The NRA is pushing a sweeping new bill to radically weaken the nation’s gun control regime. Already co-sponsored by 243 members of the House, the legislation would force any state to recognize a concealed weapons permit issued by any other state:

If Congress adopts a bill that the National Rifle Association is pushing, Florida’s licenses would apply to 49 states in all — allowing their holders to carry hidden guns in places such as midtown Manhattan, where the New York Police Department rejects most such applications for “concealed- carry” permits.

Only Illinois and Washington D.C., where residents aren’t allowed to carry concealed handguns at all, would be exempt.

While states can and do already adopt reciprocity agreements between each other, a federal law could create a potentially dangerous “race to the bottom” where a single gun-friendly state with lax regulations could become a haven for anyone in the country who wants a permit. In much the same way Delaware and South Dakota have done with credit card regulations, these states, where gun-rights lobbyists could focus their efforts, would effectively impose their permissive gun regulations on the rest of the country. Already, “in some states, the permits are practically a rubber stamp,” noted Laura Cutilletta, a senior staff attorney with Legal Community Against Violence.

For example, Bloomberg reporter John Crewdson was able to acquire a concealed weapons permit in Florida even though he doesn’t live there and has never held a gun in his life. All it took was watching a 30 minute online safety video and sending some documents and $117 to Tallahassee. A spokesperson told him Florida “doesn’t distinguish between in-state and out-of-state applicants.” Under the new law, Crewdson would be allowed to carry a loaded concealed firearm anywhere in entire country, save D.C. and Illinois.

The spokesperson later told him the permit’s approval was an accident, but only after he called them inquiring about it. And he still received his card in the mail. “As of last month, Florida had issued 843,463 such permits, 93,722 of them to people who don’t live there,” he wrote.

“It is so ironic that it is the conservatives who are trying to push this encroachment, since they usually are very active in championing states’ rights,” said John Donohue, a professor at Stanford Law School.

From 2005 through 2009, U.S. domestic handgun production and foreign-made imports more than doubled, in part due to states like Wisconsin adopting laxer gun laws. Over the same period of time, violent crime fell by over 5 percent. Given that the legislation is already sponsored by more than half of the House, its passage is almost guaranteed in that chamber, and it’s already gaining support in the Senate.

Earlier this year, President Obama nominated Arvo Mikkanen, who would become the only sitting Native American federal judge in the country if he is confirmed, to a federal court in Oklahoma. Almost immediately, Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) placed Mikkanen on double-secret probation — vowing to block Mikkanen’s nomination, but refusing to tell anyone why.

Just six months later, Coburn is back to his same obstructionist tricks:

Sen. Tom Coburn shot down the impending nomination of the dean of the University of Tulsa law school for the vacant seat on the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, according to Oklahoma attorneys who said Coburn was concerned about Janet Levit’s background in international law. [...]

Levit is a Yale Law School graduate with a distinguished resume that includes serving as a clerk for the former chief judge of the 10th circuit court and arguing cases before the court. She has been dean of the University of Tulsa College of Law since 2008.

Levit’s academic specialty is international law, and she is a member of the American Society of International Law.

Coburn is one of the leading proponents of a paranoid fantasy that claims that activist judges are on the cusp of replacing American law with some kind of international legal new world order, but his decision to block Levit is bizarre even by Coburn’s standards. Apparently, merely knowing something about international law disqualifies you from service on the federal bench.

Coburn’s veto over judicial nominees within his state stems from a process known as “blue slipping” that effectively enables home-state senators to block nominees within their state that they disapprove of — although this rule somehow doesn’t apply when there is a conservative president. And it is unlikely that any nominee will survive Coburn’s effective veto given his deeply radical views of the Constitution. Coburn believes that Medicare, Medicaid, and education programs such as Pell Grants, federal student loans and Title I are all unconstitutional.

In other words, this is just one more example of how the Senate’s broken rules are failing the country. It makes no sense whatsoever to give a single senator with radical and idiosyncratic views the ability to prevent any new judges from being confirmed within his state.

Last November, a federal district judge suspended an anti-Islamic Oklahoma constitutional amendment almost immediately after it was passed. Under that amendment,

[Oklahoma] courts shall not look to the legal precepts of other nations or cultures. Specifically, the courts shall not consider international law or Sharia Law. The provisions of this subsection shall apply to all cases before the respective courts including, but not limited to, cases of first impression.

Today, the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit will hear an appeal of the decision striking down this Islamophobic amendment.

It is not exactly clear just what this amendment is supposed to accomplish, beyond simply expressing the view that Oklahoma doesn’t like Muslims. Lexis’ extensive database of state judicial decisions does not contain a single Oklahoma court case that even mentions Sharia or Islamic law, so the risk of Oklahoma judges suddenly being swept away by their desire to replace American law with Sharia law is simply nonexistent.

Moreover, the fact that Oklahoma’s amendment serves no purpose other than to single out Muslims for discriminatory treatment brings it into direct conflict with the First Amendment’s guarantee that all people can freely exercise their faith. As the Supreme Court explained in Church of the Lukumi Babalu Aye v. Hialeah, “[a]t a minimum, the protections of the Free Exercise Clause pertain if the law at issue discriminates against some or all religious beliefs or regulates or prohibits conduct because it is undertaken for religious reasons.”

The panel in this case includes one George W. Bush appointee, a Carter appointee, and an Obama appointee, so there is minimal risk that a majority of the panel will decide to simply thumb their nose at Lukumi and uphold the amendment (although there is a slight risk that the court could dismiss the case for lack of jurisdiction). Hopefully, this court hearing will put an effective end to Oklahoma’s flirtation with officially sanctioned Islamophobia.

Tonight, the Tea Party Express will co-host yet another debate among the eight Republican presidential candidates, where they will no doubt push the candidates to align their views with Tea Party orthodoxy. Because few issues define the Tea Party more than its plan to radically rethink the Constitution into an anti-government manifesto, we suggest the following five questions:

1. Social Security: In the book Fed Up!, Texas Gov. Rick Perry writes that Social Security is “something we have been forced to accept for more than 70 years” and that it exists “at the expense of respect for the Constitution and limited government.” Raise your hand if you agree with Gov. Perry that Social Security exists at the Constitution’s expense.
2. Medicare: Once of the Tea Party’s leading supporters, Sen. Tom Coburn, recently suggested that Medicare is unconstitutional because “that’s a family responsibility, not a government responsibility.” Do you agree with Sen. Coburn that we should leave it up to families to care for their parents and grandparents on their own?
3. Workers’ Rights: Tea Party Sen. Mike Lee believes that federal child labor laws are unconstitutional because the Constitution “was designed to be a little bit harsh,” and Gov. Perry questions the constitutional basis of “national labor laws” in Fed Up!. Do you agree with Lee and Perry that the Constitution was designed to be a little bit harsh to American workers?
4. Disaster Relief: Sen. Lee also believes that the federal government should not play a role in disaster relief because “states will prepare differently if they understand that it’s their responsibility rather than that of the federal government.” Do you agree with Lee that states ravaged by hurricanes, earthquakes or tornadoes should be left to fend for themselves?
5. Citizenship: The Fourteenth Amendment guarantees that all persons born in the United States “are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside,” with a very narrow exception for children of ambassadors and other people who aren’t subject to U.S. law. Yet 96 members of Congress, including Rep. Michele Bachmann, co-sponsored legislation declaring that the children of undocumented immigrants no longer enjoy birthright citizenship. Do you agree with Congresswoman Bachmann that Congress has the power to strip people of their citizenship?

Other possibilities include whether the candidates agree with Perry that it is unconstitutional for Congress to try to avoid another banking crisis like the one that triggered the Great Recession. And whether the candidates agree with Sen. Coburn’s claim that all federal education programs — from Title I to Pell Grants to federal student loans — violate the Constitution.