Don't cross the yahoo faction of the Utah Senate.

That's the lesson of Judge Robert Hilder's failed confirmation to the Utah Court of Appeals. The Senate rejected the appointment 16-12 Wednesday, mostly because the naysayers detested the judge's ruling in a high-profile shootout over the University of Utah's gun policy.

The judge ruled in 2003 that the state's gun laws were not meant to interfere with the U.'s internal policy on guns, which forbade students and employees from bringing concealed weapons to campus without the permission of the police chief. The Legislature insisted that its liberal concealed-carry laws trumped the university's policy.

In his ruling, Hilder held that when the statute in question was passed, it was aimed at preventing cities and towns -- not universities -- from passing gun laws that conflicted with state law. But he held the door open for the Legislature to change that, and in 2004, it did, passing an even stronger law that prohibited state and local entities from restricting possession of firearms on public or private property.

The Utah Supreme Court upheld that later law, striking down the U.'s policy, in 2006. But despite that victory, some gun-rights activists and their allies in the Legislature never forgave Hilder. Among those who attacked him on the Senate floor this week were Sen. Mike Waddoups, perennial leader of the gun-rights posse, sponsor of the 2004 law and president-elect of the 2009 Senate.

Many leading lights in Utah's legal community did not see bias in Hilder's ruling in the U. case. They said he reached his conclusion as a matter of law and fact, not prejudice.

They praised him to the Senate as a conscientious judge. They pointed to the high ratings he receives from the attorneys who practice before him and the juries who sit in his court, and the absence of any disciplinary actions by the Utah Judicial Council in his record. They told the Senate about all of this, but to no avail.

Despite his exemplary record on the bench, Hilder's enemies in the Legislature were determined to paint him as a biased judge who loses his temper. But that was gunsmoke obscuring the real issue.

Now, the Senate yahoos have Judge Hilder's head on their wall. But this is a costly victory, because it will discourage other highly qualified jurists from serving, often at great professional and financial sacrifice, in Utah's courts.