I had missed this in all of the coverage of FOB (Friend of Barack) Michael Scott's apparent suicide this past week.

Last week, the body of Chicago school board president Michael Scott was found in the Chicago River with a single bullet wound in his head. The big story was that this powerful, well-connected public official had, according to the Cook County medical examiner, committed suicide. The less-noticed story was that he did it with an illegal weapon.

After all, handgun ownership is not allowed in Chicago, which has one of the strictest gun control laws in the country, and Scott killed himself with a .380-caliber sidearm.

Unlike most Chicagoans, Scott could have been a legal handgun owner. Because he had it before the ban was enacted, he was allowed to register and keep it. But the police department says he never did. By having it in the city, Scott was guilty of an offense that could have gotten him jail time.

Chicago not only has one of the strictist gun control laws in the country, it's Mayor is talking all out war (in light of the Supreme Courts Heller decision) to make sure that they law is not repealed.  Yet it seems that in Mayor Daley's Chicago, gun control adnerence is only for the proletariat and not for the ruling classes.

Amazingly enough, he was not the first local public official to take the view that firearms restrictions are something for other, ordinary people to observe. Chicago politicians are zealously committed to gun control in law, but fairly relaxed about it in practice.

In 1994, state Sen. Rickey Hendon, D-Chicago, had an unregistered handgun stolen from his home in a burglary, and he didn't feign contrition about his disregard of the ordinance.

"I have a right to protect myself," he declared, noting that he had been burglarized before -- and forgetting that the state legislature of which he is a member allows Illinois cities to deprive their citizens of that right. Asked if he would replace the lost piece, Hendon said, "No comment." The police were kind enough not to charge him.

U.S. Sen. Roland Burris, another Chicagoan, has endorsed a nationwide ban on handguns and, in 1993, organized Chicago's first Gun Turn-in Day. But the following year, while running unsuccessfully for governor, he admitted he owned a handgun -- "for protection," he explained -- and hadn't seen fit to turn it in along with those other firearms. Lesser mortals apparently can protect themselves with forks and spoons.

So apparently (in the eyes of gun control zealots like Sen. Burris) the only people with the RIGHT to protect themselves (as state Sen. Herndon claims) are the elected officials.  The rest of us do not have the same "right"s that they do.

But wait, you say, State law classifies aldermen as designated "peace" officers and as such share the same rights and responsibilities as Chicago police officers.  That also assumes that these aldermen are "law-abiding" as police officers are supposed to be and yet....

"Law-abiding" is not the very first word that comes to mind when you think of the City Council. Since 1972, 27 of its members have been convicted on charges involving malfeasance, misfeasance, nonfeasance, disfeasance and anti-feasance with mopery aforethought.

It would be hard to come up with a group of people that has proven itself less deserving of blanket trust. The most recent convict, Arenda Troutman, got four years in prison for bribery after being caught on tape attesting that "most aldermen, most politicians are ho's." At a 1991 neighborhood meeting that got rowdy, Ald. Dorothy Tillman reportedly pulled out her handgun and waved it pugnaciously.

If it weren't so commonplace it would be funny.  Many of the most vocal anti-gun advocates (like Rosie O'Donnell) are against the average Joe and Jane Citizen having personal protection but have no problems having armed body guards or guns themselves.  However, in Chicago it has become an artform.

There is nothing wrong with law-abiding citizens, who have been properly trained, owning guns.  That is the common sense truth of the situation.

In Chicago, only criminals and aldermen are armed. Forgive me for being redundant.

Then again, there is nothing common sense about Chicago's gun ban - as we were reminded of this week.