Guns for me, but not for Thee: Part 2

It is one of the benefits of being a politician. While handguns are banned for citizens in Washington, D.C., congressmen are allowed to have a gun for self-protection on the Capitol grounds. Well-known liberal politicians such as Senators Chuck Schumer and Ted Kennedy have armed bodyguards. The wives of politicians, such as Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle's wife, Linda, also have bodyguards. Undoubtedly, these politicians and their families have extremely good reasons for this protection, but many other Americans, especially those living with the high crime rates in D.C., also feel the same way.

Later today, the U.S. House of Representatives will finally vote on whether to overturn D.C.'s handgun ban.

I've commented before about the elitist mindset that is revealed by laws such as these. If police officers are an armed knighthood with special privileges to carry weapons, and politicians represent the nobility with even greater privileges and immunities, then the average citizen is left to play the roles of peasant and serf. Americans once rejected this idea. But gun control has brought it back in style.

In the United States, no one deserves special legal rights. Police should be permitted to carry firearms under the same laws that permit anyone else to carry firearms. Carrying a firearm for self defense should be legal, whether concealed or not, without any requirement to obtain a permit in order to do so. That's equal justice under the law. Everyone has the right to self-defense.

Even though this bill won't actually repeal the onerous gun control laws in the District of Columbia without a Senate companion bill, it's good that it passed. It tells us which representatives need to be replaced in November.