Guns around Obama

When people first started showing up to Obama appearances with guns, I didn't expect anyone within light-years of respectability on the right to defend them. Then Megan McCardle and Will Wilkinson came along with a series of silly but creative arguments to confound my expectations. Much wiser responses have come from Jason Zengerle and E.D. Kain, among surely many others.

I read most of the above with great interest, which is in a way odd, because this issue is simple enough as to not require a great deal of consideration: Obama is both an obvious target to a relatively large swath of would-be assassins and someone whose death would throw the country into disarray and turmoil. The logical conclusion from that state of affairs is that the fewer number of weapons around him (or Bush, or any president), the better. Period. Further argument is superfluous.

Of all the US political issues that have arisen while I've been in Mexico, this is the one that has proved most likely to lead locals to the astonished conclusion that US world-power status is more a matter of luck than merit. Of course, the incredulous reaction of foreigners isn't necessarily a good indicator of whether or not the US is in the right, but it is in this case. It is, as Zengerle says, common sense.