All Blog Posts from Political Hotsheet

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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Politics Today is CBSNews.com's inside look at the key stories driving the day in Politics, written by CBS News Political Director Steve Chaggaris:

**President Obama continues health care push with primetime news conference.

**The Senate to vote on concealed weapons amendment.

HEALTH CARE: President Obama readies for his 8:00pmET news conference where health care will be topic number one as he continues his campaign-style blitz pushing for Congress to finish initial work on a reform package.

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Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor refused on Wednesday to elaborate on her views about firearms regulations and the Second Amendment, saying she would "make no prejudgments" about future firearms-related cases.

President Obama's first nominee to the high court did say that she believed Americans do not currently enjoy a fundamental right to bear arms, which echoes her two previous rulings on the topic as an appeals court judge.

Existing Supreme Court decisions indicate the Second Amendment only limits "the actions the federal government could take with respect to the possession of firearms" and can't be used to strike down broad state laws, Sotomayor told the Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday.

Last year, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the Second Amendment protects an individual right from overreaching federal laws (and in federal enclaves like the District of Columbia). The case is called D.C. v. Heller.

But the justices chose not to rule on the broader question of whether the Second Amendment's guarantee of the right to keep and bear arms applies to state laws. Attorneys in two cases raising that question -- including an appeal of Sotomayor's January 2009 decision -- have petitioned for Supreme Court review in the last few weeks, and another petition is likely by the end of the summer.

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The twin questions of whether Americans have the constitutional right to keep and bear arms, and precisely what Judge Sonia Sotomayor thinks of that proposition, have surfaced this week during her U.S. Senate confirmation hearings.

Both questions are timely. In two separate cases before the 2nd Circuit, Sotomayor took a narrow view of the Second Amendment right of self-defense, and her more recent decision is likely to end up before the U.S. Supreme Court later this year.

That case is called Maloney v. Rice, and it addresses whether the Second Amendment can be invoked to strike down restrictive laws against weapons that individual states have enacted.

A three-judge panel including Sotomayor unanimously rejected that view in January 2009, ruling that the Second Amendment "imposes a limitation on only federal, not state, legislative efforts." All members of the panel agreed with this sentiment, but because the opinion was unsigned, it's not clear who wrote it.

"As a result of this very permissive legal standard -- and it is permissive -- doesn't your decision in Maloney mean that virtually any state or local weapons ban would be permissible?" asked Sen. Orrin Hatch, the Utah Republican, during Tuesday's meeting of the Senate Judiciary committee.

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Gary Marbut isn't aiming to eliminate federal gun laws. He just wants to make them much less relevant.

Marbut, president of the Montana Shooting Sports Association, is one of the leaders of a new grassroots movement that's seeking to invoke the principle of states' rights -- including states' own authority to regulate firearms -- to thwart what he and his allies view as an increasingly overreaching federal government.

Politicians in Washington have "assumed power that many of us believe was not authorized under the limits of the Constitution," Marbut said in an interview with CBSNews.com last week.

This modern-day federalist revolt began with a Montana state law recently signed by Democratic Gov. Brian Schweitzer. It says that firearms, ammunition, and accessories manufactured entirely inside Montana are not subject to federal regulation, including background checks for buyers and record-keeping requirements for sellers. They would remain subject to state regulation.

The law, which does not permit the manufacture of certain large-caliber weapons or machine guns, takes effect on October 1, 2009.

Montana is hardly alone: the Tennessee legislature has approved a nearly-identical bill, and others are pending in Texas, Alaska, Minnesota, and South Carolina. About 10 other states, including Florida and Arizona, are reportedly considering similar measures, and a Colorado state legislator has publicly pledged to follow suit.

Tennessee Gov. Phil Bredesen, a Democrat, said on Friday that he would let the bill become law without his signature. (Bredesen vetoed one gun rights bill last month; the veto was overriden.)

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Second Amendment advocates are responding warily to President Obama's nomination of Judge Sonia Sotomayor to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Alan Gottlieb, chairman of the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms, said on Wednesday that "Judge Sotomayor's position on the Second Amendment is a clear signal that Mr. Obama's claim that he supports gun rights is nothing but lip service."

Dave Kopel of the free-market Independence Institute predicts that "Judge Sotomayor's record suggests hostility, rather than empathy, for the tens of millions of Americans who exercise their right to keep and bear arms." And Ken Blackwell of the Family Research Council believes her nomination amounts to "a declaration of war against America's gun owners."

The difficulty in evaluating Sotomayor's views on the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms is the lack of definitive statements. No old law review articles advocating a Scalia-esque originalist approach have been unearthed; no speeches to the Brady Campaign calling for nationwide gun confiscation have surfaced.

A handful of Sotomayor's Second Circuit decisions, however, have.

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