Representative Maurice Hinchey (D-NY) is going to get his day in court to defend himself against charges of second-degree harassment stemming from a July 19th altercation with a gun salesman. The upstate New York Congressman was allegedly attending a street fair when he smacked NRA representative Paul Lendvay on the head.

… The conversation quickly became heated.

"I was laying it down on the line," Lendvay said. "I was telling Maurice in spades what I thought of him as a congressman. I told him, 'I don't consider you my congressman.'"

Lendvay, 46, said he told Hinchey that in November he and others would get the congressman out of office, to which Hinchey replied it wouldn't happen. He claimed Hinchey then firmly swatted him on the head with an open palm above his hat brim.

Hinchey maintains his innocence, insisting that there was no physical contact between him and Lendvay. This whole story is very strange, however, because Hinchey is well-known as an opponent of gun control, often putting him at odds with his Democratic colleagues. Presumably, he and the NRA shouldn't have had a problem.

In fact, Hinchey is so much of a gun supporter that he proudly exercised his Second Amendment rights back in 1994 by going through security at Washington National Airport with a loaded handgun in his bag.

I can only hope that when this mess is over, Hinchey and Lendvay will patch up their difference and head down to the local shooting range with fellow New Yorker and gun enthusiast Sen. Chuck Schumer!