The National Rifle Association may not be taking an official position on Sonia Sotomayor yet, but in a letter sent to the Senate Judiciary Committee leadership today, the group went right up to the edge of announcing its opposition.

NRA Executive Director Chris Cox expressed his organization's "very serious concerns" about the nomination, particularly involving Maloney v. Cuomo, in which Sotomayor affirmed a lower court's ruling that the Second Amendment does not apply to the states.

Cox wrote that the nominee's rulings in Maloney, along with United States v. Sanchez-Villar, "have been dismissive of the Second Amendment and have troubling implications for future cases that are certain to come before the court. Therefore, we believe that America's eighty million gun owners have good reason to worry."

If Sotomayor makes "hostile or evasive" statements on gun rights during confirmation hearings, Cox added, "we will have no choice but to oppose her nomination to the court."

At a panel discussion last month, Curt Levey, executive director of the Committee for Justice, argued that this could be the first SCOTUS confirmation in which guns become an issue, following the Supreme Court's landmark D.C. v. Heller decision last year, which held that the Second Amendment protects an individual right to bear arms. He said that this issue -- more so than abortion -- could be used as electoral fodder against vulnerable Democrats. "Supporters of gun rights have the potential to be much more influential. They're certainly just as large, but red-state Democrats listen to them, are afraid of them," Levey said.

But Tom Goldstein, Supreme Court litigator at Akin Gump and SCOTUSblog founder, predicts that Maloney will play a minimal role in the hearings. "She has a fairly compelling answer," Goldstein said, noting that Sotomayor was following precedent in that case, and that her opinion was backed by a 7th Circuit panel that included two conservative judges. (The NRA letter expressed disappointment over that decision -- in NRA v. Chicago -- as well.)

Also in the letter, Cox asked senators to disregard "organizations that falsely claim to represent gun owners, while promoting an anti-gun agenda." At the end of June, Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., touted an endorsement of Sotomayor by the American Hunters and Shooters Association, which describes itself as a "mainstream group of hunters who are looking to belong to a gun owners association that doesn't have a radical agenda."

In the letter, Cox urged against "lending any credence" to such endorsements. "These front groups' actions give them no credibility to speak on this nomination," he wrote.

Ray Schoenke, president of the American Hunters and Shooters Association, dismissed Cox's implicit jab. "It's standard operation for the NRA," Schoenke said. "This is the way they are able to motivate and keep their members excited and to try to reach out and grab other members." He added that "we don't take lot of credence in their backhanded slap at us."

Schoenke said his organization supports Sotomayor -- and isn't concerned with Maloney -- because she is a "conservative jurist" who has followed precedent in that case and other controversial cases, including Ricci v. DeStefano.