Here’s Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.), quoted yesterday by The Hill:

“I’m very disappointed. [NRA seems] to be going beyond their Second Amendment issues, particularly when I think the judge’s positions on those issues are still fairly open,” Warner said. “I trust in her judgment and temperament. I think the NRA at some point has gone beyond its mission, and are perhaps allowing themselves to get hijacked by those who are in the extreme.”

Warner joins Sens. Tim Johnson (D-S.D.), Jon Tester (D-Mont.) and Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) as an A-rated lawmaker in the eyes of the NRA who has recently announced his support for Sotomayor.

Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.), for the record, says he has no clue how he’ll vote on the nominee, The Hill notes.

The proposal attempts to close a loophole created by a 2005 Supreme Court decision, which found that the prohibition on gun ownership applies only to felons convicted in U.S. courts. In handing down that decision, Justice Stephen Breyer indicated that if Congress intended the ban to apply also to foreign convictions, it would have to craft legislation saying so.

On Wednesday, Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) complied. Her proposal — co-sponsored by Sens. Richard Durbin (D-Ill.), Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.), Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) — would force the courts to treat foreign felony convictions the same as domestic convictions for purposes of gun ownership. Exceptions would be made in cases when felons could prove either that their conduct would not have been a crime in the United States or that they were denied due process in the foreign court.

“Foreign felons actually have greater gun rights than Americans convicted of felonies or crimes of domestic violence in our own courts,” Feinstein said in a statement. “In a country filled with senseless gun violence, we cannot continue to give murderers, rapists and other violent criminals convicted in foreign countries an unlimited right to buy firearms and assault weapons in the United States.”

The gun control debate is one that usually falls along predictable lines of ideology. But if the 2005 Supreme Court decision is any indication, this proposal might bring out some surprises. Indeed, the Court’s most conservative justices — Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas — voted with the dissent.

In large ads published in Wednesday’s Denver Post and Boulder Camera, Tom Mauser, the father of one of the students killed in the 1999 Columbine High School shootings, takes Colorado’s Democratic Sens. Mark Udall and Michael Bennet to task for voting last week in support of the Thune amendment, which would have forced states to honor the concealed-carry permits issued by other states, even in cases when host-state laws would otherwise prevent the visiting gun owners from carrying firearms.

Both Udall and Bennet defended those votes in the local press by pointing out that Colorado already honors the right-to-carry permits of 27 other states. Udall issued a statement arguing that the Thune bill wouldn’t “raise the risk of unlawful gun smuggling or other criminal acts.” And Bennet’s statement reasoned that “any concealed-carry permit holder from another state must follow our criminal statutes, and that would have remained the law if the Thune amendment had passed.”

Critics of the Thune amendment, however, weren’t attacking the proposal on the grounds that it would have trumped state criminal law as to where or how a visitor could carry a weapon. (Bennet is right — it would not have). Rather, they were concerned because Thune’s bill would have trumped some state restrictions over whom could carry a firearm.

Mauser lays out how Thune would have scrapped some of Colorado’s eligibility laws. For example, Colorado law prevents anyone under the age of 21 from carrying a concealed weapon — a restriction that applies even to residents of the 27 states whose permits Colorado recognizes. But under Thune, Mauser notes, “18 year olds from out of state would have been able to carry a concealed weapon in our state, against our legislature’s express wishes.”

Mauser also points out that:

In Colorado, people convicted of serious juvenile offenses and certain misdemeanor crimes cannot possess or carry a gun. This is true even if they have a concealed carry permit from a state that has reciprocity with Colorado. The Thune Amendment would have overridden these Colorado laws and let serious juvenile offenders or dangerous misdemeanants legally possess firearms in our state.

“Senator Bennet and Senator Udall, did you take the time to understand the effects of the Thune Amendment?” Mauser asks.

Not that Udall and Bennet were the only Democrats to support the bill. Twenty Democrats voted in favor of the proposal, including three who cosponsored the measure. Some didn’t much like talking about their support. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), for example, told reporters the day before the vote that he would support the bill. But asked to explain his position, Reid, who faces a tough reelection contest next year, bristled. “You asked me how I’m going to vote and I just told you. I’m not going to explain why I’m voting,” he said.

Such statements don’t help to dispel the accusations that many lawmakers are voting in fear of retribution from the powerful gun lobby, rather than in the best interests of their constituents.

“Colorado deserves Senators who will respect our state’s sovereignty and ability to make decisions about the safety of its citizens,” Mauser wrote. “We deserve Senators who will disregard special interests, and instead vote in the state’s interest.”

Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.) (WDCpix)

In the year’s first high-profile legislative setback for the gun lobby, the Senate on Wednesday shot down legislation to scrap state and local laws dictating who can carry concealed firearms.

The vote marks a rare victory for gun reformers, including President Obama, who have had little success battling the powerful National Rifle Association this year despite commanding Democratic majorities in both the House and Senate.

Illustration by: Matt Mahurin

The legislation, sponsored by Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.), would have forced states to honor concealed weapon permits issued by other states, even in cases when local laws would prohibit the visiting gun owner from carrying firearms in public. Hardly a partisan issue, the measure highlighted the chasm between lawmakers from the less populous rural regions, where gun rights are sacrosanct, and those representing the more urban coastal states, where higher population densities and crime rates have led local governments to enact stricter limits on concealed-carry eligibility.

The count in the Senate was 58 to 39 — two votes shy of the 60 needed to defeat the filibuster led by liberal Democrats. Twenty Democrats, including Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (Nev.), joined almost every Republican in supporting the bill. Sens. George Voinovich (Ohio) and Richard Lugar (Ind.) were the only Republicans to oppose the measure.

Under Thune’s proposal, gun owners granted the right to carry concealed weapons publicly in their home state would retain that right when traveling across state lines, provided that they comply with the other concealed-carry laws of the host state, such as restrictions on where guns can be carried. The rule would not have applied in Illinois, Wisconsin and the District of Columbia, the only jurisdictions that prohibit concealed carry altogether. The bill, Thune said on the Senate floor before the vote, would “allow law-abiding people to protect themselves from criminals when they travel across state lines.”

But in their successful opposition push, most Democrats maintained that the proposal would deny the rights of states and municipalities to set their own concealed-carry eligibility requirements based on local conditions. New York City, for example, with a population of 8.4 million, has different concerns about who can carry guns than the state of Vermont, with a population of 621,000, opponents argued. Indeed, every gun owner in Vermont has the automatic right to carry their firearm in public, while New York statutes empower law enforcers to deny concealed-carry permits on a discretionary basis. Yet under the Thune bill, those eligible to conceal firearms in the Green Mountain State could also carry them in Manhattan.

Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) said Thune’s bill would “impose the lowest common denominator” for concealed-carry eligibility on all states and municipalities. “This is probably the most dangerous piece of legislation to the safety of Americans when it comes to guns since the repeal of the assault weapons ban,” Schumer said just before Wednesday’s vote.

Scott Knight, chief of police in Chaska, Minn., who also chairs the Firearms Committee of the International Association of Chiefs of Police, echoed that message. Minnesota law, Knight said, bars those convicted of domestic and substance abuse from getting concealed-carry permits. Yet the Thune proposal would have allowed gun owners from states without those prohibitions to carry firearms down the streets of Minnesota with impunity.

Of importance, the Thune bill would not have overridden state laws dictating how or where gun owners could carry weapons, but only who. Arizona, for example, just passed a state law allowing concealed loaded weapons in bars. The Thune bill, however, wouldn’t allow Arizona residents to carry their guns into bars in states where the practice is prohibited.

Supporters of the Thune bill disputed the claims that the measure would empower criminals. “Of all the people we need to worry about committing gun crimes and violence unlawfully, the people with a conceal-carry permit are probably the last on the list,” said Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.).

Ironically, the Thune amendment put many state-rights defenders in the odd position of stealing the powers of local governments to regulate themselves. Republicans, generally known for insulating states from the reach of Washington, took the opposite tack in Wednesday’s vote, effectively voting to eliminate the rights of states to decide what’s best for their own residents on the issue of gun reform. “It’s an attack on states rights by people who usually support states rights,” said Daniel Vice, senior attorney with the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence.

The NRA did not return calls for comment. But the group shot out a statement immediately after the vote lauding the 58 lawmakers who supported the bill, even as that number fell two members shy of passing the bill. “The vote shows that a bipartisan majority agrees with the NRA,” said NRA-ILA Executive Director Chris W. Cox.

The gun-reform issue has been a tough nut to crack for the young White House. President Obama ran on a platform of controversial gun reforms, including the return of the assault weapons ban, only to discover that Washington’s political climate is hardly suitable to cultivate those proposals. Indeed, with the Democrats picking up many of their new seats in conservative-leaning districts, even House passage of tighter gun controls has been a political impossibility.

Instead, the NRA has gained ground. In May, Obama was forced to sign a bill, attached to a larger credit card reform proposal, allowing concealed weapons in national parks. And legislation scrapping most of Washington, D.C.’s strict gun control laws — attached to a bill granting D.C. a voting Congress member — has stymied House Democratic leaders, who want to pass the underlying bill but not the gun amendment. As a result, the bill has sat idle for most of the year.

On Tuesday, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) rejected a suggestion that the DC-vote bill is dead for the year. “It is still on my front burner,” Hoyer said. Still, he didn’t offer any suggestions about how the Democrats might push it through without swallowing the gun amendment.

Situations like that trouble public safety experts, who say the gun lobby’s sway at election-time forces lawmakers to vote with the NRA above the well-being of their constituents.

“It’s a pure and over-simplistic political apporach,” said Daniel Webster, co-director of the Center for Gun Policy and Research at Johns Hopkins University. “Regardless of what the policy is, [politicians feel] it’s safest not to be anti-gun … It’s hard to justify a lot of those votes.”

Wayne LaPierre, Executive Vice President of the National Rifle Association, and Chris Cox, Executive Director for the NRA’s Institute for Legislative Action said this in explanation:

We believe any individual who does not agree that the Second Amendment guarantees a fundamental right and who does not respect our God-given right of self-defense should not serve on any court, much less the highest court in the land. Therefore, the National Rifle Association of America opposes the confirmation of Judge Sonia Sotomayor to the position of Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court.

The full statement is here.

From an op-ed in The New York Times Sunday:

Many of us who hunt are dismayed by some of the more extreme policies of the National Rifle Association, the most prominent voice in opposition to a ban, and by the timidity of public officials who yield to the group’s unreasonable demands.

Heavily influenced and supported by the firearms industry, N.R.A. leaders have misled many gullible people into believing that our weapons are going to be taken away from us, and that homeowners will be deprived of the right to protect ourselves and our families. The N.R.A. would be justified in its efforts if there was a real threat to our constitutional right to bear arms. But that is not the case.

And it’s not just the gun lobby Carter goes after, but the “acquiescent” lawmakers who are swayed by it as well.

The gun lobby and the firearms industry should reassess their policies concerning safety and accountability — at least on assault weapons — and ease their pressure on acquiescent politicians who fear N.R.A. disapproval at election time. We can’t let the N.R.A.’s political blackmail prevent the banning of assault weapons — designed only to kill police officers and the people they defend.

But Carter might not want to hold his breath for Congress to act. As we wrote here recently, there’s not much appetite in Washington to take up gun reforms this year — least of all an assault weapons ban.

“You can feel your toes wiggling on the slippery slope,” Doug Pennington, spokesman for the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, said of the assault weapons ban a few weeks ago. “[The NRA] will say it’s the first step to eliminating handguns from the universe.”