With confirmation hearings for Judge Sonia Sotomayor scheduled for next month, it is worth noting the gun lobby's disingenuous – and surprisingly muted – reaction to her nomination so far.

On the eve of those hearings, the National Rifle Association still has not decided whether to score Senate votes on her confirmation.

Up to now, the NRA has instead taken a more timid official line against Judge Sotomayor, while apparently outsourcing a much harsher line of attack to members of its Board of Directors who speak on behalf of other organizations which have comparatively little to do with guns.

For example, one official NRA spokesperson said, "The rulings [Judge Sotomayor] has made are troubling, and concern us," while their top lobbyist has said,

We still have serious concerns about positions she's taken in the past, and the answer as far as following precedent [in the Supreme Court's Heller decision] is somewhat meaningless, because it does not answer the question of where she stands on the fundamental right of law-abiding Americans to keep and bear arms.

These statements are remarkably weak, especially compared to the vitriol coming from prominent members of the NRA Board of Directors.

Take Ken Blackwell, for example, who recently wrote that President Obama's nomination of Judge Sotomayor "declares war on America’s gun owners."

Pulling no punches, Blackwell said "President Obama has nominated a radically anti-Second Amendment judge to be our newest Supreme Court justice" and warned that red state Democratic "senators will jeopardize their seats if they vote to support an anti-gun radical for the Supreme Court."

While Blackwell – a former officer holder in Ohio and unsuccessful candidate for Chair of the Republican National Committee – now identifies himself as a Senior Fellow of the American Civil Rights Union or the Family Research Council in this context, he neglects to disclose that he is also an elected NRA Board member.

Meanwhile, a letter submitted by an organization calling itself the "Third Branch Conference," calls on Republican Senators to filibuster Judge Sotomayor's nomination.  Among the co-signers of this letter are David Keene – the NRA's newly-elected first vice president and president of the American Conservative Union – and Grover Norquist, longtime NRA Board member and president of Americans for Tax Reform.  Neither notes their high-level NRA connection in this context.

NRA officials seem to say one thing while their surrogates say another, indicating that either NRA leaders are afraid of showing their weakness on this vote, or they have lost control of their message – or both.

So far, the only open and direct anti-"gun control" opposition to Judge Sotomayor's nomination seems to be from Gun Owners of America, who call her "a politically correct lover of centralized government power" and a judge who "has racked up an anti-Second Amendment record and has displayed contempt for the rule of law under the Constitution."

Echoing Ken Blackwell, GOA Executive Director Larry Pratt said, "A vote for her says you don’t really support the Second Amendment."

Make no mistake, the gun lobby's histrionics about Judge Sotomayor ignore her record as a distinguished jurist who practices judicial restraint and who interprets the Second Amendment narrowly – unlike the activist majority in the Heller case.

As a former prosecutor who saw the effects of easy access to guns up close, her experience promises to bring a real-world understanding of the effects of gun violence to the Supreme Court.

That said, given the National Rifle Association's alleged power to rule Congress "with an iron fist," I am pleasantly surprised that their official position is so weak and apparently divided on a nominee who many gun advocates – including NRA Board members – are certain is a grave threat to Second Amendment rights.

We'll see during Judge Sotomayor's confirmation hearings how much stock, if any, NRA officials take in their legendary influence over Congress – this time, whether they have the spine to score Senators on a vote that really matters.

(Note to readers: This entry, along with past entries, has been co-posted on bradycampaign.org/blog and the Huffington Post.)

Rasmussen Reports released an interesting poll result yesterday, confirming the persuasiveness of the NRA's gun industry advertising campaign and the power of the news media to drive public attitudes.

Rasmussen asked respondents the following question: "Are gun sales in the United States up because of the fear of increased crime or fear of increased government restriction on gun ownership?"

Not surprisingly, the results were:

23% Fear of increased crime

57% Fear of increased government restriction on gun ownership

21% Not sure

A few points are worth mentioning here:

• Tellingly, both answer choices begin with the word "fear."

• The NRA spent 30 times more money building their fear campaign against Candidate Barack Obama than they did against Al Gore in 2000.  While NRA leaders were crushed on Election Day (taking another Senate loss just this week to Al Franken in Minnesota, after spending over $500,000 in a failed bid to re-elect Norm Coleman), their advertising has been a boon to the gun industry.

• One news story after another attributes the increase in gun sales to President Obama's election and essentially the "fear of increased government restriction on gun ownership."

• On the other hand, as a general matter, reducing crime currently ranks low on the public's priority list.

• Importantly, Rasmussen did not report whether the respondents themselves feared such restrictions, or whether respondents themselves were stocking up on firearms.  Rasmussen did ask the abstract question of why respondents believed gun sales in the United States are up.

• In fact, a Rasmussen survey in April reports that 76% of all Virginians - the NRA's home state - support a key "restriction on gun ownership": requiring all sellers at gun shows to do background checks on buyers.

It appears that, in the gun sales survey released yesterday, Rasmussen has done a useful service at measuring public attitudes about the cause of an event that has been covered extensively in the news - the apparent rise in gun sales.

The public apparently believes that people stocking up on guns fear increased government restrictions.

That same public, however, appears to be unafraid of that result.

Please take a moment this weekend to read Bob Herbert's column published today in The New York Times.

His message is long overdue:

Even with the murders that have already occurred, Americans are not paying enough attention to the frightening connection between the right-wing hate-mongers who continue to slither among us and the gun crazies who believe a well-aimed bullet is the ticket to all their dreams.

I hope I’m wrong, but I can’t help feeling as if the murder at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington and the assassination of the abortion doctor in Wichita, Kan., and the slaying of three police officers in Pittsburgh — all of them right-wing, hate-driven attacks — were just the beginning and that worse is to come.

As if the wackos weren’t dangerous enough to begin with, the fuel to further inflame them is available in the over-the-top rhetoric of the National Rifle Association, which has relentlessly pounded the bogus theme that Barack Obama is planning to take away people’s guns. The group’s anti-Obama Web site is called gunbanobama.com.

[Read Bob Herbert's full column here.]

Today we offer them our thoughts and prayers, but we also have to offer them our determination to do whatever it takes to eradicate this violence from our streets, from our schools, from our neighborhoods and our cities.  That is our duty as Americans.–

Senator Barack Obama, February 2008

Yesterday, President Obama gave an historic speech in Cairo, Egypt, in an attempt to create a new relationship between the United States and 1.5 billion Muslims across the world.  Earlier this month, he spoke to the graduates of Notre Dame University on bringing together opposing sides of the abortion debate.

Meanwhile, the President is still overseeing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, trying to pull the economy out of the ditch, and pushing to enact health care and energy reform by the end of the year.

Yes, the President has a lot on his plate.  Yet not only did then-Senator Obama contemplate this heavy workload, he campaigned for it.  As a presidential candidate, he famously said last September, "It’s going to be part of the president’s job to be able to deal with more than one thing at once."

Keeping this in mind, there is an immediate economic and public health crisis in America that, so far, both the President and Congress have chosen to ignore: approximately 12,000 gun homicides, 17,000 gun suicides, 650 accidental gun deaths, plus 70,000 non-fatal gun injuries occur every year in this country.

Yet rather than propose concrete action that makes it harder for dangerous people to get firearms – while still respecting the Second Amendment rights of law-abiding gun owners – all Washington can seem to muster after high-profile shootings are "thoughts and prayers" for the victims and their families.

For his part, the President has also included sincere expressions of "deep sadness" at these tragic losses – though without any call to change any of our policies to prevent those losses.

For example, after the shootings in March of four Oakland, CA police officers at the hands of a gunman armed with a military-style assault rifle, the President said in a prepared statement:

I was deeply saddened to learn of the tragic loss of Sgt. Mark Dunakin, Officer John Hege, Sgt. Ervin Romans, and Sgt. Daniel Sakai. Michelle and I hold their families and your community in our thoughts and prayers.

Our Nation is grateful for the men and women of law enforcement who work tirelessly to ensure the safety of our citizens and our neighborhoods. They risk their lives each day on our behalf and ask little in return. And although the danger of their work is well known, words still fail to explain the senseless violence that claims so many of them….

Following the April massacre of 13 aspiring American citizens in Binghamton, NY, by a deranged gunman – who fired 99 rounds from two semi-automatic pistols with high-capacity ammunition magazines before killing himself – the President said in a prepared statement:

Michelle and I were shocked and deeply saddened to learn about the act of senseless violence in Binghamton, NY today.  Our thoughts and prayers go out to the victims, their families and the people of Binghamton. We don’t yet know all the facts, but my administration is actively monitoring the situation and the Vice President is in touch with Governor Paterson and local officials to track developments.

Last month, after a mentally disturbed soldier shot and killed five fellow servicemembers at Camp Victory in Iraq before killing himself, the President said in a prepared statement:

I was shocked and deeply saddened to hear the news from Camp Victory this morning, and my heart goes out to the families and friends of all the service members involved in this horrible tragedy.  I will press to ensure that we fully understand what led to this tragedy, and that we are doing everything we can to ensure that our men and women in uniform are protected as they serve our country so capably and courageously in harm’s way.  To begin this process, I met with Secretary Gates this afternoon to get a briefing on the situation.

And now, in the days following an attack on a military recruiting station in Little Rock, AR, that killed one soldier and wounded another – at the hands of yet another man armed with a military-style assault rifle – the President released this prepared statement:

I am deeply saddened by this senseless act of violence against two brave young soldiers who were doing their part to strengthen our armed forces and keep our country safe.  I would like to wish Quinton Ezeagwula a speedy recovery, and to offer my condolences and prayers to William Long’s family as they mourn the loss of their son.

Contrast these statements with Candidate Obama's pointed remarks after yet another deranged "suicide shooter" attacked a classroom at Northern Illinois University in February 2008 and murdered 5 students before killing himself:

Today we offer them our thoughts and prayers, but we also have to offer them our determination to do whatever it takes to eradicate this violence from our streets, from our schools, from our neighborhoods and our cities.  That is our duty as Americans.

Four-and-a-half months into his Administration, it sounds like there is a difference between Candidate Obama and President Obama.

Candidate Obama stated his firm belief that we can reach common ground about effective ways to address gun violence prevention in America while respecting the Second Amendment rights of law-abiding citizens.

Yet up to now, President Obama has been unwilling to do much more than express his deep sadness and send his thoughts and prayers to victims and their families in response to shooting after shooting in this country, repeating gun lobby rhetoric that we should just "enforce the laws on the books," and sidestepping the fact that there are only a handful of Federal laws which make it harder for dangerous people to get guns.

He has yet to offer even a hint of his commitment after the Northern Illinois killings "to do whatever it takes" to keep dangerous weapons out of the hands of dangerous people.

Gun violence prevention should no longer be a cultural issue or a wedge issue.  The Supreme Court decision last summer helped affirm this by putting the extreme positions in this debate off the table.

When it comes to preventing tens of thousands of senseless American deaths and injuries every year, President Obama has a perfect opportunity to bring Americans together on a broad middle ground.

In the wake of the next mass shooting – and sadly, due to America's lack of a gun violence prevention safety net, I fear this is inevitable – I hope the President goes beyond merely expressing his deep sadness, and calls on Congress and on all Americans to act.

(Note to readers: This entry, along with past entries, has been co-posted on bradycampaign.org/blog and the Huffington Post.)

`

• Un-"wise" analysis

Supreme Court nominee Judge Sonia Sotomayor has drawn criticism for saying in an October 2001 speech, "I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn't lived that life."

I wonder why so little of the analysis of that statement has been on the crucial word "wise"?

For example, during Sunday morning's talk shows, Bob Scheiffer didn't include the word "wise" when delivering this quote to his guests on Face the Nation.  David Gregory's summary of the quote when discussing it with Brian Williams late in the broadcast of Meet the Press dropped the word, too.

Yet it is hard to disagree with a statement that a "wise person" would "more often than not"  reach "better" conclusions than just a regular person would. If this is true, isn't it logical that a "wise" person of one sex or ethnicity would decide better than just a regular person of the opposite sex or another ethnic group? It would thus follow that "a wise Latina woman" would be likely to reach a "better" conclusion than just a regular "white male."

Maybe the logic of being "wise" leading "more often than not" to "better" choices is so obvious that it's been ignored in this debate.  Yet perhaps Judge Sotomayor is pointing out what many have believed, in the past, if not still, that just a regular white male would reach "better" decisions than a "wise" person of a different race or gender.

• Yale Law School in the '70s

While there have been stories on how Judge Sotomayor, if approved, would be the sixth Roman Catholic currently on the Supreme Court, I haven't seen anyone note that she would be the third Yale Law School grad (Class of 1979) from the same decade, joining  Clarence Thomas (1974) and Samuel Alito (1975).

Furthermore, when you factor in my classmates from Yale Law 1973, such as Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, former President Bill Clinton, and former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich, as well as White House Counsel Greg Craig (Yale Law 1972), it's clear that there were a lot of bright, ideologically diverse people at Yale Law School as students during that decade.

• Second Amendment

Some have been attacking Judge Sotomayor for her decisions on gun rights, but as I point out in my statement released today, she has just followed precedent.

Until last year, the U.S. Supreme Court dealt with the Second Amendment as something tied to a "well regulated militia" and not as an individual right. Given that long-standing interpretation, it's not surprising that the Supreme Court had not "incorporated" the yet-to-be-discovered individual right to have a gun in the home for self-defense to the states prior to the June 26, 2008 Heller decision.

Furthermore, since Heller dealt with the District of Columbia (a federal enclave), that decision did not have to deal with the issue of state incorporation.

In coming months and years, the Supreme Court will have to deal with that issue, as well as the application to specific laws of Justice Scalia's long list of gun restrictions, which he indicated were "presumptively lawful."  These restrictions include limits on who can get guns, where they can be taken, how they are sold, how they are stored, and what kinds of guns they are.

Judge Sotomayor's respect for precedent, as well as her real world experiences as a  prosecutor, give me hope that she will understand the need for responsibilities as well as rights when it comes to evaluating gun laws.

***

There will be a robust debate over Judge Sotomayor's nomination to the Supreme Court in the weeks and months to come.  While discussion will range from the profound to the trivial, I hope that the process will proceed with the level of respect and decorum toward Judge Sotomayor that she has clearly earned.

(Note to readers: This entry, along with past entries, has been co-posted on bradycampaign.org/blog and the Huffington Post.)