Republican presidential hopeful former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani takes a cell phone call he said was his wife while delivering remarks Friday to the National Rifle Association in Washington.

Washington ? Republican presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani, who as New York mayor backed gun control and sued firearms manufacturers, sought a middle ground Friday with skeptical gun rights activists.

But his remarks left many at the National Rifle Association’s “Celebration of American Values” conference uneasy, especially after he struggled to answer whether he still thought that gun makers should be held liable for criminals’ actions.

Several other Republican presidential hopefuls also addressed the group, most with stronger gun right records than the former mayor, and directed digs at him and at one another.

Arizona Sen. John McCain chided “big-city mayors (who) decided it was more important to blame the manufacturers of a legal product than it was to control crime in their own cities.”

McCain also went after Mitt Romney, a former Massachusetts governor, saying that candidates are wrong when they think “if you show your bona fides by hunting ducks or varmints or quail, it makes up for support for gun control.”

Romney embarrassed himself earlier this year by claiming he’d been a lifelong hunter, only to have his campaign acknowledge that he’d been on just two hunting trips. Romney later said he’d hunted “small varmints” more than twice.

“I will say the same things I’ve been saying since 1994,” actor and former Tennessee Sen. Fred Thompson told the group, contrasting his strong NRA rating with the more nuanced positions of Giuliani and Romney.

Romney, speaking via videotape, said a McCain campaign finance bill had undercut the NRA’s political advocacy muscle and that he’d work to repeal it.

Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee called lawsuits such as the one Giuliani supported against gun manufacturers “ridiculous.”

New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, who signed an expansion of gun owners’ rights to carry concealed weapons into state law, was the only Democratic contender who participated Friday. He drew applause when he said via videotape, “Your voice needs to be heard, and when I’m president, it will be.”

While conference attendees were eager to hear from everyone, Giuliani’s remarks were perhaps the most awaited, because of his front-runner status in national polls and his record as mayor.

In the mid-1990s, Giuliani compared the NRA to extremist groups and said its members had gone “way overboard” in stands against limits on so-called assault weapons. The NRA claims 4 million members.

During a question-and-answer period Friday, Giuliani defended his suits against gun manufacturers and distributors in 2000, saying he was using all the tools in his arsenal as mayor to try to reduce crime.

However, he said, the lawsuit had since “gone in a direction I don’t agree with.” He also said the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks had to some degree refocused his attention on Second Amendment rights. Faced with the choice today over whether to sue gun makers, he said equivocally: “That is not necessarily what’s needed now.”