Mayor Sam Jones of Mobile, Alabama returned home from a grocery run last Tuesday and noticed that things weren’t quite right. His lighted nativity scene had been turned on after he had turned it off. His truck had been tampered with and his garage door was open. That’s when he discovered James Harvey Wilkerson in his garage, who told him that “the Lord had sent him.” Jones then held Wilkerson at gunpoint until police arrived.

Now, entering your home (or garage) after you notice a variety of flaming red-flag signs that something is amiss is borderline reckless. And I’m not sure how wise it is to draw a firearm on an unarmed intruder, though I would like to hear from anyone out there who has a legal opinion on this. In Missouri, we have a castle doctrine law that essentially holds a homeowner harmless for the injuries or death of individuals invading their home.

So other than the Mayor needlessly putting himself at risk, drawing a gun on a home invader would be justified, right? There’s only one problem. Mayor Jones is a member of Mike Bloomberg’s “Mayors Against Illegal Guns” a group that would just as soon no one – other than the police – own a firearm, let alone have the right to carry one. Jones also has a bodyguard, though his city-paid protector was not on duty that evening.

The account of how Jones came upon the intruder doesn’t include anything about Jones going into his home to retrieve the .38 he used to hold the invader, so it’s logical to assume that hizzoner was packing when he came home from the Piggly Wiggly. News inquiries into whether Mayor Jones had the required permit went unanswered. And neither the mayor nor the local PD are talking about the particulars of the incident.

Meanwhile the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms took the mayor to task for this apparent hypocrisy. The press release practically wrote itself. An excerpt:

Here is a municipal mayor who has a bodyguard, and believes it is okay for him to carry a gun, but he belongs to an organization that consistently works to keep everyone else from carrying,” said CCRKBA Chairman Alan Gottlieb. “If the mayor is legally licensed, why does he belong to a group that has fought to prevent law-abiding citizens from exercising their self-defense right? If Mayor Jones doesn’t have a permit,” he continued, “then he is a poster child for the double standards that elites like Mayor Michael Bloomberg believe separates them from the citizens they serve. Either way, Mayor Jones owes it to his constituents to show them his carry permit, and to oppose any further attempts by Mayors Against Illegal Guns to prevent private citizens from exercising their constitutionally-protected right to keep and bear arms.

I’ll never quite understand why a public official who has a bodyguard and who personally packs heat would work to deny his constituents the same right to self defense he takes advantage of. OK, wait, I do understand. But what I don’t understand is why we put up with it.