>I am trying to read around the bs and find the best republican/pro
>gun candidate. can someone shed some light on this. thanks.

Fred Thompson
Ron Paul
Mike Huckabee

are all pro-gun. They differ on other issues but all three are
clearly and consistently on "our side" of the gun debate.
For the first time in a long time the race is wide open in both
parties and there is no clear front runner.
Now is the time to support the candidate whose positions on issues
matches what you really believe.

Guliani and Romney and McCain are presently acting pro-gun but all
have been anti-gun in one way or another in the past.
Given the high likelihood that the D's will run Congress in 2008
supporting any of these three is basically a guarantee that new gun
control laws will get passed.
The greatest risk right now is that the assault weapon/high cap mag
ban will get revived and this time it won't have a sunset clause.
Worse they could introduce legislation requiring the US to obey UN
policies on civilian disarmament.

Many gun people mistakenly think that McCain is pro-gun because he's
pro-war and from strongly pro-gun Arizona.

McCain is strongly anti-NRA. He was a key player in creation of the
bogus group "Americans for Gun Safety" which has no real members and
is funded by George Soros.
The reason AGS exists is to generate press releases for the media.
This gives them a 3d source to contrast between NRA and Brady so the
Great Unwashed get the impression that NRA is on the fringe and the
AGS position is the 'middle ground'.
Most of the time the AGS position is anti-gun.

McCain also was responsible for the un-Constitutional campaign
finance reform act which limited NRA's ability to support pro-gun
candidates and restricts free speech in general.

In my opinion this sort of backdoor anti-gun activism is worse than
simply supporting and voting for "front door" anti-gun legislation.

Karl