Take away guns and then get robbed.

On January 2, Marion Barry, the crack-smoking, tax-evading ex-mayor of Washington, D.C., who was a loud voice during his four terms in office advocating strict gun control measures, reaped what he sowed when two youths held him at gunpoint in his apartment and robbed him.

Outside Barry's apartment building, two young men called out to Barry by his nickname and offered to carry his groceries into his apartment for money. After Barry tipped the two, they left. But about 10 minutes later, the two knocked at his door. When he admitted them, they put a gun to his head and demanded his wallet.

Barry, who is calling for even more strict gun control measures in D.C., apparently won't let himself see that D.C. gun laws are worse than rubbish. Those laws halted additional legal handgun ownership in 1976, and they now require that most rifles and handguns be registered and be locked up or disassembled when in the home, rendering them useless for self-defense. The laws are dangerous to law-abiding citizens. The Washington Post reported that police are "battling a recent spike in holdups" and that "the D.C. homicide rate was 72 percent higher in 2001 than it was in 1976, while the national rate had dropped by 36 percent." The national homicide rate went down even while states during that time period increasingly allowed law-abiding citizens to apply for concealed carry permits.

Barry further showed his lack of logic when he urged the robbers to turn themselves in and then added, "I don't even want you prosecuted, really. I love you.... I will do all I can do to advocate non-prosecution." We are left to assume that the only people Barry wants prosecuted for carrying guns are law-abiding citizens. Continuing, Barry said, "There is sort of an unwritten code in Washington, among the underworld and hustlers and these other guys, that I am their friend. I don't advocate what they do. I advocate conditions to change what they do. I was a little hurt that this betrayal did happen." Well, he is correct there. Gun control restrictions certainly change the "conditions" for the criminals: they make committing crime safer.