Back in the summer of 2009 we had the first glimmer of the coming politics of the Obama era in the raucus and whackadoodle townhall meetings when Tea Partiers, occasionally bearing assault weapons, turned out to fight the onslaught of health care reform. And I’m starting to think that we’re heading toward something similar with guns (and possibly, though we haven’t gotten to it yet, over immigration reform).

Here are some stories just over the last few days hours.

Texas AG invites gun-loving New Yorkers to move to Texas.

Mississippi Governor and House Speaker wants to use the pre-Civil War (and unconstitutional) theory of ‘interposition and nullification’ to nullify federal gun laws within the sovereign state of Mississippi.

Tennessee state Rep. wants to arrest federal agents who try to enforce federal gun laws in Tennessee.

Texas Congressman threatens impeachment over potential Obama executive order.

NRA attacks President and President’s daughters in new gun ad.

So where do you think this is going? Share your thoughts with me and I’ll print responses here at the Editor’s Blog.

You already know that immigration reform and gun control are two of the major Obama agenda items for the second term, but the White House is insisting that climate change will be one, too. There’s just very little objective evidence that’s true in the sense most people understand it.

There’s a difference, of course, between making an issue a major priority and advancing major legislation on it. It’s partly semantic, but not entirely. A president can elevate an ignored or latent issue by making it a major priority and still get tangible things done short of major legislation. But we’re well past the point now where we need to raise awareness on climate change or introduce it into the national political conversation. Read More

A lot more clarity now from Al Franken’s office about his position on an assault weapons ban. A newspaper report in Minnesota initially made it sound like Franken was declining to take a position on the issue. But his office released a subsequent statement responding to the President’s new gun control proposals.

The key part: “I also support the principle that we should reinstate a ban on assault weapons, and I will carefully review any proposal to do that. We need to make sure we don’t have weapons out there that are really designed for the battlefield, and not for hunting.”

Full statement here.