But Craig has slipped in a so far widely unnoticed provision that gun industry experts say goes way beyond the one that died in the last Congress. It would bar “administrative proceedings” against the gun industry, which means that along with being immune from most lawsuits, dealers — even unscrupulous ones — would no longer have to worry about having their licenses revoked. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives uses such administrative proceedings to regulate the gun industry. But under Craig’s provision, the ATF’s authority would be greatly curtailed.

When I showed the provision to some industry experts, they were stunned that Congress was poised to make gun dealers and manufacturers virtually free from the authority of both the courts and law enforcement. Robert Ricker, a gun control advocate and former gun industry lobbyist, said the new provision is a dream for the industry. “This is much broader than last year. The [National Rifle Association] has been able to sell this as protecting the Second Amendment. And it goes way beyond that.”

The gun industry and its supporters defend the new bill, saying frivolous lawsuits threaten to bankrupt their companies and deal a blow to the economy as a whole — all for manufacturing a legal product that works as advertised. “To blame [the gun industry] for the criminal misuse of firearms that are lawfully manufactured and sold is unjust,” Rodd Walton, general counsel of gun manufacturer SIGARMS Inc., told a congressional panel this month.

But gun control advocates say they are dumbfounded by the timing of Congress’ effort to indemnify the gun industry because it will come just weeks after the release of a troubling report on guns and terrorism. A Government Accountability Office report released earlier this month said that at least 36 individuals on the federal terrorist “watch list” have walked into gun shops and bought weapons. The report makes the current effort in Congress to provide immunity to the industry painfully ironic to the gun control crowd. “It really ought to be an embarrassment that Congress would push this bill in the wake of a report that terrorists are buying guns over the counter,” said Dennis Henigan, legal action project director at the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence.

Observers say the strange juxtaposition speaks to the momentous clout of the National Rifle Association and the gun industry — and may have exposed like never before a glaring blind spot in homeland security. Where the Bush administration’s “war on terror” has conflicted with the interests and raw political power of the gun lobby, mounting evidence shows that the war consistently loses. Henigan noted that suspects on the government’s terror watch list cannot board airplanes or cruise ships, but they can buy assault weapons. “There is no question that this radical pro-gun ideology trumps the war on terror,” he said. “It is quite striking.”

Some gun law experts say the Bush administration has shown a remarkable willingness to push the edge of the civil liberties envelope, citing the necessities of war — the “sneak and peak” provisions of the USA PATRIOT Act and the naming of U.S. citizens as “enemy combatants” being prime examples. But as conservatives have consolidated power since 9/11, they have done little to stop would-be terrorists from arming themselves here in the United States. And as they have pursued an agenda that includes an ostensible dedication to preserving the sanctity of the Second Amendment, their success may have had the unintended consequence of making it easier, not harder, for terrorists to get guns.

“Nothing has been done, and in fact it has gone the other way,” said Ricker. “Look at the whole way the administration has handled things since 9/11. There is a constitutional right to travel, for example, but [the administration is willing to] restrict rights to travel. They have [attacked terrorism] through banking and financial transactions. But as far as guns go — the Second Amendment — it is wide open.”

We rarely first think of terrorists’ connections with guns so much as their use of other weapons, like explosives or hijacked airplanes. Yet, remember the indelible image of the crouching Osama Bin Laden, aiming an AK-47 assault weapon; or gun-stockpiling Timothy McVeigh’s obsession with “The Turner Diaries,” in which a gun enthusiast blows up FBI headquarters to protest tighter gun laws. Should armed terrorists attack a domestic target with assault weapons tomorrow, it would not be as if we weren’t warned. The “How Can I Train Myself for Jihad” manual, reportedly found in safe houses in Kabul, Afghanistan, recommends that terrorists arm themselves with assault weapons. “In other countries, e.g. some states of USA, South Africa, it is perfectly legal for members of the public to own certain types of firearms,” the manual says. “If you live in such a country, obtain an assault rifle legally, preferably AK-47 or variations, learn how to use it properly and go and practice in the areas allowed for such training.” According to the GAO report, that is exactly what is happening.

In the January/February issue of the Atlantic Monthly, former national coordinator for security and counterterrorism Richard Clarke looks back on potential terror attack scenarios. In one, he imagined four terrorists attacking the Mall of America in Minnesota, armed with TEC-9 submachine guns, street-sweeper 12-gauge shotguns and dynamite. They killed 300 and wounded 400. “It had not been hard for the terrorists to buy all their guns, legally, in six different states across the Midwest,” Clarke warns.

And indeed, as the GAO reported, it seems that some potential terrorists are buying guns legally. I wanted to see what they could get their hands on. After a 15-minute written safety quiz at the local National Rifle Association range in Northern Virginia (answers are provided), I put 34 bullets into the head and neck of a human-shaped target from 150 meters away, using an M-16 propped on a table and fitted with a small scope. I missed four times. I had never shot a gun before in my life, but I can go to the local gun shop and buy one. And a frightening array of weapons is now on the market that would put the M-16 to shame. Last November, the Department of Homeland Security sent an “Officer Safety Alert” to agents warning them about the FN Herstal Five-Seven. It’s a handgun that can penetrate body armor, a capability usually reserved for rifles. According to FN Herstal’s Web site touting the gun: “Enemy personnel, even wearing body armor, can be effectively engaged up to 200 meters.”

Tennessee-based Barrett Firearms Manufacturing makes the 82A1 .50 caliber sniper rifle. Accurate from a mile away, the rifle’s huge round can go through an engine block or take down an airplane or helicopter. A May 2003 after-action report from an Army sniper team in Iraq with the 82nd Airborne describes the power of a Barrett .50 caliber sniper rifle. The report said the rifle was used “to engage both vehicular and personnel targets out to 1,400 meters.” It said the snipers liked the rifle, in part, because of the “psychological impact on other combatants that viewed the destruction of the target.” A sniper team using that rifle reported: “My spotter positively identified a target at 1,400 meters carrying [a rocket-propelled grenade] on a water tower. I engaged the target. The top half of the torso fell forward out of the tower and the lower portion remained in the tower.” The report says that in some cases, targets were disintegrated when shot with the rifle. These guns are widely available, and no special license is needed to buy one.

If Craig’s bill passes, the ATF will have little or no ability to take away the license of a dealer who unscrupulously allows Herstal Five-Sevens or .50 caliber sniper rifles to flow into the wrong hands. Joe Vince, the former chief of the ATF’s Crime Gun Analysis Branch, said the bill’s new provision barring “administrative proceedings” would severely hamper his old agency. “When they are talking about administrative, what that means is they cannot lose their license,” Vince said. “So there is no regulatory power.” The ATF reports that 1 percent of gun dealers are responsible for nearly 60 percent of the guns traced to a crime. Vince agreed that most gun dealers play by the rules. “So who are they protecting here?” Vince asked.

The sponsor of the House version of Craig’s immunity bill, Florida Republican Cliff Stearns, said the new language means the ATF can only take away a license if it can prove that a gun dealer “willfully or knowingly” violates the law — the same standard the bill sets up to let some lawsuits proceed. “If that’s the case, the ATF can still revoke a license,” Stearns said in a statement to Salon. A spokesman for Craig said the senator agrees with Stearns.

But Brian J. Siebel, a senior attorney at the Brady Center, disagrees. He said it is a “real admission” that Stearns admits he is curtailing the ATF’s authority at all. He points out that the wording of the legislation does appear to tie the ATF’s hands in all cases. “He is trying to pull the wool over your eyes,” said Siebel.

Stearns and his supporters make a big deal out of the fact that their bill still holds dealers accountable to the ATF or the courts where it is clear a dealer purposely broke the law. But critics say gun dealers know the loopholes. In the case of the D.C. sniper, the bureau found that the dealer had lost 283 guns over three years, sparking allegations that that it was actually illegally selling guns to criminals off the books. The gun dealer’s inventory magically shrank while its guns showed up in the hands of criminals. There were no records proving the dealer knew he was breaking the law. That dealer, Bull’s Eye, was among the top 1 percent of dealers in numbers of guns traced to a crime.

If Craig’s legislation passes, it will be the latest in a long line of actions since Bush took office making powerful guns easier to get and harder to trace, even as politicians on both sides of the aisle claim to be getting tough on terrorism. In a speech to the United Nations soon after 9/11, Bush had called on the world to crack down on terrorists’ financing, improve intelligence, coordinate law enforcement and keep guns out of terrorists’ hands. “In this war on terror, each of us must answer for what we have done or what we have left undone,” Bush told the U.N. General Assembly on Nov. 10, 2001. “We have a responsibility to deny weapons to terrorists and to actively prevent private citizens from providing them.”

Yet, under a law Bush signed in January 2004, the government now destroys in 24 hours all records from background checks of gun purchasers. Critics had said keeping the records would help the government track fraud and abuse. In his hypothetical scenario at the Mall of America, Clarke writes: “This meant that if a gun buyer subsequently turned up on the new Integrated Watch List, or was discovered by law-enforcement officials to be a felon or a suspected terrorist, when government authorities tried to investigate the sale, the record of the purchase would already be on the way to the shredder.” Right after 9/11, then-Attorney General John Ashcroft refused to give the FBI access to records that might have helped determine if any of the 1,200 people detained immediately after the attacks had sought to buy weapons.

In September 2004, Congress allowed the ban on assault weapons to expire. President Bush has said he supports the ban, and has faced harsh criticism for expending little political capital to extend it. Gun rights groups say the ban was mostly aesthetic. But perhaps most important, the ban also outlawed ammunition clips larger than 10 rounds. Now, clips are unregulated, giving potential terrorists more continuous firepower for their high-powered weapons.

While the government’s “war on terror” continues, Congress also has not yet closed the “gun show loophole.” Sales at gun shows are completely unregulated in most states, and most purchases require no background checks. There is concern that the shows are open-air bazaars for criminals, and possibly terrorists. Congress also passed what is known as the “Tiahrt Amendment,” named after Kansas Republican Rep. Todd Tiahrt. It keeps secret from the public ATF data tracing weapons used in crimes.

Congress and the White House have also failed to close the loophole that allows people on federal watch lists to legally buy guns. Congress has previously come up with a raft of reasons to bar a gun purchase, such as the 1968 ban for felons or illegal immigrant status. But more than three years after 9/11, being a suspected terrorist doesn’t disqualify one from buying a gun. FBI Director Robert Mueller told a House panel this month that perhaps that should be changed. “We ought to look at what can be done to perhaps modify the law to limit that person’s access to a weapon,” Mueller said. Justice Department officials said no proposal to do that is forthcoming. Kevin Madden, a department spokesman, said preventing terrorists from buying guns might alert them that they were under surveillance. “The terrorist watch list is an intelligence watch list that is constantly evolving,” Madden told me.

The ATF said it doesn’t hunt terrorists, per se, but that it does go after gun criminals and hopes terrorists get caught in the net. “Our criminal efforts are also our terrorism efforts,” said ATF spokesman Drew Wade. “We have to enforce the laws of the land. So hopefully enforcing the laws of the land will help with terrorism as well.” The ATF said firearms investigations have increased 93 percent over the past five years, and the number of defendants referred for prosecution on firearms violations has increased 135 percent over the same period.

Ricker, the former gun show lobbyist, worries about indications that the new bill giving immunity to the gun industry will pass. He said he bets that few lawmakers even know about the provision that would hog-tie the ATF. “I think it is incredible that the Republicans are kowtowing to a strong political ally,  the NRA. That is now spilling over to things like this immunity bill. They just say, ‘This is [about] guns; I’m voting for it.’ They obviously have not even read the bill.”

Until Thursday, Foley had yet to acknowledge these stories publicly; if he had his druthers, they would all just go away. Maybe they will. But the matter raises a provocative question: How much do we really have a right to know about our elected politicians? And it also raises inevitable questions about Foley’s own party. If Foley continues to ignore the question, there will be plenty of people who will assume he is simply hiding his homosexuality. And for a Republican Party stigmatized in recent months by comments widely perceived as anti-gay by its No. 3 man in the Senate, it raises the question of whether Foley believes his party faithful, among others, will reject him if he reveals his sexuality.

Foley’s office noted that myriad Republican officials were issuing statements on his behalf. The one issued by Majority Whip Roy Blunt, R-Mo., states: “Mark is one of my Deputy Whips. He is a key part of virtually every bit of work that we get done up here. He is an integral part of our team, and I value his help, advice, and understanding of what needs to be done and how to get it done.”

Presumably Blunt is reading from the textbook of those, like Charles Francis, a friend of President George W. Bush and co-chair of the influential Republican Unity Coalition, who think that Foley’s answer is totally acceptable and should be left right there. “I believe in the ‘non-issue’ approach,” Francis tells Salon. “Homosexuality as a non-issue is something that Republicans aspire to, it’s the president’s worldview, and it’s something I’ve tried to create at the Republican Unity Coalition.” Foley’s non-answer to the question would seem to fit in with the non-issue theory. “He has the right to say what he wants about his private life as he faces the voters,” Francis says. “God bless him, and good luck.”

Another prominent gay Republican organization agrees. “Our position is that our first priority is turning what is now a Democratic seat in the Senate to the Republican side,” says Patrick Guerriero, executive director of the Log Cabin Republicans. “We’re less concerned with any of the candidates’ sexual orientation than where they stand on issues of fairness.” Guerriero noted that Foley’s probable GOP primary opponent, conservative former Rep. Bill McCollum, sponsored a hate-crimes bill that offered protection to gays and lesbians, “so we have two candidates who have some track record on being right on our issues.”

He issues a warning to Democrats looking to exploit Foley’s discomfort. “I hope we’re not coming to a time when every single candidate will be asked to tell every single thing about their personal life,” he says. “The Democrats should know that this would be walking down a very dangerous path.” After all, as another Republican activist points out, there are plenty of rumors about the sexuality of a current Democratic senator and two Clinton administration Cabinet officials. People in glass houses (however divinely decorated)…

Even some partisan Democrats agree. “I think he has a right to take” the position of not answering the question, says openly gay Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass. “I used to take that position 17 years ago.” Careful to not address the issue of Foley’s sexuality one way or another, Frank says he disagrees with gays who refuse to acknowledge their sexuality. “While I do think you have right to keep things private, when you do that, it leaves an implication that there’s something wrong with it.”

And at least one veteran of the Clinton era, epitomized by what he called the “politics of personal destruction,” feels Foley will be facing this question for as long as he pursues the Senate seat. “Anybody, whether they’re gay or straight, they have a right to their own sex life,” says James Carville, a former Clinton campaign official and now co-host of CNN’s “Crossfire.” “But I doubt there’s much he can do to stop this. He can have all the conference calls he wants.”

And liberals will be the least of Foley’s worries. Lori Waters, executive director of the conservative Eagle Forum, tells Salon that what matters most to her organization “is how he votes, and he is not a conservative. If he’s out there pushing the gay agenda, we’re very much opposed to those things, and I would hope the voters in Florida would be as well.” But even a candidate with a strong record on the issues that Eagle Forum cares about — Foley scored 65 percent on its 2002 voting chart — couldn’t assume Eagle Forum support if he or she is gay.

“We certainly don’t agree with the gay lifestyle,” Waters says, “and when it comes to our decison-making for the PAC as to who we support, we have to give to people who are consistent with the values of those people who give to us.” If a conservative candidate were gay, “that would be a real stumbling block,” she says.

Even some of those who support Foley’s right to privacy see situations in which he might have trouble continuing his refusal to answer the question. Frank says that Foley will be trying to join the U.S. Senate, “a body in which Rick Santorum is the third-ranking member. So it’s not entirely irrelevant.” Last month Santorum, R-Pa., gave an interview to the Associated Press in which he likened the legality of homosexuality to that of bigamy, incest and bestiality. If a GOP senator is elected from Florida in November 2004 — Sen. Bob Graham, D-Fla., is currently running for president and may or may not seek reelection — that individual will cast a vote either for or against Santorum, now the chairman of the Senate GOP Conference and a possible future candidate for Senate Majority Leader.

Francis allows that asking how Foley would vote on Santorum’s anticipated leadership races would be a fair question, as would Foley’s thoughts on Santorum’s remarks — which he has yet to make public. And that seems to be the problem: That line of questioning leads directly to logical questions about how Foley feels about a man who thinks that gay relationships have no more legal basis than incestuous ones, and no more right to acceptance in society than what Santorum called “man on dog.” And that leads to perfectly reasonable questions about why he personally feels that way.

Moreover, in a political primary — especially a Republican one where Christian conservatives make up much of the base, not to mention one in a Southern state like Florida — whispers that Foley is gay, regardless of their accuracy, will likely have an effect on the race.

Carville, who hails from Louisiana, argues that there’s no way to know how such a matter will factor into the election. “There are very few acknowledged gays who have run in Republican primaries in the South, so you don’t really know,” he says. “I mean, you can’t go to a racing form and see what they traditionally do. My guess is it’s not going to be terribly helpful.”

Many of Foley’s likely voters, Carville says, consider homosexuality “a sin and an abomination against nature.” If some religious voters look at homosexuality as “immoral conduct that cannot be tolerated,” Carville doesn’t see how they could just brush the matter off, as Foley seems to hope they will do. “He goes and campaigns in some of these fundamentalist churches where they are, if I thought it was a sin and an abomination, I’d ask him, right there, ‘Are you a sodomite?’”

If a candidate tried to evade questions about whether he attends meetings of the Ku Klux Klan, Carville says, “it wouldn’t be enough to say, I’m not going to answer that. You’d have to answer that before I’d vote for you. And a lot of fundamentalist Christians view homosexuality the way I view the Klan.”

These issues are what prompted the April 26 Sun-Sentinel column by Buddy Nevins, which artfully tap-danced around the issue by focusing on how Foley’s liberal bent on issues of gay and lesbian rights — in 2000, he merited a 100 percent rating by the Human Rights Campaign, which bills itself as the nation’s leading “lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender equal rights” organization — seemed incongruous with his conservatism on other issues. “I believe — as a longtime political writer and columnist in the state of Florida for over 20 years — that this will affect his campaign,” Nevins tells Salon. “We will continue to look at this subject and follow it.”

Nevins broached the matter with the congressman of how those votes might hurt him in a GOP primary, and says he took note of Foley’s discomfort in discussing the matter. Foley is “clearly uncomfortable talking about gay rights in this campaign,” Nevins wrote. “His speech slowed and his face darkened when asked a question about it.” Foley told Nevins that he hoped “people would understand that those votes are fairness issues — nondiscrimination against employees and things like that.”

Following that story came a May 8 cover story in an area alternative weekly, the New Times of Broward-Palm Beach, titled “Out With the Truth: With His Voting Record at Issue, Why Won’t U.S. Congressman Mark Foley Just Say That He’s Gay?” That story prompted a May 22 cover story in the Washington Blade, a gay and lesbian newspaper in D.C. “Newspaper Outs Fla. Congressman,” read the Blade’s headline. “Republican Mark Foley’s Staff Says Sexual Orientation Irrelevant to Senate Bid.”

Throughout it all, Foley remained mum. “Frankly, I don’t think what kind of personal relationships I have in my private life is of any relevance to anyone else,” Foley said in 1996 when the Advocate claimed he was gay in a story about the Defense of Marriage Act, legislation against the federal recognition of gay and lesbian marriage. Foley, along with most other members of Congress and President Clinton, supported the legislation. “I know one thing for certain: When I travel around the district every weekend, the people who attend my town meetings and stop me on the street corner certainly are a lot more concerned with issues like how I voted on welfare reform or whether or not Medicare is going to be there when they need it — not the details of whom I choose to have a relationship with.”

The only time Foley seemed to answer the question came back in 1994, when he first ran for Congress. When asked about his sexuality by his hometown newspaper, the Stuart (Fla.) News, Foley responded: “I like women.”

Guerriero of the Log Cabin Republicans says Foley’s record should suffice. “Mark Foley’s record on matters of fairness to all Americans of all walks of life is clear and unequivocal and makes it clear he does not concur with the sentiments expressed by Sen. Santorum,” he says. “While we welcome Republicans and Democrats to speak out against Santorum’s comments, which were so hurtful to some members of our American family, we’re far more interested in the comprehensive nature of their public service.”

Towson Fraser, communications director for the Florida Republican Party, agrees that Foley should be judged on his record and nothing else. He acknowledges that the recent stories have not escaped notice down in Tallahassee but refuses to touch them. “From our standpoint,” Fraser says, “Congressman Foley is a valued member of our Republican family. He has a strong conservative record of supporting the president, and we’re not going to get into that kind of gossip and innuendo.” Won’t Foley have to address the question? “That’s a question for him,” Fraser says. “We’re not going to allow our primary and eventually the U.S. Senate race to degenerate into a contest of nasty rumors and gossip.”

But privately, many Republican officials acknowledge that Foley will sooner or later have to address the matter — and they hope it will be sooner. Many consider Foley to be a strong and appealing candidate who could run a strong race, though they acknowledge that if he’s gay, that could hurt him in some more conservative areas of the state, particularly if the Democratic party nominates a moderate-to-conservative candidate.

What of the inevitable questions that will come from Democratic attack dogs regarding what they would characterize as the intrusive nature of Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr’s investigation and the impeachment proceedings against President Clinton? Foley, after all, voted in favor of two of the four articles of impeachment.

“It’s apples and oranges,” says Francis. “Monica Lewinsky was a private affair gone public.” Guerriero agrees, saying that while there was “overkill,” “the president brought that scandal upon himself and brought it into the Oval Office.”

Carville says he doesn’t think Foley’s role in Clinton’s impeachment should have any bearing one way or another, but that the Santorum questions seem a more convincing way that this could become an issue in his race.

Frank, the Massachusetts representative, points to three recent races where gay Republican candidates were defeated in primaries and says that, though Foley’s non-answer might work, he doubts it will. “I would think his dilemma is in part because he thinks if people think he’s gay — and I’ve carefully not commented on whether he is or he isn’t — they would hold it against him,” Frank says. “Some of the right-wingers, however, seem to accept gay candidates as long as they seem kind of abashed by it.”

Gay Republicans appealing to conservative voters may take solace that some “seem to accept the fact that being gay is beyond their control,” though they “wouldn’t accept someone acknowledging being gay if he appears to be unashamed of it,” Frank says. Thus, a gay Republican might be OK not denying that he’s gay, the congressman says, “as long as he appears to not be happy about it.”

Foley’s problem with the bill lies in the fact that it would let federally funded religious charities discriminate against, say, Jews or gays when making employment decisions for secular positions in the charity. And even if a state or locality had nondiscrimination laws in place, the religious charity would be exempted from those laws. Foley tried to offer an amendment to the bill to change this, but the GOP leadership blocked it.

Foley’s concerns were enough to derail a vote on the bill for a day. But by Wednesday evening, John Feehery, the spokesman for House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., was saying that the bill — unchanged — would face a vote Thursday. “We’ll win,” Feehery predicted — correctly.

Wednesday evening, Foley said 30 to 40 Republicans had expressed concern about the bill’s overriding of state and local laws. But then the GOP arm-twisting began, he said, and support for his argument quickly crumbled. A safe estimate of Republicans standing with him was probably closer to 15, he said. Feehery disagreed. “Closer to five,” he said.

Again, by the time of the final vote at least, Feehery was right: The only four GOP opponents were Reps. Ron Paul of Texas, Don Manzullo of Illinois, Connie Morella of Maryland and Bob Stump of Arizona. Even Foley voted for the bill, as did Rep. Christopher Shays, a thorn in the side of House GOP leadership especially since Hastert refused to move his campaign finance reform bill to the full House last week.

Rep. Jim Kolbe, R-Ariz., the only openly gay Republican in the House, voted for the Watts-Hall bill, encouraged to do so by Deputy Whip Rep. Roy Blunt, R-Mo., in a meeting right before the vote.

“Negotiations” between Hastert’s and Foley’s offices began on Wednesday, but Foley’s office considered the offers from the speaker to be meaningless. Hastert said he’d let Foley bring up his amendment for a subsequent appropriations bill, which he would be permitted to do anyway, and he offered a moment of floor time for a “colloquy,” wherein Foley and one of the bill’s sponsors could have a dialogue about the matter. Foley was so disappointed, he didn’t even participate in the colloquy. The task fell to Rep. Mark Kirk, R-Ill., who ended up voting for the Watts-Hall bill, too.

“Obviously, they worked their will,” said Shays. “And they didn’t know how the Democrats were going to vote.” In the end, Shays voted for the bill because he supports it in principle, and trusts that the moderates’ concerns will get addressed when the Democratic-controlled Senate takes up its version of the bill.

Despite impassioned appeals by Minority Leader Rep. Dick Gephardt, D-Mo., Democrats failed to gel behind any effective counter to the bill. The Democratic alternative to the Watts-Hall bill was defeated 168-261, with 40 Democrats voting against it.

A motion to send Watts-Hall back to the House Judiciary Committee, where the Foley amendment could be added to it was defeated 234-195, with Foley, joined by Morella, Rep. Jim Leach of Iowa and Shays, as the only Republicans voting for it. Seventeen Democrats voted against it.

Throughout the debate, passions ran high. Supporters of the bill argued that too often politicians refuse to give religion the respect it deserves.

“We dismiss and we discourage people of faith,” said co-sponsor Hall, speaking in particular to his fellow Democrats.

“What ever happened to states’ rights?” asked Rep. William Delahunt, D-Mass., invoking what has been a time-honored Republican value. During the debate over the Contract With America in 1995, “you spoke so clearly about local control,” Delahunt said to his Republican colleagues. “It seems to have been discarded.”

“Faith-based organizations should have an opportunity to compete on a level playing field,” Watts countered. The individuals who work “12-hour days” at these groups “don’t get their names in the paper,” but they and their works deserve support, he said.

While some of the bill’s supporters promised that language permitting certain types of discrimination could be removed during the House-Senate conference committee, Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., an openly gay opponent of the bill, quipped, “I thought it was ‘faith’ in God, not ‘faith’ in the Senate!” But despite the unanimous opposition of the 34-member Congressional Black Caucus — somewhat surprising in light of the support Bush’s faith-based proposals enjoy among many black clergy — the bill passed with a strong 35-vote margin of victory.

In London, President Bush issued a statement. “Back at home, Congress has taken an important step toward building stronger and more caring communities,” he said. “In a victory for progress and compassion, the House has acted to expand charitable giving, to increase the help available to poor Americans, and to end discrimination against churches, synagogues, and charities that provide social services.”

But from Foley’s point of view, it’s the discrimination permitted by the bill that will get the headlines, which he sees as the result of GOP cluelessness. Still, as is his M.O., he put forth his best Republican face for the crowds and supported the Watts-Hall bill in its final vote, saying that it “will fill a vital role in our society and give faith-based organizations the tools to provide much-needed services to those who need them most … My concerns arose from the unintended consequences this bill could have by potentially overriding state and local laws aimed to prevent discrimination based on disability, gender, religion, race and sexual orientation, among others.”

“We have made great progress” in addressing these concerns, Foley said. “Our proposal has not fallen on deaf ears, and we are confident we can work to include many of the provisions we have advocated in a conference report on this bill.”

His confidence is actually not so ill-placed. After all, the odds are that the issue will be resolved to Foley’s liking in the Democratic-controlled Senate.

“We can’t move backward on the progress we’ve made on discrimination in this country,” Majority Leader Sen. Tom Daschle, D-S.D., told reporters Thursday when asked about the dispute in the House. “You know, we are becoming a more tolerant society, sometimes in a very difficult manner. We’ve been kicking and screaming in our resistance as a society at times, but we’ve done it because we’ve been mandated to do it. Those mandates have made a difference.”

Throughout the day, as the debate raged, the House and Senate were visited by random troops of Boy Scouts, attacked by many for discriminating against gays, in town from all over the country for the annual Boy Scout Jamboree — a reminder of what’s at stake in this debate and how little common ground the two sides may find.

That Congress continues to slay any and every gun law — no matter how popular, incidental or seemingly reasonable — is a tribute to the gun industry’s powerhouse of a lobby, the National Rifle Association.

The NRA’s superpowers originate in its wallet — the group donated $1.6 million in
PAC contributions to candidates for federal office last election cycle alone.
From 1991-98, the NRA gave nearly $9 million to candidates, parties and
PACs, all the more impressive compared with the relatively paltry sum ($146,000)
offered up by Handgun Control Inc., Washington’s largest anti-gun lobby. (Full disclosure: I worked for Handgun Control for six months in 1997.)

For the NRA, as for other big political contributors, money is leverage. The
senators who voted against a recent measure that would have required background
checks at gun shows received an average of $10,500 from pro-gun groups, while
those who voted to close the loophole received, on average, closer
to $300.

The sizable coffers also allow the NRA to present a united lobbying front on
Capitol Hill. The NRA spent $2.25 million on lobbying in 1998 alone — cash that
allowed the interest group to employ 10 full-time lobbyists in addition to the
six lobbying firms it keeps in its holster on retainer.

But it’s overly simplistic to argue that the NRA rules with its wallet alone. The
NRA has a mobilized and active grass-roots membership it claims to be 3 million
strong. These are largely single-issue men (and some women) who write millions of
postcards, attend town meetings and candidate forums and vote. As a result,
they command attention from their representatives.

Money and membership are significant bullets in the NRA’s Uzi, but there’s more
to it than that. Lost among all of this financial and electoral clout is the fact that the NRA’s allies in Congress happen to agree with the NRA’s hard-line stance on the Second Amendment.

Staunch NRA advocates have held the House leadership’s feet to the fire in the
face of the new push for gun restrictions on Capitol Hill, according to Kristin
Rand of the Violence Policy Center.

She says House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., “is a problem, but he’s not a true believer. Hastert has at least made some conciliatory statements. He’s sent signals that he’s sympathetic to a compromise on some of these issues. He’s in no
way an NRA stalwart. I suspect that if he didn’t have [Whip Tom] DeLay and [Majority Leader Dick] Armey and [Rep. Bob] Barr tugging him so far right on this, Hastert would probably have let the amendment [closing the gun-show loophole] go.”

Here, however, are the true believers — in order, a list of the NRA’s 10 best friends in Washington.

1) Sen. Trent Lott, Senate Majority Leader, R-Miss.: One of the most powerful
legislators in the world, Lott was also one of the keynote speakers at the NRA’s
127th national convention in Philadelphia in June 1998. “You are the mainstream
of America,” Lott said, adding that if Congress were to pass further gun
restrictions, “we might as well fold up the flag and melt down the Liberty Bell.”
Whenever possible, he’s used any procedural motion at his disposal to shoot down
any and every gun-control law Democrats have proposed. “And he tries to appear
reasonable as he does it, which is his trick,” says lobbyist Marie Carbone of
Handgun Control Inc.

2) Rep. Tom DeLay, House Majority Whip, R-Texas: What would it take for
Majority Whip DeLay to change his mind on the issue of whether or not too many
nut jobs have too much access to high-powered weapons? Would a crazed gunman have
to infiltrate the capital and start firing at DeLay himself? Not hardly. That’s
exactly what happened one year ago last month, and DeLay is still as convinced as
ever that the problem is, as he puts it, God, not guns.
Since Republicans took control of the House in November 1994, not one gun-control
measure has passed the House other than an attempt to repeal the assault weapons
ban of ’94. That measure passed the House in 1996 and was subsequently ignored by the
Senate. An incredibly effective whip, DeLay deserves much of the credit for this
track record.

3. Sen. Larry Craig, R-Idaho: Craig, an NRA board member, has long opposed
even small seatbelt-like safety measures for guns, such as
trigger locks. After the Senate passed the Juvenile Justice Bill, Craig said,
“the Democrats and the vice president … feel restricting the Second Amendment rights
of law-abiding citizens is more important than combating the plague of youth
violence infecting this nation.” During the recent gun-control debate in the House, Craig offered an amendment that
he claimed would close the gun-show loophole, but actually weakened federal law.
The next day, after discovering what the Craig amendment actually did, even
conservatives like Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., were offended and rebelled,
insisting on another vote for an amendment more substantial than Craig’s.

4) Rep. Dick Armey, House Majority Leader, R-Texas: Armey’s clout has
diminished ever since he lied about his role in the attempted coup of
then-Speaker Newt Gingrich, but as majority leader he’s still somewhat large and
in charge. And he’s anti-gun control. “He’s another crafty one,” says Handgun
Control’s Carbone. “He doesn’t rail against gun control on the floor like [Rep.]
Bob Barr, but behind closed doors he makes sure that it’s hard or downright
impossible for gun-control measures to make it out onto the floor — or out of committee, even.”

5) Gov. George W. Bush, R-Texas: Though he has yet to officially move to
Washington, as governor of the nation’s second largest state, Bush has continued
to do the bidding of the NRA — an organization from which his father resigned in
protest after its reference to government agents as “jack-booted thugs.” Bush the younger, however, signed a lax law bestowing the right to carry a loaded concealed weapon upon almost anyone, and he refused to require background checks at gun shows — despite repeated requests from the police chiefs of the seven largest
cities in his state. His one action to date on the issue was largely symbolic, and pro-NRA: He outlawed the ability of any Texas city to sue
the gun industry — at a time when no city was even seriously contemplating doing
so. On the presidential campaign trail, when asked what he thinks about gun
control, Bush continually responds, curtly, “I support the Second Amendment.”
Despite the fact that an overwhelming majority of federal courts have ruled against that interpretation of the Second Amendment, for some people it’s still that simple. Bush
appears to be one of them.

6) Sen. John Ashcroft, R-Mo.: Ashcroft merits inclusion on this list primarily for going above and beyond the
call of duty for the NRA in its April attempt to pass a law to allow Missourians
to carry concealed weapons. Ashcroft lent his considerable state credibility to
the cause by cutting radio ads for the NRA — which ending up losing, even
though the group dropped $4 million on the campaign, outspending the referendum’s opponents by a 5-1 ratio. In the U.S. Senate, he is a reliable vote for the gun lobby.

7) Rep. Bill McCollum, R-Fla.: House Judiciary Chairman Henry Hyde,
R-Ill., has voted in support of gun-control measures in the past, like the
Brady Bill and the assault weapons ban. Despite that fact, gun-control bills are
constipated in committee because of McCollum, who chairs the House subcommittee on crime.

Recently, while the panel was reviewing a bill that would have allowed police officers to carry guns across state lines, McCollum added an
amendment that would have extended that same privilege to ordinary citizens with
concealed-carry licenses. (The bill made it out of committee, but has yet to hit
the House floor.) Interestingly, McCollum reportedly refuses to take NRA money.

Rep. John Dingell, D-Mich.: Ever since the GOP took over, Dingell, the
ranking Democrat on the House Commerce Committee, has been hibernating on the gun issue — despite the fact that he was a member of the NRA’s board of directors for years. Then came the recent House vote on closing the gun-show loophole, and Dingell awoke, offering an NRA-backed bill to counteract Rep. Carolyn McCarthy’s legislation. Leading the charge for the NRA as a Democrat, Dingell thus provided cover for pro-gun Democrats, as well as diminishing the bill’s usefulness as a partisan
issue for the Democrats to trot out in 2000. Dingell, it should be noted,
referred to agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco & Firearms as “jack-booted
thugs” long before NRA vice chairman Wayne LaPierre used such controversial rhetoric
in a fund-raising letter.

9) Rep. Bob Barr, R-Ga.: Barr is probably the most outspoken pro-gun
member of Congress, and has been officially honored by the NRA as such. Most recently, Barr drafted a bill that would href="http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d106:h.r.01032:"> outlaw lawsuits
against the gun industry. “He’s the biggest troublemaker,” says the Violence
Policy Center’s Rand. “He’s the NRA’s flag-bearer in the House, and is unparalleled for toeing the NRA line.”

10) Sen. Bob Smith, I-N.H.: Though Smith’s influence in the Senate is
marginal — all the more so since he defected to the far-right U.S.
Taxpayers Party — even the most obscure senator enjoys powers and privileges
that members of the more hierarchical House can only dream about. Thus, Smith was
able to put a hold on the Juvenile Justice Bill for several weeks, gumming up the legislative process even though versions had passed both the House and Senate — as is his prerogative as long as he remains in the Senate, regardless of party
affiliation.

The loophole, backed by the National Rifle Association, allows the purchase of firearms at gun shows without background checks. The Democrats’ original proposal, an amendment to the Juvenile Justice bill sponsored by Sen Frank Lautenberg, D-N.J., would have closed the loophole. Only six Republicans supported the Democrats’ original measure, however, and it lost in Wednesday’s vote, 51-47.

Thursday, after taking a drubbing from President Clinton, Attorney General Janet Reno, the media and many of their constituents, a dozen or so Republican Senators — including Oregon’s Gordon Smith, Illinois’ Peter Fitzgerald, and Maine’s Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe — converged on the floor of the Senate. They angrily told Republican leaders that they wanted to see a Republican solution or were considering switching their votes to the Democratic proposal. Smith went so far as to complain that he had been “misled” on the vote.

In response, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., quickly began working with Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch of Utah, and Larry Craig of Idaho, an NRA board member, to close the loophole with a compromise amendment.

The Hatch-Craig-McCain amendment passed, but Democrats argued that it still had numerous loopholes with which they could not go along. Seven Republican senators — Smith, Fitzgerald, John Chafee of Rhode Island, Mike Enzi of Wyoming, Craig Thomas of Wyoming, Fred Thompson of Tennessee and John Warner of Virginia — also voted no. Some thought it went too far; others thought it didn’t go far enough. But most Republicans backed the amendment, and the Republican leadership charged that the Democrats were “politicizing” a sincere attempt to close the loophole.

The Democrats plead guilty as charged — off the record, of course. The Republicans “have to be publicly shamed off of their extreme position,” says one Senate Democratic leadership staffer. “This is the only way we have to effect some change here. Their position is indefensible; it’s a position the vast majority of Americans don’t share.”

For the first time in a long while, the Democrats in the Senate feel like they have the Republicans on the run, and they’re not about to let the moment pass easily.

“If you’ve got to eat crow,” Lautenberg said on the Senate floor, “you’ve got to eat it when it’s warm.”

“You see them on the Senate floor, running around with their tails between their legs,” says the Democratic staffer. “They’re getting the shit kicked out of them in the media and they know it; they’re in complete disarray. Basically, the country is seeing just how beholden the Republican caucus is to the NRA. That’s an important lesson for the country to learn.”

Images of Littleton have been looming large throughout this debate. All four firearms used in the massacre at Columbine High School are said to have been purchased at gun shows, where, if you have the cash, such guns are as readily dispensed as Twinkies. “For the sake of our children, I hope the Senate changes its mind and does the right thing,” President Clinton had said.

The momentum in support of gun control seemed to strengthen late this week. On Friday, Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., won support for her amendment banning the importation of large ammo clips for assault weapons.

The Republicans are still in charge, however, and the GOP pushed forward a provision safeguarding Internet sellers of explosives and guns from criminal investigators as long as the sellers didn’t know that buyers meant to commit criminal acts.

The whole bill might still vanish altogether anyway. Majority Leader Trent Lott is rumored to want to remove the Juvenile Justice Bill from debate. Lott has scheduled a “cloture” vote for Tuesday morning, to proceed with the bill on Y2K litigation liability reform. Democrats fear that, if the Senate proceeds with debate on Y2K, they’ll never return to juvenile justice, which is one loser of an issue for the GOP majority. For that reason, Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle is said to be whipping each and every Democrat to oppose Tuesday’s cloture vote.

“I think the issue still has some legs,” says the Democratic staffer.