it<u+2019>s a curious feature of american life that when four innocents are killed by a gunman in chattanooga, or when a young white supremacist opens fire inside a historic ame church in charleston, we talk about loosening gun safety laws.









in the aftermath of this week<u+2019>s murders, donald trump managed the near-impossible<u+2014>sounding like a mainstream republican politician<u+2014>when he argued, <u+201c>get rid of gun free zones. the four great marines who were just shot never had a chance.<u+201d> he is hardly alone in proposing this solution to the epidemic of gun violence. <u+201c>these terrible tragedies seem to occur in gun-free zones,<u+201d> said rand paul in january. <u+201c>the second amendment <u+201c>serves as a fundamental check on government<u+00a0>tyranny,<u+201d> ted cruz has said.









but if these second amendment-purists really think that guns make places safer, if they really think that guns are an important check on government and safeguard of liberty, then why do so many of them keep their workplace<u+2014>the u.s. capitol<u+2014>free of firearms?









for almost two centuries and until very recently, ordinary citizens had free run of the capitol. ironically, as congress has become less hospitable to gun safety laws, and as conservative republican legislators have grown more strident in their desire to see citizens carry open and concealed weapons everywhere<u+2014>in churches and schools, on college campuses, at bars and restaurants<u+2014>the one venue that has grown more gun-free, more secure and more restrictive is the building they work in.









until 1983, there were no metal detectors at the entryways to the capitol. no staff and member identification badges. no requirement that american taxpayers reserve advance tickets, queue up in a subterranean visitors<u+2019> center and be guided through a select few rooms of the complex. the only areas truly off limits to non-credentialed individuals were the senate and house floors, though in extraordinary times, even these rooms became public space.









when union soldiers converged on washington in the spring of 1861, the sixth massachusetts took refuge in the new house and senate chambers. john hay, abraham lincoln<u+2019>s young staff secretary, ventured over to inspect the <u+201c>novel<u+201d> scene. <u+201c>the contrast was very painful between the grey haired dignity that filled the senate chamber when i saw it last and the present throng of bright-looking yankee boys,<u+201d> he observed..<u+201d> hay reclined on a leather sofa toward the rear of the chamber and gazed at the <u+201c>wide-spreading skylights over arching the vast hall like heaven blushed and blazed with gold.<u+201d> he thought it a fitting place to quarter the troops.









it took extraordinary circumstances for armed militiamen, citizens and congressmen to mingle freely on the house floor. but the stark contrast between now and then raises a poignant issue: why should congress be the only gun-free zone in america?









at exactly 2:32 on the afternoon of march 1, 1954, gunfire emanating from multiple points in the gallery interrupted legislative business on the crowded house floor, where 240 members of congress were debating an immigration reform bill. the assailants<u+2014>four puerto rican nationalists armed with german lugers<u+2014>created instant bedlam. bullets <u+201c>crashed through the table of the majority leader and chairs around it,<u+201d> reported the new york times, <u+201c>and struck near the table of the minority leader and beyond.<u+201d> at first, many house members mistook the gunfire for firecrackers. when they realized the gravity of their situation<u+2014>they were sitting ducks, easy targets for unidentified gunmen who enjoyed a direct line of site<u+2014>members dove behind their seats and crawled their way to the cloakrooms.









capitol police officers, with the aide of several spectators and one congressman, worked to subdue the attackers, while teenaged house pages dodged bullets to carry rep. alvin bentley, a 35-year-old republican from michigan who had been gravely wounded, off the floor. against odds, bentley survived his injuries.









remarkably, the attack in 1954 spurred no fundamental changes to capitol security. the same cultural traditions that made the capitol a natural dormitory for civil war soldiers made it unthinkable that congress would bar citizens from freely accessing and wandering its halls. the democratization of american politics from the 1830s onward reinforced a widely held conviction that, no matter how unrepresentative the makeup of the house and senate might be of society at large, the national legislature was a people<u+2019>s body, and its buildings belonged to everyone.









that began to change amid the turbulence of the late sixties. in 1967, with civil rights and anti-vietnam war demonstrations assuming an increasingly strident tone<u+2014>including several disruptive protests from the house and senate galleries<u+2014>congress passed a new measure stipulating, among other provisions, that it be made a criminal offense, punishable by up to five years in prison, to carry or discharge a firearm in the capitol. still, even after the weather underground detonated a bomb in the senate wing in the early morning hours of march 1, 1971, ostensibly to protest u.s. military operations in laos, congress took few precautions. as late as 1983, visitors were required to pass through metal detectors at the doors to the senate and house galleries, but not upon entering the building itself, where they remained free to walk most corridors and inevitably happened across dozens if not hundreds of congressmen on days when either chamber was in session. at most, they were asked to open their handbags and purses for a manual inspection.









the status quo changed on the evening of november 7, 1983, when a bomb tore through the walls of the senate republican cloakroom and also badly damaged the office of senate minority leader robert byrd. fortunately, no lives were lost.









in response to the attack, congress finally tightened capitol security in a significant way. whereas visitors had been able to access the building through 10 doors, now the capitol police only allowed the general public to use four, each outfitted with a metal detector. in later years, x-ray machines were added. furthermore, staff members were now required to wear official badges that would allow them access to newly restricted areas. reporters, accustomed to enjoying free run of the building, found themselves limited in their movement.









<u+201c>there were a lot of older staff people and members around who thought it was just terrible to have metal detectors and bomb-sniffing dogs around,<u+201d> recalled former house clerk donnald k. anderson in an official oral history.









indeed, even in the immediate aftermath of the bombing in 1983, many members balked at the idea of restricting access and tightening security, particularly where representatives of media outlets were concerned. daniel patrick moynihan, democrat of new york, warned that <u+201c>to cut off access<u+2014>free, spontaneous, adventitious and often calamitous<u+2014>between senators and the accredited members of the press gallery would be to change our institution. it would begin to cut us off from the people who send us here.<u+201d>









<u+201c>it<u+2019>s a sad day for the american government when any constituent has to go through a security guard to see a congressman,<u+201d> said robert h. michel, the house republican leader.
if guns make us safer, why not let them into the u.s. capitol?
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