All Blog Posts from Political Hotsheet

Earlier this year, Mississippi Republican Sen. Roger Wicker attached an amendment to the Senate transportation bill mandating that Amtrak allow passengers to check handguns during train travel. It passed with wide support, and 27 of the votes for the measure came from Democrats.

Now, however, that amendment could be putting the entire transportation bill in jeopardy, according to the Hill.

Here's why: Under the amendment, Amtrak must implement a policy allowing guns onboard before April or lose $1.5 billion in funding. Amtrak, which has cited safety concerns in resisting the legislation, says they will have a hard time instituting the new policy before the deadline.

And Amtrak adds that if they don't meet the deadline - and thus lose the $1.5 billion in funding - then the trains could simply stop running. As the Hill notes, Amtrak Chairman Thomas Carper warned of a "cessation of train service nationwide" if the money doesn't come through.

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Updated 3:30 p.m. ET

The National Rifle Association has released an ad in which a man portraying a mobster from New York says Virginia voters should support Republican gubernatorial candidate Bob McDonnell if they "know what's good for you."

Watch the spot, which Politico reports is part of a half-million dollar campaign in Virginia by the gun-rights group, at left.

"A while back, our New York Mayor Bloomberg came down here to take away some of your Virginia gun rights," a man says in the spot, in a Sopranos-like accent. "You see, the mayor thinks you guys are responsible for our New York crime problem. But when Mayor Bloomberg got down here, your guy, Bob McDonnell, kicked him out of Virginia. Now that was very disrespectful."

Contacted about what the spot meant with the claim that McDonnell "kicked [Bloomberg] out of Virginia," an NRA representative said it was a reference to the fact McDonnell sent Bloomberg a "cease and desist" letter. He also pointed to McDonnell's work with the legislature to make sure sting operations would be illegal.

"So now I'm here to make sure Mr. McDonnell doesn't get in New York's way again," the man continues in the ad, as Italian-style music plays in the background. "Listen to me: When you vote, I strongly suggest you forget about your freedoms and your Mr. Second Amendment Bob McDonnell. I want you to do it for New York. If you know what's good for you."

The spot then cuts to a shot of McDonnell, who an announcer says is "defending Virginia's freedom" against the "New York mayor and his cronies." As he says "cronies," the mobster character is shown. As the NRA logo appears, viewers are encouraged to "send New York a message" and vote for McDonnell.

Contacted about the spot by CBSNews.com, Stacey Johnson, Traveling Press Secretary for the McDonnell campaign, said, "We are honored to have the strong support of the NRA in this campaign."

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Last year's U.S. Supreme Court ruling on the Second Amendment did not, contrary to what you may have heard at the time, resolve very much.

Unanswered are questions about carrying firearms in public, gun sales on government property, firearm registration, guns in government housing, handgun restrictions that aren't exactly the same as the District of Columbia's, zoning and gun stores, and so on. And so far, at least, lower courts have been overwhelmingly hostile to gun owners' rights.

The latest example is a decision late Thursday by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit, which said that a criminal defendant may not be allowed to present a Second Amendment defense to a federal jury in Utah. It came after the appeals court granted an extraordinary emergency appeal, called a writ of mandamus, from the Justice Department after the district judge agreed to allow those jury instructions.

The defendant, Rick Engstrum, has an earlier misdemeanor domestic violence conviction and has been charged with possessing a firearm in violation of a federal law that applies to anyone "who has been convicted in any court of a misdemeanor crime of domestic violence." He has pleaded not guilty.

(The prosecution arose when Engstrum broke up with his girlfriend, who subsequently told police that he had a gun in his bedroom. Engstrum voluntarily showed police the gun, which he inherited from his father; there's no evidence he has ever used the firearm, let alone threatened anyone with it.)

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When William Kostric showed up outside President Obama's town hall meeting in Portsmouth, N.H. on Tuesday, he didn't expect to be the object of a storm of media scrutiny. The handgun that was -- legally -- strapped to his leg in full view of the television cameras may have had something to do with it.

Kostric's name has popped up in over 72,000 Web pages posted in the last few days, according to a date-limited Google search. A New York Times columnist used him as an example in a piece that claimed members of Congress are looking "semiheroic" by comparison; Salon.com's headline read: "Who was that gun-toting anti-Obama protester?" After featuring Kostric at least twice on Tuesday, MSNBC returned to him the next day when asking Rep. Ron Paul, the former Republican presidential candidate, what he thought of being armed in public.

In an interview with CBSNews.com on Wednesday, Kostric said he is a strong supporter of the Second Amendment and has carried his firearm openly in accordance with state law before. "We have a regular open carry contingent in New Hampshire," he said. "We do litter pickups and normal everyday events. People do that with their firearms... A right not exercised is a right lost."

The image of an armed man who was not a policeman anywhere near a presidential event sent TV commentators into fits -- especially when this one happened to be carrying a sign saying "It Is Time To Water The Tree Of Liberty," a reference to Thomas Jefferson's famous phrase. It also seemed to fit the theme of escalating violence and undercurrents of racism at town hall meetings, even though the first person hospitalized appears to have been one Kenneth Gladney, 38, a black conservative activist from St. Louis, who was handing out literature.

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An Opinion Column From Declan McCullagh:

New Hampshire state law is pretty clear about protecting its citizens' rights to carry firearms in public. Carrying a pistol or revolver openly is permitted without a license; carrying a concealed weapon requires a license from the state or local police.

William Kostric took advantage of that law on Tuesday to show up outside President Obama's Portsmouth, N.H. town hall meeting and hold a sign saying "It Is Time To Water The Tree Of Liberty." That invokes a phrase from a letter written by Thomas Jefferson: "The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants."

Kostric did not immediately respond to an interview request from CBSNews.com.

Portsmouth police spokesman Lt. Frank Warchol told the Boston Globe that because Kostric was on private property -- it belongs to a church near the school with the town hall meeting -- he would not be arrested. "We can't do anything about it," Warchol said. "Obviously he's on our radar screen at this time."

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One question left unanswered by the U.S. Supreme Court's landmark Second Amendment ruling last year is this: When do law-abiding Americans have the right to carry firearms in public for self-defense?

In a lawsuit filed against the city of Washington, D.C. on Thursday, the Second Amendment Foundation aims to find out.

The plaintiffs are four gun owners who were denied licenses to carry firearms in public on their person, which nearly all states permit. All U.S. states except Illinois and Wisconsin grant licenses for concealed carry, and 36 states require local police to issue the licenses unless there's a valid reason (such as a criminal history) not to do so.

The District of Columbia is a special case. Its city code says nobody may carry "either openly or concealed on or about their person, a pistol, without a license." But a law enacted in December 2008 appears to have curbed the ability of the police chief to grant those licenses.

"This really isn't about concealed carry," Alan Gottlieb, founder of the Second Amendment Foundation, told CBSNews.com in an interview on Thursday evening. "It's about being able to carry a gun, period. D.C. can prescribe some form or fashion or regulation or restrictions, but there's no way they can say you can't do it at all."

Part of the blame for this uncertainty -- how far does the Second Amendment extend? -- can be laid at the doors of no less an authority than the U.S. Supreme Court.

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A decade ago, the calculus was simple: Those who wanted greater gun control aligned with the Democrats. And those who wanted fewer restrictions on guns turned to the Republicans.

No longer.

Though an amendment to mandate that states recognize concealed weapons permits issued by other states, effectively allowing people to carry concealed weapons across state lines, narrowly failed on Wednesday, it garnered 58 votes in the Democrat-dominated Senate. (It needed 60 votes to overcome a filibuster.)

On Tuesday, New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg called the amendment, sponsored by South Dakota Republican John Thune, "about as anti-police, pro-gun trafficker piece of legislation that has ever come before the United States Senate."

Among those who backed the amendment was Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada, who was joined by Southern and Midwestern Democrats in voting yes. Other Democrats who backed the amendment included Virginia Sens. Jim Webb and Mark Warner, Montana Sens. Jon Tester and Max Baucus and Indiana Sen. Evan Bayh. The New York Times has a full breakdown here.

In fact, it fell to two Republicans, George Voinovich of Ohio and Dick Lugar of Indiana, to effectively prevent the amendment from passing.

Despite the fact that Democrats control both the executive branch and Congress, supporters of gun control have had few opportunities to celebrate this year. The Senate moved to weaken the District of Columbia's strong gun laws (though the House stalled the legislation, which was attached to the D.C. Voting Rights bill) and Congress voted to allow individuals to carry guns in national parks.

"It's been a very difficult period," Peter Hamm, of the Brady Campaign To Prevent Gun Violence, told Hotsheet. "It's been frustrating that in the first six months of a Democratic administration with a Democratic Congress, that Congress hasn't seen fit to go in the right direction on the gun issue."

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New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg led a conference call Tuesday afternoon in which he railed against an amendment sponsored by Republican Sen. John Thune that would allow people issued concealed weapons permits to carry those concealed weapons in any state in the union.

If the amendment passes, Bloomberg said, "states will have no ability to set their own gun laws – whatever they think is appropriate in regards to carrying concealed weapons."

He said that because states like New York would be forced to recognize concealed weapons permits from states with less stringent requirements to obtain permits, "the lowest common denominator would become the de facto common denominator."

He went on to call the amendment "anti-police" and "pro-gun trafficker" and said the practical effect would be to "put your life and your families lives are at stake."

The New York City mayor complained about efforts to attach the amendment to the defense appropriations bill in what he called a "time honored trick" to get it through the Senate. He said backers of the bill are "using our young men and women who are serving oversees" as pawns "to take away our safety from local criminals."

Bloomberg is among them more than 450 mayors who signed a full-page ad in USA today opposing the amendment, which Sen. Charles Schumer and families of the Virginia Tech shooting victims spoke out against Monday.

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The Obama administration is raising the stakes in a fight over states' rights and firearm ownership by arguing that new pro-gun laws in Montana and Tennessee are invalid.

In the last few months, a grass-roots, federalist revolt against Washington, D.C. has begun to spread through states that are home to politically active gun owners. Montana and Tennessee have enacted state laws saying that federal rules do not apply to firearms manufactured entirely within the state, and similar bills are pending in Texas, Alaska, Minnesota, and South Carolina.

Yet the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms, and Explosives now claims that that not only is such a state law invalid, but "because the act conflicts with federal firearms laws and regulations, federal law supersedes the act."

Tennessee's law already has taken effect. The BATF's letter on July 16 to firearms manufacturers and dealers in the state says "federal law requires a license to engage in the business of manufacturing firearms or ammunition, or to deal in firearms, even if the firearms or ammunition remain within the same state."

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The Senate begins debating an amendment Monday that would allow people issued concealed weapons permits in their home state to carry those concealed weapons in any state in the union.

The amendment to the defense authorization bill is sponsored by Republican South Dakota Sen. John Thune, who says it "enables citizens to protect themselves while respecting individual state firearms laws." A release from Thune's office claims that "states with concealed carry laws enjoy significantly lower violent crimes rates than those states that do not."

The release also says that those who leave their home state with concealed weapons would still have to follow gun laws in other states, "including laws concerning specific types of locations in which firearms may or may not be carried."

In response to the introduction of the amendment, families of the victims of the 2007 Virginia Tech shootings placed a full-page ad in the Richmond Times-Dispatch urging Virginia's two senators, Jim Webb and John Warner, to oppose it.

The ad says the amendment would make some of the gun laws the families have been fighting for "meaningless by forcing our law enforcement to honor permits from states with weaker rules."

It notes, among other examples, that Virginia will not issue a concealed weapons permit to those who have received residential mental health or substance abuse treatment in the past five years, unlike some other states.

In New York, which has relatively strict gun laws, Democratic Sen. Charles Schumer is also speaking out against the amendment.

"Right now you walk down the streets in New York or Nassau County or Westchester County, you can have the solace of knowing that if someone has a gun on them, they've gone through a rigorous background check," he said at a Sunday news conference. "After this law, you can have no such comfort."

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