Gun arrest gives Webb political opening

Tom Curry National affairs writer • Profile • E-mail

WASHINGTON - Sen. Jim Webb turned an awkward episode — the arrest of one of his aides for carrying a gun into one of the Senate office buildings — into a political opportunity Tuesday, giving a spirited defense of his and other Americans’ right to carry firearms to defend themselves.

While Webb, D-Va., did not specifically say he’d support a change in the law in the District of Columbia that bans most residents and visitors from carrying or even possessing guns, he did defend the right of people to use guns in self-defense.

“I’m a strong supporter of the Second Amendment; I have had a permit to carry a weapon in Virginia for a long time; I believe that it’s important; it’s important to me personally and to a lot of people in the situation that I’m in to be able to defend myself and my family,” he said.

Since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, he said, “it’s a more dangerous time” for those serving in government. “I’m not going to comment with great specificity about how I defend myself, but I do feel I have that right,” he added.

Webb, a Marine veteran of the Vietnam War and former secretary of the Navy, said members of Congress did not have the high level of protection that the president and executive branch officials have. As a result, he said, “We are required to defend ourselves.”

Not specific on how he defends himself
When a reporter asked Webb if he considered himself “above Washington D.C.’s gun law,” the Virginian replied that he would not comment on “how I provide for my own security.”

When asked if he thought the D.C. law should be changed to allow law-abiding people in Washington to carry weapons, Webb stressed his support for the Second Amendment and added, “I believe the Virginia law is a fair law. I believe that wherever you see laws that allow people to carry (weapons), generally the violence goes down.”

Webb, who won by only four-tenths of one percent last November over Sen. George Allen, has made a point of differing with liberal Democrats on the gun issue.

Webb argued in his 2004 book “Born Fighting” that 2000 Democratic presidential nominee Al Gore’s “position on gun control cost him the election, not in Florida but in the Scots-Irish redoubts of Tennessee and West Virginia, both of which through history and logic should have been slam-dunk electoral votes in his favor.”

Virginia law allows citizens to get a permit to carry a concealed weapon, as long as they are not felons nor have been convicted of a violent misdemeanor.

Carrying loaded pistol
Webb aide Phillip Thompson was arraigned Tuesday for violating D.C. law. “He completely inadvertently took the weapon into the Senate yesterday,” Webb said.

Capitol police said that Thompson had a loaded pistol with two additional fully loaded magazines when he entered the Russell Senate Office building Monday.

He was charged with carrying a pistol without a license and having an unregistered firearm and unregistered ammunition.

The arrest came only a few days after the gun issue forced Democratic leaders were to avert a House vote on giving the District of Columbia a voting representative in the House. Rep. Lamar Smith, R-Texas, used a parliamentary tactic to try to force a vote on his proposal to overturn the D.C. gun ban.

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