Two-vote swing?

When New York Gov. David Paterson today named Kirsten Gillibrand to the U.S. Senate seat vacated by Hillary Clinton, he may have done Second Amendment advocates a double favor.

Rep. Gillibrand -- she's represented her state's 20th District in the U.S. House since 2006 and just won reelection -- is a blue-dog Democrat with a 100% rating from the National Rifle Association. She'll replace a senator whose gun-grabbing views match those of the president she now serves as Secretary of State.

The result of today's move may be a two-vote swing in the Senate on Second Amendment issues. With Democrats in control of Congress, and considering the Obama-Biden agenda, Senator Gillibrand couldn't have arrived at a better time.

Perhaps the most satisfying endorsements of Gillibrand's appointment have come in the form of objections from two notoriously strident anti-Second Amendment politicians: Rep. Carolyn McCarthy, who represents New York's 4th District (and who lobbied hard for the Senate seat awarded to Gillibrand instead), and New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

"I don't think someone with a 100% NRA rating should be the next senator from New York," McCarthy said. "I told the governor my feelings. I said I am strongly against (Gillibrand) and I gave him my reasons for it. Believe me, this is a personal issue for me."

Bloomberg, in a statement expressing his tepid support of the appointment, also made clear his "strong disagreement with one area of (Gillibrand's) record as a member of Congress: illegal guns."

Predictably, the Brady Campaign's Paul Helmke is "disappointed" by the appointment.

Who will succeed Gillibrand in the House? Even though she won with 62% of the vote last November, New York's 20th is heavily Republican. It's said to be unlikely that Democrats will hold on to the seat, so her departure from the other body probably won't hurt the RKBA cause.

"My mother is a great hunter," Gillibrand has said. "She usually shoots our Thanksgiving turkey." Any comparisons to the painfully insubstantial Sarah Palin, however, end there. Gillibrand is an accomplished attorney, having clerked for a U.S. Court of Appeals judge, represented Philip Morris and worked as a HUD lawyer.

As a congresswoman from New York, by the way, she voted against the TARP corporate-bailout legislation -- twice.

Gillibrand never has run statewide, so it remains to be seen how she'll fare in the special election she must face in 2010. Although neither her continued presence nor her vote is assured, I believe that RKBAers can feel good about what happened in New York (of all places) today.