Proof positive that even elected officials are not safe from crime (from WRC-TV):

Ward 8 D.C. City Councilman Marion Barry said he was robbed at gunpoint Monday night inside his Southeast Washington apartment by some youths.

“For those young men who did this to me, I say to you, ‘I own no animosities. I don’t even want you prosecuted, really. I love you. Give yourself up,’” Barry said.

Barry told News4 that when he returned home to Washington View Apartments at about 10:30 p.m. Monday, two youths — who addressed Barry by his neighborhood nickname, “B” — offered to help him carry his groceries into his house and he agreed. Barry said once the groceries were in his kitchen, he gave the youths a couple of dollars for their help and they left.

But Barry said the youths returned and knocked on the door about 10 minutes later, and when he answered it they pointed a gun at his head and robbed him of his wallet, which contained cash and credit cards.

Police recovered the wallet near his home Tuesday afternoon. His license and credit cards were still in the wallet. The $200 in cash was removed.

In order to get inside Barry’s apartment building, you first have to get through a security door, which Barry said is often broken.”It’s easy to get in my building,” he said. “If you buzz somebody else’s apartment or wait for somebody to come out, you go in.”

Barry said he’s hurt he was chosen as a robbery target.

Maybe if Barry didn’t vote with his fellow councilmembers thirty years ago to ban gun ownership in D.C., he wouldn’t be hurting today. Cam Edwards comments:

This is life in “gun free� Washington, D.C. No one is safe. Marion Barry’s a victim of a home invasion. Supreme Court Justice David Souter was assaulted while jogging last year. Teresa Heinz was mugged outside her Georgetown home. Wanda Alston, the head of the mayor’s Office of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender Affairs was murdered in a home invasion robbery. You are not safe in Washington, D.C. No one is.

It doesn’t have to be this way, of course. Thirty years ago, our nation’s capitol was in the midst of a crime wave. The city council responded by banning handguns and requiring shotguns and rifles to be kept unloaded, dismantled, and locked away. The law abiding residents of Washington, D.C. had been disarmed, and the criminals took notice. Violent crime dipped slightly in the two years following the ban, although the murder rate actually continued to climb. By 1979, however, the violent crime rate was back above 1976 levels, and it has remained so ever since.

Update:  Marion Barry has recently tested positive for cocaine use.  Avery Tooley and Ed Brown smell something rotten near the Potomac, and I agree with them.