L to R: Retd. U.S. Judge Charles Pickering, Late U.S. Justice Antonin Scalia,

Current U.S. Justice Elena Kagan, & Mississippi Secretary of State

Delbert Hosemann in a hunting lodge, full of trophies, on Dec. 16, 2014, in North Mississippi.

Both late conservative Justice Scalia (1936-2016) and current liberal Justice Kagan (born 1960 and appointed by President Obama in 2010) were odd hunting buddies.

After visiting the University of Mississippi School of Law on Tuesday, December 16, 2014, the two justices accompanied by the two gentlemen listed above went hunting in North Mississippi.

The hunt included shooting of ducks and quail.

Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan bagged herself a deer on a hunting trip to Wyoming with Justice Antonin Scalia last fall. You heard that right: Despite finding themselves on opposite sides of major court decisions, the liberal Obama-appointee and the conservative Reagan-appointee have become hunting buddies since Kagan was confirmed in 2010 as the fourth woman in history to sit on the highest court in the land.

 

"You're getting some hisses from the audience. I hope you were a better shot than Dick Cheney," Rosen interjected as a smattering of hisses emerged from around the room at the mention of hunting in Wyoming.

 

 

"I shot myself a deer," Kagan continued. "The way this started, I'll tell the story. You know the NRA has become quite a presence in judicial confirmations, and that means when you go around from office to office, from chamber to chamber, I met with about 80 senators individually and quite a lot of them, both Republicans and Democrats, ask you about your views on the Second Amendment. But because you don't say anything about your views on anything, when they ask you well, they'll try to figure out what your views on the Second Amendment are likely to be and they'll say, 'Well, have you ever held a gun? Have you ever gone hunting? Do you know anybody who's gone hunting?' And you know me, Jeff, I grew up on the Upper West Side of Manhattan and this was not something we really did, you know.

"And so I kept on having these conversations where I would say no and no and no and I was -- and finally somebody said to me, one of these sets of these questions, and so I said, 'You know senator,' I said, 'if you were to invite me hunting, I would really love to go.' And this look of total horror passed over his face. You know, 'Has this woman just invited herself hunting with me?' And I thought, I've gone too far, and then I sort of pulled back and I said, 'I didn't really mean to invite myself, but I'll tell you what, if I am lucky enough to be confirmed, I will ask Justice Scalia to take me hunting.'

"And I went to Justice Scalia when I got onto the court, and I said, 'This is the only promise I made during my entire confirmation proceedings, so you have to help me fulfill it.' And he thought it was hilarious. He thought it was a total crackup. And so, there you go."

The two plan to go duck hunting in the future.