As vice-president in the early 1920s, Calvin Coolidge lived simply in a modest Washington hotel. Back in a time when our government was still “of the People,” quiet Calvin had little to do. He was lucky even to find a lunch partner.

My, how times have changed. Modern vice-presidents live in a mansion on a sprawling high-security compound on some of Washington’s most prized real estate. And what would Mr. Coolidge–that very model of well-grounded humility–think of Andrew Cuomo, the current Secretary of Housing and Urban Development? Mr. Cuomo was in the news recently. It seems the HUD secretary, a leading anti-Second Amendment agitator who has sought to forbid gun ownership to all who live in HUD public housing, has his own bodyguard. In the gun-ban city of Washington. An armed guard. With a concealed handgun. Which, unfortunately, the guard keeps forgetting in government motor pools and cafeterias.

Now, I could frankly care less that Cuomo’s hapless bodyguard keeps losing his gun (But do tell us, Mr. Cuomo: Does he carry the gun unloaded and with a trigger lock attached?). What bothers me, aside from Cuomo’s astounding hypocrisy, is the idea that a HUD secretary merits an armed guard in the first place. It seems today’s glorified bureaucrats and pampered party operatives behave as if each is an irreplaceable pillar of some grand edifice of an almighty State.

Not to deflate Commissar Cuomo’s ego, but who even knows what the man looks like, much less cares enough about his job to want to harm him? And how big of a national crisis would it really be if our precious Cuomo were left unguarded and, say, mugged? In fact–in a town where the rest of us have been stripped of our Second Amendment rights–it might be a good thing: Let the privileged Governor’s Son feel the same sense of defenselessness he wants us little people to suffer.

For it is precisely the little guy who suffers most when the Insider Class starts grabbing guns. Ask those honest British citizens who have now learned the meaning of gun control: After the Labor government confiscated almost all firearms from its law-abiding subjects in 1998, the London Times reported that fatal shootings in London more than doubled in 1999, and overall armed crime rose 10%. “Hot” burglaries-home intrusions during which (now disarmed) residents are present-also rose significantly. Rest assured, those aren’t Tony Blair’s upscale friends whose homes are being increasingly violated in “gun-free” Britain.

Aware that most Americans distrust open calls for British-style gun bans, Cuomo Democrats instead employ regulatory mischief to carry out their disarmament schemes. Witness the spate of cynical lawsuits launched by HUD and several cities against gun manufacturers. Assaulting on another front, Maryland’s governor and Al Gore pal Parris Glendening has sought fame by demanding that guns sold in that state employ expensive, undeveloped “smart” technology. By thus making guns too costly, complicated, or legally risky for average people, Democrats seek to effectively disarm America’s poor and middle class. “Let them call 911,” you might say.

Thank God Mr. Glendening did not govern Maryland in 1975. That was the year the mother of my eleven year-old friend used her (unlocked!) revolver to chase off a crazed nighttime intruder from their home. Don’t look for that “common sense” mother at any fear mongering Million Mom Marches.

But as Secretary Cuomo showed in seeking to disarm public housing residents-many of whom live in our nation’s highest crime areas–the poor shall not have the dignity of self-defense in Cuomo’s world. No doubt this attitude gave the secretary enhanced status during his recent HUD conference with communist Chinese housing officials.

The case of Cuomo and his gun-toting bodyguard reveals once more the ugly truth about those Democrats who press so eagerly to disarm us. Their world vision is one of rulers (them), and the ruled (us). For the rulers: Armed guards and SWAT teams, government cars and planes, toasts with Beijing’s powerful. For the ruled: Cowering dependence, rush hours, taxes as tribute.

We are no longer our Founders’ hallowed People, blessed with unalienable rights. Our government now fears us, and its unaccountable apparatchiks want us to fear them. Every two-bit federal agency now struts its own paramilitary force. Little wonder masked bureaucratic storm troopers kick in the doors of private citizens on a presidential whim, with rifles and high-capacity magazines forbidden to the rest of us. Or that Janet Reno’s use of massive Waco-style force and trickery is now the norm. After all, we unenlightened peasants might have a gun around the house.

After George Washington led his people to victory in America’s seven-year Revolution, some urged that he make himself king of our newly independent nation. Washington refused. Such was the general’s sacred honor that he could not betray the Revolution’s ideals.

Secretary Cuomo and his imperial cohorts have no such qualms. It is time America to dethrone such petty kings.