King's Gun Ban Plan Won't Make You Safer

Rep. Peter King's gun ban proposal might be good politics for King, but its bad politics for the GOP. Fortunately, it has little chance of becoming law.

The Daily Caller is reporting that Rep. Peter King (R-NY) "will introduce legislation to ban the carrying of any firearm within 1,000 feet of what he described as 'high-profile government officials.'"

Of course, such legislation will do absolutely nothing to stop criminals and deranged psychotics, such as murder suspect Jared Loughner, from getting and carrying guns to commit murder. Criminals and deranged psychotics, after all, by definition break the law. And they obviously will break King's law should it ever be enacted.

Indeed, all King's legislation will do is to keep law-abiding citizens from having the firepower at hand to possibly eliminate terrorists, such as murder suspect Jared Loughner, before they can commit murder.

King isn’t stupid; he knows this. But he also knows that he’s one of very few Republican congressmen from the Northeast and New England. He knows that he has many vociferous liberal Democrat constituents and independent "swing voters in his district. And he knows that so-called gun control plays well in these precincts.

King also knows, though, that his proposal has no chance of ever becoming law. He knows that gun bans are fighting words in many parts of the country, where the Second Amendment right to bear arms is no less important than any of our other enumerated Bill of Rights.

In short, the King gun ban proposal is good politics for King, but bad politics for the GOP.

Moreover, on purely substantive grounds, why stop with "high-profile" government officials? Why not also protect "high-profile" business executives; sports and movie stars; entertainers, musicians and religious figures?

Why are these "high-profile" individuals any less worthy of "protection" than "high-profile" government officials?

And "high-profile" is a relative term. In my condo building, after all, our condo board president is a big deal. I mean, he gets around! He's considered "high-profile"! So can we ban guns here, too?

No worries: I'm sure some smart lawyer or judge will discover that King's legislation allows for all sorts of new gun prohibitions which King and the rest of us never imagined! Which is why it is going nowhere very fast.

John Guardiano blogs at www.ResoluteCon.Com, and you can follow him on Twitter: @JohnRGuardiano.

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