Do You Need Guns

[arbat]

So, as we know our President sends his kids to the school that has 11 armed guards on its payroll. Kids of many other politicos and journalists go there too. Including many people who said some very bad things about NRA President's suggestion that we should have armed people in schools to guard them.

No surprise there, is it?

Anyway, I have a proposal. Let's make a new Federal Law, let's call it "Equality Of Life's Value Act":

From now on, all the weapon restricting laws that are made by any government on any level, - municipal, state or federal, apply to the protective services of that government. In particular,

1. As long as there exists any law that restricts the type of weapons that may be legally owned or carried by a private citizens, all the protective services for that government's installations and officers must follow the same law.
   
   
2. As long as there exists a law that declares any "gun free" zones outside of the government buildings, all protective services for that government must be unarmed.
   
   
3. As long as there exists any law that restricts amount of ammunition that may be owned or carried by a private citizen, same law applies to any protective detail that works for the government or any government official - as a whole. If there is a law that restricts magazine capacity, then no protective detail as a whole may carry more than two times that amount.
   
   
4. As long as there exists any law that requires fees for any aspect of private ownership and carry of weapons and that fees combined for any citizen per any year exceed 20 times minimal federal or local hourly wage (whichever is smaller), for the purposes of this law it is considered to be a prohibition on all aspects that required a fee.

The citizens shall be able to challenge the violations of this law in courts. If a court finds that a violation did occur, the corresponding law shall be immediately rendered invalid in its entirety for the entire duration of its existence. All convictions under that law shall be reversed and a restitution paid to the convicted.

For example: if (hypothetically!) Connecticut prohibits high-capacity magazines with more than 10 rounds, - my law would mean that a protective detail for any Connecticut politician must be restricted to the 20 rounds total (that means - for all members of the detail combined). If New York declares some gun-free zones, fine - all the bodyguards for all NY politicians must be unarmed. If federal law prohibits full-auto weapons, no full auto weapons can be used by a Secret Service, and anyone else guarding federal officers.

Obvious basic idea, - if the legislators believe that the citizens don't need certain weapons to protect their lives and the lives of their families, - the legislators should live by the same standard. If they disagree with this idea any of them is welcome to publicly explain why his life is so valuable that it must be protected not just by numerous professional bodyguards but also by superior weaponry, unavailable to the masses.