Where are the Ethical Republicans? Here's One.

Joe Scarborough (former Republican Congressman, sidekick to Newt Gingrich), on Meet the Press today: "Leaders in both parties have an affirmative responsibility to step forward and speak out against this hate speech and speak out against people carrying guns to rallies. As a guy with a 100 percent lifetime rating with the NRA, I can tell you that it not only hurts those of us who believe in Second Amendment rights, it makes the job of the Secret Service and of our law enforcement personnel so much harder. We've got to tone this debate down."

What's with all the guns??

Is it ethical to stand around outside a Presidential event with a loaded handgun? How about with a loaded automatic rifle? Apparently it's legal, at least in Arizona and New Hampshire, where people have been doing it.

It scares the heart out of me, remembering the killings of JFK, RFK, MLK, John Lennon, and the 168 federal workers and children at the Oklahoma City Federal Building. Not to mention the shooters who failed to kill Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman, Gerald Ford, and Ronald Reagan.

The people carrying these weapons near the President claim to be exercising their Second Amendment rights, and perhaps they are, hopefully without providing cover to would-be killers.

But rights, schmights. Don't they--or anyone who believes in legal weapons for hunting and self-defense--understand the difference between rights and common sense? Or ethics?

The late Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart said that ethics is knowing the difference between what you have a right to do and what is right to do.