Sen. Jim Webb on Guns in D.C.

This from the National Review Online this AM:

QUESTION: Do you, Senator, feel that you are above Washington, D.C.'s gun law?

WEBB: I'm not going to comment in any level in terms of how I provide for my own security.

Well, heck...which of us does not agree with the good senator? The backstory (here, from CNN) is that Webb's aide, Phillip Thompson, was arrested for carrying a loaded pistol with "two fully loaded magazines" into the Seate Office Building Monday morning:

A congressional official who has been briefed on the incident by law enforcement told CNN that the handgun belonged to the senator. Thompson was driving Webb to a Washington-area airport, located in Virginia, earlier Monday morning, the official said, when Webb remembered that he had the gun on him. It is legal to carry a concealed handgun in Virginia.

Thompson apparentlyt forgot he had the piece in his briefcase. Well, it happens. I'd really like to see Webb, one of the newly minted "pro-gun" Dems, stand up and say the truth, which is that everyone in D.C. shoudl ahve access to a self-defense firearm. We'll see.,

BTW, no word on Webb's choice of a carry gun, but here's a piece (so to speak) of his post-election interview in the Richmond Times Dispatch: :

Q: Sen. George Allen would allow visitors to carry a concealed firearm into a national park. You wrote a letter during the campaign on gun issues; do you intend to introduce a bill that would repeal the gun ban in national parks?

A: I'm willing to look at that. I'm a strong Second Amendment person . . . I've not seen Allen's bill.

The way that the legislative approach was presented to me on that issue was that in those states that allow conceal and carry, and allow . . . people who can carry concealed weapons to carry those weapons into all parks . . . in those states that have federal land, that it would be appropriate to open those up for concealed-carry. And I agree with that concept.

The difficulty in gun-control issues has always been that we're such a diverse country -- geographically, demographically and in other ways -- that it's hard to have a national standard on a lot of this stuff. What works in New York City doesn't necessarily work in Southwest Virginia, and vice versa.

Q: Do you carry a gun regularly?

A: I don't carry personally regularly. I shoot regularly. I like to have the option to carry, which is why I keep the permit.

Q: You're not carrying around Capitol Hill?

A: (Laughing.) No . . . I value the opportunity to be able to protect myself, depending on situations. But no, I don't walk around with a weapon on me all of the time.

Given the present makeup of Congress, I'd say it makes sense to alwasy have not only a gun, but at least two armed guards and a roll of toilet paper with you at all times!