July 25, 2009

Republican Sens. Richard Lugar of Indiana and George Voinovich of Ohio voted in favor of state’s rights. All their Senate GOP colleagues – along with Evan Bayh and more than 20 other Democrats – voted in favor of allowing the federal government to dictate to states what their laws must be.

If this sounds contradictory to the normal Republican position – conservatives generally favor states’ rights – consider that the issue was guns. And when the gun lobby talks, too many lawmakers hear only that voice.

Fifty-eight senators voted to require all 48 states that have some form of permit allowing citizens to carry concealed weapons on the streets to recognize the permits from all other states.

Last year, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the Constitution allows law-abiding Americans to have handguns in their homes.

The majority of the Senate wanted to go much further, essentially allowing citizens of the states with the loosest restrictions for getting a gun permit to carry those guns in states that have tighter restrictions.

The votes of Lugar and Voinovich – a former mayor and governor, respectively – was all that kept supporters from receiving the 60 votes necessary to adopt the legislation.

The proposal was an amendment to the military budget that has absolutely nothing to do with military spending.

This is, sadly characteristic of the Senate, which last month threw some language lifting a ban on semiautomatic weapons in Washington, D.C., into a voting-rights bill.

Different states have reached different conclusions about issuing gun permits. Indiana essentially has decided that nearly all adults without records of criminal convictions and mental illness can get a permit for life. Ohio has decided that residents can obtain a permit only after passing gun safety training.

(Illinois and Wisconsin do not allow people to carry handguns on the streets and in public. The amendment would have allowed those states to continue their bans.)

One supporter of the amendment said the move was intended to make a gun permit similar to a driver’s license.

The fact that all but two Republican senators were willing to throw away their usual support of states’ rights shows yet again the power of the gun lobby.

Lugar, who has proved to be eminently reasonable and one of the most non-partisan members of Congress, and Voinovich were the only Republicans in the Senate to stand up for the power of states to decide who gets to carry concealed weapons.

Good for them.