, you make the laws... and our role as judges is to interpret the law, not to inject our own policy preferences. So our task is to give an honest construction to what laws are passed by the Legislature.”

“I think any good judge recognizes his or her place in our constitutional government, and that place is not to upset the will of the people as expressed through their elected representatives.”

“I have no hesitation in applying a law regardless of what I might think about it.”

“If I were able to do something unilaterally, I would probably institute a new federal rule that said all cases worth less than $500,000 would be tried without any discovery.”

“The most cogent principle that can be drawn from traditional limitations on the right to keep and bear arms is that dangerous persons likely to use firearms for illicit purposes were not understood to be protected by the Second Amendment.”

“When you grow up on the other side of the tracks, you're used to taking a few bumps.”

“Cloud computing is a fact of life.”

“The need for self-defense naturally exists outside and inside the home, I would hold the 2nd Amendment applies outside the home.”

“I volunteered at Ayuda, in the office, on a regular basis, and I did everything from fingerprinting and interviewing persons of Hispanic origin who entered the country without inspection and who were seeking work-authorization permits.”

“As a district judge, I view my role quite differently than the role of legislators.”

“When I got my law degree and my license to practice here in the District of Columbia, I represented several immigrants who had entered without inspection.”

“Those who drafted and ratified the Second Amendment were undoubtedly aware that the right they were establishing carried a risk of misuse, and States have considerable latitude to regulate the exercise of the right in ways that will minimize that risk. But States may not seek to reduce the danger by curtailing the right itself.”

“Our role as judges is to interpret the law.”

“New Jersey has decided that fewer handguns legally carried in public means less crime. It is obvious that the justifiable need requirement functions as a rationing system designed to limit the number of handguns carried in New Jersey.”

“The threshold question in a Second Amendment challenge is one of scope: whether the Second Amendment protects the person, the weapon, or the activity in the first place.”