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The Clarion-Ledger says Bennie Tompson’s just written a crisp letter to the director of the Transportation Security Administration, Kip Hawley, giving him until Monday to explain why local mucky-mucks keep being allowed onto departing flights from Jackson-Evers Airport packing unauthorized guns.

This time (believed to be last spring) it was Mississippi Department of Public Safety employee Mike Vick. Now you might say, “DPS? Okay, they’re law enforcement, sure they have guns.” Well,

Federal regulations allow law enforcement officers to bring guns aboard a plane if they are transporting a prisoner, if their mission requires them to be armed when they arrive, or other limited circumstances. But the regulation does not require that anyone at the airport confirm the person flying is an actual police officer or that his or her reasons for boarding armed are legitimate. …

According to the DPS’ Web site, Vick acts as a liaison between the governor’s Office of Highway Safety and state and local law enforcement. His office also offers training to local police in procedures for traffic stops, field sobriety tests and recognizing signs of drug abuse.

So sounds to me as if he had about as much business with that pistol (discovered when he tried to board a return flight from Portland, Oregon) as good ol’ Frank Melton, who used to claim that, as mayor, he was head of the police department, so that’s why they oughta let him fly “heated.” (They didn’t buy.)

Imagine getting on a plane and watching that exemplar of self-control stroll on and sit down with a bulge under his jacket. Ye gods.