As mentioned in today’s Morning Jolt, the NRA will indeed be scoring all of the upcoming votes on background checks and gun owners. But this doesn’t necessarily mean a full-scale divorce between the NRA and the background-check co-sponsors, West Virginia Democrat Senator Joe Manchin and Pennsylvania Republican Senator Pat Toomey.

Wednesday evening, Chris Cox, executive director of the NRA’s Institute for Legislative Action, issued a letter that indicated that yes, the proposal would be “scored” by the organization.

In addition, the NRA will oppose any amendments offered to S. 649 that restrict fundamental Second Amendment freedoms; including, but not limited to, proposals that would ban commonly and lawfully owned firearms and magazines or criminalize the private transfer of firearms through an expansion of background checks.  This includes the misguided “compromise” proposal drafted by Senators Joe Manchin, Pat Toomey and Chuck Schumer.  As we have noted previously, expanding background checks, at gun shows or elsewhere, will not reduce violent crime or keep our kids safe in their schools.  Given the importance of these issues, votes on all anti-gun amendments or proposals will be considered in NRA’s future candidate evaluations.

Rather than focus its efforts on restricting the rights of America’s 100 million law-abiding gun owners, there are things Congress can do to fix our broken mental health system; increase prosecutions of violent criminals; and make our schools safer.  During consideration of S. 649, should one or more amendments be offered that adequately address these important issues while protecting the fundamental rights of law-abiding gun owners, the NRA will offer our enthusiastic support and consider those votes in our future candidate evaluations as well.

We hope the Senate will replace the current provisions of S. 649 with language that is properly focused on addressing mental health inadequacies; prosecuting violent criminals; and keeping our kids safe in their schools.  Should it fail to do so, the NRA will make an exception to our standard policy of not “scoring” procedural votes and strongly oppose a cloture motion to move to final passage of S. 649.

I still suspect that the NRA knows that Pat Toomey is probably the best ally they’re going to get elected statewide in Pennsylvania – and that they’re pretty happy with Manchin overall, too. Perhaps the pair are destined to go into future elections with a “B” grade from the organization. (Joe Manchin spoke at the NRA convention back in 2011.)

The deal reflects some basic political realities: Toomey was elected in 2010, and so he’ll next appear before the voters in 2016, a presidential-election year with high turnout. You’ve heard Pennsylvania described as Philadelphia on one side, Pittsburgh on the other, and Alabama in the middle, but the real battleground that determines statewide elections is the Philadelphia-suburb counties. As I summarized it last cycle:

[Republicans] are increasingly optimistic about Bucks County, where about 435,000 are registered to vote. Toomey won this county over Joe Sestak in the 2010 Senate race, 53.2 percent to 46.8 percent. But the other major suburban counties, Montgomery County (with 553,104 registered voters) and Delaware County (about 395,000 registered voters) are looking like tougher nuts to crack for Republicans this cycle, compared with Bucks County.

These are classic “soccer mom” suburban counties, and the Philadelphia Inquirer is a big media influence here. It is a tough corner of the state in which to sell an uncompromising stance on gun issues.

Toomey needs to be able to say that after Sandy Hook, he did his best to do something — particularly if or when, God forbid, there is another horrific massacre in 2016. Whether or not the bill passes is almost immaterial; he just needs to be seen by those soccer moms as a guy who tried his best to work out a bipartisan compromise to slightly lessen the odds of another massacre. As a Second Amendment fan, you don’t have to like that, but you do have to recognize it.

So when you see folks like Jacob Sullum write . . .

. . . it is hard to see a logical connection between the Newtown murders and the proposal offered by Manchin and Toomey. But that does not matter, because it makes them feel as if they are doing something to prevent such crimes. And isn’t that what laws are for, to make legislators feel better? President Obama certainly seems to think so. Notice that Manchin implicitly endorses Obama’s view that anyone who fails to support new gun controls does not have “a good conscience.”

The cold, hard truth is that yes, this and almost all legislation relating to guns is meant to make lawmakers and the public feel like they’ve done something. Because as we’ve all noted, the only policy that could have prevented Sandy Hook was confiscation of all privately held firearms. But when lawmakers in suburban districts go back and do their town hall meetings, they need to say either A) see, I passed “X” or B) I tried to pass “X.” They will get these questions the next time some lunatic goes on a spree-killing.

Anyway, Toomey summarizes:

WHAT THE BILL WILL NOT DO

The bill will not take away anyone’s guns.

The bill will not ban any type of firearm.

The bill will not ban or restrict the use of any kind of bullet or any size clip or magazine.

The bill will not create a national registry; in fact, it specifically makes it illegal to establish any such registry.

The bill will not, in any way at all, infringe upon the Constitutional rights of law-abiding citizens.

At Red State, Erick Erickson disputes that, contending that the way the bill is written, doctors can add their patients to the National Instant Criminal Background Check System, and suggests that they can be added for no real reason. 

The provision could spur a debate on just who should be able to determine if someone is psychologically imbalanced in a way that makes them a threat to others. As I have mentioned in previous Jolts, the only person who can currently place a person on the can’t-buy-a-gun list is a judge. If you see or encounter someone who behaves in a manner that makes you think they’re likely to go on a shooting spree, your employer, school principal, or university administrator can’t do a darn thing about it (other than involve law enforcement and try to get that person before a judge). Sometimes a psychiatrist can explicitly tell the police that her patient had confessed homicidal thoughts and was a danger to the public, as in the case of the Aurora shooter, and the police will do nothing.

In light of Jim Carrey getting grief about his impression of the late Charlton Heston in a sketch mocking gun owners, it’s worth noting that nobody made fun of Heston better . . . than Heston himself.

Shortly after the Brady Bill was passed, Charlton Heston appeared on Saturday Night Live, in a fake ad for “the National Rifle Association Five Day Loaner Program.” (You may have to watch an ad from Hulu before the sketch begins.)

While you’re waiting for your gun, the criminals are stealing theirs, and running amok! That’s why the National Rifle Association is proud to introduce our answer to the Brady Bill blues: the NRA Five-Day Loaner. That’s right! We will lend you a handgun for five business days while the authorities complete your background checks!

As he holds up the .44 Magnum, the Chyron helpfully explains, “WOULD BLOW YOUR HEAD CLEAN OFF.”

It is utterly amazing, in that Heston joyfully plays with the stereotype of the gun nut who sees all guns of all types as “perfect for home protection.” And yet, he closes the sketch with, “You may be asking, ‘Is this legal?’ Well, they have the Brady Bill; we have the Bill of Rights, so come on down.” The SNL studio audience applauds and cheers.

I’ve never seen this sketch in any of the SNL reruns or “Best of” specials. I only discovered it a few months ago looking around Hulu, and my friend Cam, host of NRA News’s “Cam and Company,” said he had never seen it or heard it discussed by the NRA folks either.

I wonder how the world would react if Wayne LaPierre or Tom Selleck did a sketch like this today.

Hey, remember President Obama’s big rallying cry at the State of the Union, that all the various “common sense reforms” on gun control deserved a vote?

Today, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid told Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., that her assault weapons ban would not be included in the legislation brought to the floor of the Senate.

Apparently, it didn’t deserve a vote after all!

By the way, all of that chanting at the State of the Union… did everyone know they were chanting at Harry Reid?

And will the usual liberal columnists and talking heads who support gun control lash Reid now? Or will some hold their fire because he’s a Democrat?

And what will Sen. Chris Murphy, Connecticut Democrat, say in response? Last month, he said:

MURPHY: I think we will get a vote and I think we’ll get a vote because Newtown changed everything in this country. There were a lot of people wearing ribbons on the floor of the House of Representatives last night, and they were Republicans and Democrats. The NRA said yesterday they were going to wait for the “Newtown effect” or the “Connecticut effect” to dissipate before they went back to lobbying to weaken gun laws. Well, it’s not going to dissipate. The fact is that this nation has been transformed. I think the president was right to say, listen, republicans can’t hide from this. They need to call a vote on the floor of the Senate and House and tell the American public what side they are on. If Republicans want to be the party of assault weapons, of high-capacity magazine clips, they are on the wrong side of the American public and the wrong side of history.

“Newtown changed everything in this country.” No, not really.

The editor of the Des Moines Register “regrets the missteps” in handling a column that called for “[tying] Mitch McConnell and John Boehner, our esteemed Republican leaders, to the back of a Chevy pickup truck and drag them around a parking lot until they saw the light on gun control.”

Strangely, the columnist did not mention Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, rated “B” by the NRA, which the columnist said should be designated a “terrorist organization.”

The columnist now laments the number of threatening phone calls he’s received since publishing the column; he also insists it was satire, and compares himself to Jonathan Swift.

From the final Morning Jolt of the week:

NRA: Now Romney Allies

So, if you’re going to offer an expected endorsement of a presidential candidate in a key state, what better day to do it than the day he and his supporters are elated by a thoroughly dominating debate performance?

It’s your lucky day, NRA. From my friend Cam’s world:

Fairfax, VA. – The National Rifle Association’s Political Victory Fund today announced its endorsement of Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan for President and Vice President. NRA’s Executive Vice President, Wayne LaPierre, and NRA Political Victory Fund (NRA-PVF) Chairman, Chris W. Cox, made the announcement in Fishersville, Virginia, during a rally with both Gov. Mitt Romney and Rep. Paul Ryan in attendance. Also, attending and performing at the press conference was country music superstar and NRA Life Member Trace Adkins.

“Virginia is ground zero – the front line of this election. This is where the race could be won or lost. This is where the difference can be made. This is where gun owners must make that difference.” said LaPierre.

“Today, we live in an America that is getting harder to recognize every day led by a President who mocks our values, belittles our faith, and is threatened by our freedom.” said Cox. “So on behalf of the four million men and women of the National Rifle Association, representing tens of millions of NRA supporters, it is my honor to announce the NRA’s endorsement of Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan for President and Vice President of the United States.”

Beltway Baca offers a photo to show turnout in Fishersville was . . . considerable.

I’m not at the NRA convention this year, but Mitt Romney will be there. His campaign has released excerpts of his speech today:

[T]he principles of our Constitution are enduring and universal . . . they were not designed to bend to the will of presidents and justices who come and go. The belief that we are all created equal, that we are endowed by our Creator with unalienable rights — these are not relics from another time, they reflect truths that are valid in every era.

The framework of law created by the Declaration and the Constitution is the source of our greatness. It has generated unparalleled opportunity and prosperity. Our Founders understood this, which is why they created a system of government that is limited.

This President is moving us away from our Founders’ vision. Instead of limited government, he is leading us toward limited freedom and limited opportunity.

This November, we face a defining decision. I am offering a real choice and a new beginning. I am running for President because I have the experience and the vision to lead us in a different direction. We know what Barack Obama’s vision of America is — we’ve all lived it the last three years. Mine is very different.

My course restores and protects our freedoms. As President, the Constitution would be my guide, and the Declaration of Independence my compass.

Today, I want to talk about this administration’s assault on our freedoms — our economic freedom, our religious freedom, and our personal freedom. And I want to share my plans to return America to the first principles of our founding.

***

The President’s assault on economic freedom begins with his tax hikes. By their very nature, taxes reduce our freedom. Their only role in a free economy should be to fund services that are absolutely essential, such as national security, education, and the care of those who cannot care for themselves.

And, yet, President Obama has proposed raising the marginal tax rate from 35% to 40%. The Vice President has proposed a new global business tax. Medical device companies are soon to be subject to a new tax on revenues. And the President is now touring the country, touting a new tax on investment and the wealthy. Congress does not need more money to spend; Congress needs to learn to spend less!

***

This administration’s attack on freedom extends even to rights explicitly guaranteed by our Constitution. The right to bear arms is so plainly stated, so unambiguous, that liberals have a hard time challenging it directly. Instead, they’ve been employing every imaginable ploy to restrict it.

I applaud true conservationists like Rob Keck who work to preserve lands, herds and flocks for hunting. I applaud Ambassador Bolton for opposing international efforts to erode our rights. I applaud Congressman Issa and Senator Grassley for their work in exposing the “Fast and Furious” scandal. And I applaud NRA leadership for being among the first and most vocal in calling upon Attorney General Holder to resign.

We need a President who will enforce current laws, not create new ones that only serve to burden lawful gun owners. President Obama has not; I will.

We need a President who will stand up for the rights of hunters, sportsmen, and those seeking to protect their homes and their families. President Obama has not; I will.

And if we are going to safeguard our Second Amendment, it is time to elect a president who will defend the rights President Obama ignores or minimizes. I will.

***

In a second term, he would be unrestrained by the demands of reelection. As he told the Russian president last month when he thought no one else was listening, after his re-election he’ll have a lot more, quote, “flexibility” to do what he wants. I’m not exactly sure what he meant by that, but looking at his first three years, I have a very good idea.

Consider the courts. President Obama has an unusual view of the Supreme Court and its responsibilities, as he reminded us just the other day. He said, quote, “I’m confident that the Supreme Court will not take what would be an unprecedented, extraordinary step of overturning a law that was passed by a strong majority of a democratically elected Congress.”

Of course, what President Obama calls “extraordinary” and “unprecedented,” the rest of us recognize as “judicial review.” That concept has been a centerpiece of our constitutional system since 1803.

Judicial review requires that the Supreme Court strike down any law that violates the Constitution — the founding document that is the bulwark of our freedoms. But President Obama seems to believe that Court decisions are only legitimate when they rule in his favor, and illegitimate if they don’t. He thinks our nation’s highest court is to be revered and respected — as long as it remains faithful to the original intent of Barack Obama.

That’s the problem with those who view the Constitution as living and evolving, not timeless and defining. They never explain just who will decide what the Constitution means and in which way it will “evolve.”

In his first term, we’ve seen the president try to browbeat the Supreme Court. In a second term, he would remake it. Our freedoms would be in the hands of an Obama Court, not just for four years, but for the next 40. That must not happen.

The NRA launches its voter-registration drive today — “Trigger the Vote” — with a web video featuring R. Lee “Gunny” Ermey . . . in his new career as a librarian.

The yokel yakking loudly on his cell phone makes an in-joke referring to the NRA’s last get-out-the-vote ad, which featured Chuck Norris.

Gunny’s message:

Listen up and hear me well! This is a critical time for our nation, and too many people are sitting back to let others do the hard work. So it’s time for all of us to put some gas in it and persuade all eligible gun owners to register. That’s why I volunteered my time to film the ad shown here. Now it’s your turn and I want to see results! Start now by sending this message to everyone you know who supports the Second Amendment. I expect 110% right now from everyone who values our freedoms! NO EXCUSES. And remember — pain is just weakness leaving the body!

I had been meaning to post this since before vacation. In addition to the good guys from NRA News, Shooting Illustrated magazine also taped a video of my first trip to the range at NRA headquarters, and the magazine’s associate editor Ed Friedman explains a bit more about the various firearms I used: the Ruger 22 45, the Smith and Wesson .40, the Sig Sauer M 400 carbine AR-15, and the select-fire Uzi.

I’m on NRANews.com with Chris Cox, executive director of the NRA’s Institute for Legislative Action.

“Desperate times call for desperate measures,” he said when asked whether he thought Pres. Barack Obama would push gun control in the remaining two years of his presidency. “It’s not a question of if, it’s a question of when.”

This election saw a lot of pro-gun Democratic incumbents touting the NRA’s endorsement, as they were challenged by pro-gun conservative Republican challengers.

I note that many of the pro-gun Republicans who didn’t get the NRA’s endorsement this cycle because of the group’s pro-incumbent preference will enjoy that pro-incumbent advantage starting tomorrow.

A lot of gun owners are conservatives, and a lot of conservatives are gun owners — but the interests of the two don’t always line up perfectly. On Friday, the NRA’s Institute for Legislative Action endorsed Republican senator Jim DeMint of South Carolina, Senate candidate John Boozman of Arkansas, gubernatorial candidates Bill Brady of Illinois and Tom Corbett of Pennsylvania, and Rep. John Kline of Minnesota. They also endorsed an endangered Democratic House member in Ohio, Zack Space, and a somewhat less endangered Democrat, Tim Walz of Minnesota.

I talked to Chris Cox, executive director of the NRA’s Institute for Legislative Action, Friday about the group’s approach to endorsements and how the organization ended up backing some figures who are not so popular with grassroots conservatives; you can find that article on the home page.

In an era of Demonsheep, Dale Peterson, and the Zardoz-like giant floating head of Barbara Boxer, putting Chuck Norris in a campaign ad, the way Mike Huckabee did in 2008, seems almost quaint.

So what could the NRA do to top all that?

“Blougar.”

This one had me laughing a lot.

Over on RedState, I see a reader describe his interaction with the NRA, urging them not to endorse Harry Reid; the reader brings up Reid’s comment about Iraq, that “the war is lost.”

Reid’s comment was egregious, but that doesn’t make it relevant to the NRA’s endorsement decision. The NRA endorsement says nothing about a candidate’s conservatism, good judgment on foreign policy or other non-gun issues, character, wisdom, reliability, or anything else other than whether they voted the correct way on Second Amendment issues.

As I understand it, the NRA Political Victory Fund’s endorsement is a matter of a formula. They have certain votes that they “score,” and that is all that goes into the grade. (The NRA-PVF obviously has more discretion in where they choose to spend their funds, and which candidates to most actively and loudly support through donations, letters, and mailers to NRA members, etc.) When there is a tie between an A-rated incumbent and an A-rated challenger, they endorse the incumbent; in their eyes, a proven record outweighs any promise.

Over at RedState, Erick Erickson argues that the organization ought to be endorsing Sharron Angle. If the purpose of the NRA was to elect the best overall candidate or the most conservative candidate, he’s absolutely right. But like it or not, that’s not how they see their jobs. They see their purpose as helping the best candidate on the issue of gun rights, no matter what. Also fundamental to the NRA’s sense of mission is their reputation as a steadfast ally and the perception that they stick with their friends through thick and thin, through good polls and bad. Harry Reid may look increasingly toasty in Nevada, but the thinking within the NRA is that likelihood of defeat cannot be a sufficient reason to abandon a candidate they endorsed last cycle.

One of the reasons NRA’s candidate grades deviate from those of other gun groups like Gun Owners for America is that GOA grades on a broader spectrum of votes that are more tangentially related to the gun issue, like the confirmation votes for Eric Holder, Cass Sunstein, Harold Koh, and the health-care bill. The NRA is not enamored with Eric Holder, but it was pretty clear that almost all Democrats and a lot of Republicans would give deference to President Obama on his choice of attorney general; the group sees little reason for scoring votes that are almost pro forma, and hurting candidates who would otherwise have a perfect record.

(We can argue whether the organization ought to make their endorsements in this manner; as noted yesterday, I would hate to see the NRA turn into a lifeline for otherwise doomed liberal Democrat incumbents. But the organization is being consistent in their manner of determining who they support and endorse.)

This system is putting the NRA in a bit of a tough spot, because some of the cycle’s least popular incumbents have sterling or near-sterling records on the gun issue, and have given the organization no easy reason to drop their endorsement under established criteria. Besides Reid, there’s Ohio governor Ted Strickland, presiding over a long stretch of economic hard times in his state, and one of the 2010 candidates most loathed by the conservative grassroots, Charlie Crist.

However, my understanding is that NRA endorsements of independents or third-party candidates are exceptionally rare; I have yet to encounter any examples. And because Crist is not technically an incumbent in this race — he’s a governor who’s aiming to switch to becoming a senator — they may be able to conclude that his departure from the party and plethora of sudden policy reversals make him a lawmaker that Florida gun owners just can’t rely on.

This morning, Erick Erickson writes, “this week, RedState broke the story of the “gag order” the NRA issued to members of its Board on the Kagan nomination.”

Erick wrote, “internal Senate emails confirmed by NRA Board Members show that the National Rifle Association’s management team has explicitly and directly told the NRA’s board they are prohibited from testifying about second amendment issues during the Elena Kagan confirmation hearings…  The gag order on board members is not limited to providing testimony, but it prohibits board members from coming out against Kagan in their individual capacity.”

The NRA-ILA Executive Director Chris Cox calls this charge BS.

This claim shows complete ignorance of how the NRA operates.  NRA staff, including everyone (myself included) at the NRA Institute for Legislative Action, work for the NRA Executive Vice President, who in turn works for the NRA board, which in turn is elected by NRA’s voting members.Under the NRA by-laws, NRA-ILA has “sole responsibility to administer the legislative, legal, informational and fund raising activities of the Association relating to the defense or furtherance of the right to keep and bear arms, in accordance with the objectives and policies established by the Board of Directors.”  

… When Justice John Paul Stevens announced his retirement in April, I sent an e-mail to NRA board members and staff stating that with the critical case of McDonald v. Chicago still pending before the Court, “it is very important that NRA not comment on Justice Stevens nor engage in speculation on potential successors.”Similarly, when the President nominated Solicitor General Kagan to the Court in May, I sent a message to the NRA Board pointing out her lack of a judicial record; noting that NRA-ILA was reviewing all available information; and stating that “it is important that we all refrain from commenting until we know more about Kagan’s views regarding the Second Amendment.”  Again, I referenced the fact that NRA has a case pending before the Court.

This is exactly the approach the NRA took last year when we opposed the nomination of Sonia Sotomayor.  Early in the process, we expressed our serious concerns about her record. We announced our opposition after her confirmation hearings ended without evidence that she would properly respect our fundamental, individual right to keep and bear arms and apply it to the states.  Her dissenting vote in McDonald v. Chicago confirmed that our position was correct.

Put another way, you try telling Ted Nugent that he’s under a “gag order” and can’t express opposition to Kagan, and see how well that goes.

Other members of the board, like the president of the New York State Rifle and Pistol Association are saying they never heard any gag order, either: “Friends; those of you close to me should know by now that telling me I can’t speak up on an issue of vital importance to the 2nd Amendment is going to get you into a war.”

Matt Lewis looked at this, and suspected this was a matter of interpreting Cox’s messages:

Of three NRA board members I contacted, only one confirmed “explicitly and directly” receiving any sort of directive that could be interpreted as a “gag order” regarding Kagan. But all three sources confirmed that NRA board members actively opposed to Sotomayor’s confirmation have been severely chastised “to the degree that they would not speak out against Kagan” (as one board member – who requested anonymity – told me).Because most members of the NRA’s board of directors are also heavily involved in numerous other conservative organizations, it seems unusual the NRA would expect board members to remain silent on the Kagan nomination (in fact, many have already spoken out). More likely, the NRA, which is heavily involved in lobbying in Washington, does not want board members representing themselves as speaking for the organization without its approval. And it’s reasonable to assume that testifying in a Senate hearing against Kagan would be frowned upon more than simply writing a column that does not mention any affiliation with the gun group.

Since then I’ve heard from one of the board members, who characterizes the warning from 

My buddy Cam, who hosts his show on NRANews.com and Sirius/XM, offered the perspective of the National Rifle Association: that its first mission, above all others, is to protect the rights of gun owners and ensure that their voice is heard. Like an attorney who must always act in the best interest of its client, the NRA had to prioritize protecting its members’ rights first; all other considerations, including how terribly the bill limits other groups’ First Amendment rights, must be secondary.

I understand where they are coming from, and perhaps they saw any alternative course as abandoning their primary duty. But with respect to Cam, everyone at the NRA, and everyone else who saw it otherwise, I think their stance was the wrong call.

Most conservatives, and many Republicans, felt the original McCain-Feingold bill was fundamentally unconstitutional, restricting Americans’ First Amendment right to speak their minds and spread their message before an election. President Bush himself apparently had concerns about whether some provisions were constitutional, but signed it into law anyway, expecting that the Supreme Court would strike down the parts that troubled him. A hard lesson to learn: Don’t count on the Supreme Court.

The lesson of the McCain-Feingold fight is that if you see legislation that fundamentally violates constitutional rights, kill it. Do not try to minimize the damage. Do not try to get the best deal you can. Do not count on even a John Roberts–led court to do the unpopular work and strike it down. Do not count on any other part of our political or judicial system to step in. Do not pass “Go” or collect 200 dollars. Kill it, kill it, kill it before it can put down roots.

Because we have a governing class that literally “doesn’t care” about the Constitution. As far as they’re concerned, the Commerce Clause ensures that Congress can pass any idea that pops into its members’ heads if the votes are there. Ben Stein tells how the White House press office told him that no enumerated power in the Constitution or federal law was required for Obama to fire the head of GM. This crew thinks that the Constitution ensures the government’s right to require citizens to purchase health insurance. As Charles Kesler noted, “TARP, for example, was an unprecedented delegation of legislative power to the Treasury secretary, of all people. It was a desperate, essentially lawless grant resembling the ancient Roman dictatorship, except that the Romans wisely confined their dictators to six-month terms.”

Up against a crew like this, for whom the Constitution is a dusty museum relic, you don’t take the best deal available.

At least, that’s my take. Here’s the other argument from David Keene, NRA First Vice-President:

I have been an NRA Board member for some years and currently serve as NRA’s First Vice-President — that you may know. What you may not know is that I have been in the forefront of the fight against liberal attempts to tilt the political playing field their way for decades through what they like to call campaign finance reform. This is a battle that began in the seventies when I put together the case that went to the United States Supreme Court known as Buckley v. Valeo. I was a vocal opponent of the so-called McCain-Feingold “reforms” that shackled groups like the NRA in recent years, and I have served as a First Amendment Fellow at Vanderbilt University’s Freedom Forum.

I can assure you that I would never countenance a “deal” of the sort you think the NRA made with Congress to further Democratic attempts to restrict political speech. I consider such restrictions to be not only repugnant, but blatantly unconstitutional, an opinion shared by NRA Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre and Institute for Legislative Action Executive Director Chris Cox.

The so-called “DISCLOSE ACT” is a horrible piece of legislation designed to do exactly what you suggest. It would require advocacy groups to run a regulatory gauntlet designed to make it very difficult for many of them to play the role for which they were formed and is both bad policy and flies in the face of recent Supreme Court decisions.

But I’m afraid there’s more . . . particularly how it would affect the NRA. When you think of the NRA you no doubt think mostly about the NRA’s advocacy on Second Amendment issues, but the NRA also provides training to its members, law enforcement and military personnel, works with states, counties and private organizations to build ranges and runs competitive events such as those at Camp Perry in Ohio. Since Camp Perry is a military base, public monies go into range development and federal funds go to training military and police personnel, the NRA would be classed with government contractors and TARP recipients under the DISCLOSE ACT as originally written and effectively prohibited from engaging in any meaningful political activity.

In other words, this act as originally written by anti-gun legislators like New York Senator Chuck Schumer would have silenced the NRA . . . which would have been the death knell for the Second Amendment.

NRA has one major mission . . . to defend the right of its members and all Americans to keep & bear arms as guaranteed by the Second Amendment. Therefore, the NRA served notice on Congress that since the act threatened our very existence, we were prepared to do anything and everything that might be required to defeat it unless it was changed so that we could continue to represent the views of our members in the public arena. The letter, sent on May 26, was public. The NRA did not engage in back room shenanigans, but told Congressional leaders quite clearly that we would do whatever we needed to do to protect the rights of our members and our ability to defend the Second Amendment.

Last week Democratic leadership in the House capitulated by agreeing to exempt the NRA from the act — not in return for NRA support, but to avoid a political war that might cost them even more seats this fall.

I have to tell you that I never thought the Democrats would agree to this — not because they have much regard for constitutional rights — because I didn’t believe their left wing would allow it. The events since their capitulation convince me that their fear of NRA retaliation forced them to take steps that split their coalition and could easily doom the whole bill.

Consider this: on Thursday night, California Senator Diane Feinstein, one of the most anti–Second Amendment members of the Senate, announced that she wouldn’t support the DISCLOSE ACT if it exempted the NRA. By Friday some two-dozen left wing activist groups that had previously been pressing Congress to pass the bill announced that now they wanted it defeated.

The bottom line is that in refusing to risk its members’ rights and the very survival of the Second Amendment, the NRA has also made it less rather than more likely that support for this terrible legislation will collapse and the free speech rights of every one of us will benefit.

I’m a little surprised by this.

The National Rifle Association endorsed John McCain Thursday in Arizona’s Republican Senate primary . . .

Hayworth has attacked McCain’s record on gun rights, saying the four-term Senator has supported restrictive legislation. Hayworth touts an endorsement from Gun Owners of America, a smaller gun-rights lobbying group. The NRA endorsed McCain in three of his four previous runs for the U.S. Senate, but it stayed out of his race in 2004 against a little-known Democrat. The organization endorsed Hayworth in at least six of his seven U.S. House races.

One way of interpreting this is that the NRA likes the fact that high percentages of the candidates they endorse win election, and thus don’t endorse a lot of underdog challengers. While Hayworth has gained, recent polls put McCain up by about 12. While a certain segment of conservatives have had enough with Maverick, he’s been pretty solid on the gun issue.

From a Campaign Spot reader in England:

re. the spectacle yesterday with Calderon. I have spent most of the last 49 years living overseas (12 countries, 5 continents). What they told you in Turkey holds true anywhere you go. No one, no matter how corrupt the country is, no matter how screwed up, likes to hear a foreigner throw stones at their country. Calderon was wrong and stupid. The action by the Democrats in applauding was unforgivable. They will pay. I have already donated more this election than in any other in my adult lifetime – they have spurred me on to do more.

There are diplomatic ways to address these issues. Speaking before a foreign legislature and declaring that one law must be reinstated (the so-called “Assault Weapons Ban”) and one law must be repealed (Arizona’s wildly popular new approach to illegal immigrants) is the height of arrogance and a supreme insult. Even if you agree with Calderon’s positions on these issues, you ought to recognize that when a foreign leader is invited to address our legislative branch from the floor of the House, basic respect requires him to refrain from denouncing the decisions of his hosts. And the audience, whose job is to represent Americans, ought to sit on their hands if not emulating Joe Wilson.

Newsweek:

As recently as 2006, the official says, the average time to crime for guns seized in Mexico was between six and seven years, suggesting that the weapons had gone through several buyers and sellers before ending up in the hands of Mexican drug traffickers.

That would mean these guns were purchased before 2001; the Assault Weapons Ban was in effect from September 1994 to September 2004. In other words, most American guns seized in Mexico were purchased while the Assault Weapons Ban was in effect. This is not about stopping drug traffickers’ access to guns; this is about officials on both sides of the border being able to say, “See! We’re doing something!”

That Newsweek article reports that recent seizures indicate some guns are getting to Mexico much more quickly now, pointing to organized gun-smuggling efforts. (I, for one, would love to build a fence or wall along our southern border to help impede gun-smuggling efforts, but somehow I suspect Calderon wouldn’t approve of that.) If gun smugglers are the problem, then target gun smugglers (who, presumably, are obtaining these firearms in large quantities); don’t attempt to restrict the rights of law-abiding gun owners who are, generally, purchasing firearms one gun at a time.

Over on the home page, a look at some tough decisions the NRA will face in the near future. I’m attending their annual convention in Charlotte, so posting will be light for much of today as I endure the anything-can-go-wrong-at-any-time adventure that is domestic air travel.