Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) plans to advance gun rights

Sen. Coburn, who introduced the legislation, added as an amendment to a credit card reform bill, to overturn national park gun bans, has more in mind, using a similar strategy.

Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) has quietly been preparing a series of gun rights amendments that he intends to offer to must-pass Senate bills this year, hoping to force Democrats to take tough votes and draw clear distinctions between the two parties heading into the midterms.

Coburn’s effort, part of a broader GOP 2010 strategy, is still coming together, but the Oklahoma Republican said this week that at least one forum for the gun fight will be this year’s appropriations measures. “We’ll see gun amendments if we see appropriations bills,” Coburn said.

The thinking is that at least some amendments that protect or advance gun rights have a chance of being adopted, because they'll (hopefully) be supported by a large majority of Republicans, plus a fair number of Democrats--especially junior Democrats in traditionally Republican seats, representing areas in which the constitutency tends to favor gun rights.

Republicans have seen some success in the past inserting gun rights provisions into Senate bills. The Senate Democratic Conference is not of one mindset on the issue; many of its more junior Members hail from conservative states and support gun rights. For instance, Coburn successfully tied up a public lands bill in 2008 by demanding that it include provisions repealing a ban on guns in national parks, and Republicans successfully inserted language into last year’s District of Columbia voting rights legislation to rid the city of many of its gun-control laws.

The article didn't go too deeply into specifics, but mentioned language to accomplish what Sen. Richard Burr (R-NC) tried to do with S. 669, the "Veterans 2nd Amendment Protection Act."

Other likely possibilities include some kind of national reciprocity ("Thune Amendment," in other words)--not that I am without concerns about such legislation.

What I like about Coburn's approach is that if Democrats feel compelled to support gun rights in order to keep their congressional seats, that pretty clearly demonstrates that the will of the people is in favor of gun rights.

Should be interesting.