What part of the 2nd Amendment does Mickey Mouse not understand? That's the question the NRA wants answered in light of the decision made by Walt Disney World to prohibit their employees from keeping fire arms in their cars while they work. This decision comes in spite of a new state law--The Preservation and Protection of the Right to Keep and Bear Arms in Motor Vehicles Act of 2008--that went into affect in Florida on Tuesday allowing state residents to do just that.

Disney contends that its property is exempt from the law due to an exception for companies who have a federal permit for explosives. Disney has that permit because they put on fireworks displays frequently. Republican state Senator Durell Peaden thinks Disney is hiding behind a technicality. "I intended it to exempt places like defense plants, Air Force bases, things like that," he said, adding, "but not Disney. Not at all."

When the news of Disney's defiance hit NRA headquarters, their PR department came out with guns blazing. They quickly issued a memo to members titled, "Disney Thumbing Nose at the New Florida Gun Law." The memo accused Disney of being a "prime offender when it comes to firing employees for exercising Second Amendment rights." Disney also supports a court challenge to the new law.

In case you were wondering, SeaWorld supports the law.

The NRA will need all their ammo, because in addition to their battle with Disney the group also has plans for a pitched legal battle against the city of San Francisco and also plans to spend $40 million on the Presidential election.

Gun-rights advocates announced plans yesterday to challenge restrictive gun laws in two of the nation's biggest cities in the wake of the landmark Supreme Court ruling in District of Columbia v. Heller. The Court ruled that Washington, D.C.'s ban on handgun ownership or possession within the District violated the Second Amendment's guarantee of the right to bear arms. The Illinois State Rifle Association and the National Rifle Association moved almost immediately to challenge gun laws in Chicago and San Francisco, respectively. Chicago's gun ban is similar to the one overturned in Washington, banning possession and sale of handguns within city limits. San Francisco bans possession of handguns on county property including parks, schools, and community centers.

The lawsuits are likely only the first in a new spate of gun-rights legal challenges to gun laws all across the country. The Supreme Court's decision was the first time in its history that the Court had ruled on the issue of whether the Second Amendment protects an individual or collective right to own a gun. The Illinois lawsuit borrows from the wording of the Court's decision indicating that the right is individual.

"By banning handguns, Defendants [the City of Chicago] currently maintain and actively enforce a set of laws, customs, practices, and policies under color of state law which deprives individuals ... of their right to keep and bear arms."

The issue of gun rights has injected itself into the presidential campaign, with both Sen. McCain and Sen. Obama embracing the Court's decision. But the lawsuit in Chicago could be a sticky issue for Sen. Obama as the campaign goes on. Chicago is Obama's hometown, and while a member of the Illinois State Senate, Obama cast several votes against the interests of gun owners, including voting twice to bar homeowners who owned a gun for self defense from being charged with violating local gun laws if they used the weapon for that purpose. As the Chicago lawsuit progresses, Obama may be forced to take a position on his city's gun laws that could put him at odds with his new found support for an individual right to bear arms.

Here's a rare moment in which all three of our current candidates for president seem to agree: Obama, Clinton, and McCain all want a loophole closed in our current law that allows convicted felons to purchase firearms at gun shows. So why, as Politico reports, is MSNBC refusing to run the following ad?



The network that brings you such controversial programming as "Morning Joe", "Hardball", and "Countdown" released an e-mail stating, "We don't accept controversial issue advertising."

Not allowing convicted felons to purchase still more weaponry at gun shows. Gee, I wonder what kind of an organization would consider that kind of law controversial?

Props to my Republican mayor, John Peyton, for his cameo in the ad which was produced by Mayors Against Illegal Guns, a group started by New York's Mike Bloomberg.

The legendary Charlton Heston, whose iconic acting roles defined an era of cinema, has passed away at the age of 84.

"If Hollywood had a Mt. Rushmore," said publicist Michael Levine, who represented Heston for 20 years, "Heston's face would be on it," Heston's epic films include "The Ten Commandments," "El Cid," "55 Days at Peking," "Planet of the Apes," "Soylent Green," and 11 Academy Award winning "Ben-Hur," for which he won the 1959 best actor Oscar. Heston proudly cited the host of historical figures he portrayed, including Andrew Jackson, Moses, El Cid, John the Baptist, Michelangelo, General Gordon, Marc Antony, Cardinal Richelieu, Henry VIII and, of course, Ben-Hur.

The actor later transitioned into an industry and political leader. He served as president of the Screen Actors Guild and chairman of the American Film Institute, marched in the civil rights movement of the 1950s and served as president of the National Rifle Association. In 2003, Heston was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian honor.

Happily, we are left with a lengthy legacy of Heston's on-screen work. A mandatory viewing of Ben-Hur is as central to my Easter celebration as Sunday mass and ham at dinner. If you've not yet enlightened yourself to Heston's brilliant work, hours (and hours) of thrilling joy await!

'Tis the season for political endorsements. A show of support from a newspaper, Hollywood actor, or fellow politician can create a sense of momentum when heading into the final stretch of a campaign. Most newspaper nods will spill ink in support of a presidential candidate and sometimes even discuss the merrits of a second person running, such as the Des Moines Register did when it endorsed Hillary Clinton, but singled out Barack Obama as possessing the right stuff to be president.

"When New Hampshire partisans are asked to defend the state's first-in-the-nation primary, we talk about our ability to see the candidates up close, ask tough questions and see through the baloney. If a candidate is a phony, we assure ourselves and the rest of the world, we know it," the newspaper said. "Mitt Romney is such a candidates. New Hampshire Republicans and independents must vote no."

This is lump in the gut, do or die time for the NRA. The US Supreme Court has granted cert on a clear cut 2nd Amendment case. And not only that but the ruling should come out right in the middle of the 2008 campaign season, and either way it goes is sure to elevate gun control to the top of the issues list.

Sen. Tom Coburn, R-OK, wears his right-wing kookiness like a badge of honor, making him my favorite conservative. He lacks the filter that most politicians have in their brains that might point out that you won't win many friends on Capitol Hill putting a procedural hold on the first new firearms bill in a decade so soon after the Virginia Tech shootings.

Coburn says the bill "creates a pathway by which individuals can lose their Second Amendment rights but no pathway through which they can gain them back if they're stable," the Washington Post says, adding that he estimates the cost of the bill's implementation at $2 billion.

So in Coburn's universe, would a paranoid schizophrenic would be able to by a gun provided that he or she is taking their meds? That's insane of course and the National Rifle Association argues that no would who can legally buy a gun today would be probited from doing so in the future. Why isn't the NRA's endorsement good enough for the doctor-turned politician?

By the way, just because I don't want to own guns doesn't mean that I support prohibit having law-abiding citizens with no history of serious mental illness from owning them.

The Oklahoma Republican isn't all bad. His zealous opposition to political pork spending which angers both parties is largely a good thing. Let's hope he turns his attention to that more worthy issue and drops his opposition to a bill which the Virginia Tech tragedy shows is so desperately needed.