Laws are for Little People [Steyn]

National Review ^ | 12/28/2012 | Mark Steyn

[Servant of the Cross]

And not for David Gregory.

A week ago on NBC’s Meet the Press, David Gregory brandished on screen a high-capacity magazine. To most media experts, a “high-capacity magazine” means an ad-stuffed double issue of Vanity Fair with the triple-page perfume-scented pullouts. But apparently in America’s gun-nut gun culture of gun-crazed gun kooks, it’s something else entirely, and it was this latter kind that Mr. Gregory produced in order to taunt Wayne LaPierre of the NRA. As the poster child for America’s gun-crazed gun-kook gun culture, Mr. LaPierre would probably have been more scared by the host waving around a headily perfumed Vanity Fair. But that was merely NBC’s first miscalculation. It seems a high-capacity magazine is illegal in the District of Columbia, and the flagrant breach of D.C. gun laws is now under investigation by the police.

This is, declared NYU professor Jay Rosen, “the dumbest media story of 2012.” Why? Because, as CNN’s Howard Kurtz breezily put it, everybody knows David Gregory wasn’t “planning to commit any crimes.”

[Servant of the Cross]

Steyn ping.

[SIRTRIS]

>>>This is, declared NYU professor Jay Rosen, “the dumbest media story of 2012.” Why? Because, as CNN’s Howard Kurtz breezily put it, everybody knows David Gregory wasn’t “planning to commit any crimes.” CNN’s Howard Kurtz is off his game & dumb to boot. What's wrong w/ CNN these days, any check & balances going on there?

[miss marmelstein]

Isn’t Steyn a gem? Just love him.

[KC_Lion]

To most media experts, a “high-capacity magazine” means an ad-stuffed double issue of Vanity Fair with the triple-page perfume-scented pullouts

Lols! I am not 4 sentence in and I already am cracking up at Mark Styen's Wit.

All good satire has truth in it and that is 100% right on!

[I want the USA back]

Just a minute. If Wayne Lapierre had held the same magazine, liberals all over would be calling for his conviction.

Liberalism = hypocrisy.

[556x45]

Intent in this case was possession, that was the criminal action. The lefties in congress specifically designed the law that way. Now one of their ‘useful idiots’ has become entangled in what was designed to catch us Bitter Clingers up short. Oh the drama!! Will be interesting to see how this plays out...keep watching page Z 99 for more details on how they sweep it all under the rug. Will be delightful to see the logically gymnastics used to let him walk but still vilify us Clingers. Te left is worthless!

[Servant of the Cross]

If Wayne Lapierre had held the same magazine, liberals all over would be calling for his conviction.

That's the fact, Jack!

[virgil283]

Thanks S/C---- Does it seem that we are headed for a two tier legal system, where you are prosecuted only if you aren't connected to certain political groups? This would be a way to keep out any who might challenge you in social or business ways . You see this in Latin America where the ‘unwashed’ are pushed down and not allowed to rise by denying the entrance into business or certain schools or even the opportunity to start a business thru endless permitting challenges...

[facedown]

Sometimes a society becomes too stupid to survive.

Or half of it, anyway.

[Corey Ohlis]

Why are only weapon-related items ever “brandished”?

[dblshot]

This is what political correctness is all about. I was a military civil rights investigator at one point and believe me there are definitely things one class of people can do that another can't. If we are treated differently for the same behavior can we all be free? We are about to the point where Lao Tsu is said to have left China due to too many laws that kept people from living naturally. Our Founding Fathers recognized Natural Law and wrote a Constitution to restrict government from infringing on it. But government is about power, and eventually this is what you get.

[LibLieSlayer]

I would be ok with a plague taking out the left half.

LLS

[combat_boots]

Spending a weekend with this guy and a few friends would do wonders for my soul.

[oldbrowser]

Sometimes a society becomes too stupid to survive. Eleven-year-old girls fined for rescuing woodpeckers, serving Marines put on the no-fly list, and fifth-generation family cats being ordered into separate compounds with “electric wire” fencing can all testify to how near that point America is.

Just think about that for a minute. Electing Obama for a second term pretty much puts a bow on it.

[LibWhacker]

Should David Gregory be treated more leniently than a domestic cat just because when Obama tickles his tummy he licks the president’s hand and purrs contentedly?

LOL!!!

America’s gun-crazed gun-kook gun culture

Thought Steyn was going to do one of his little pivots here and point out the people who really should be called gun-crazed gun-kooks are those one track monomaniacs who are insanely obsessed and preoccupied with guns; namely, elite leftists like Gregory.

[jtal]

Right - another example is Obamacare waivers. Those who supported passage get waivers; those opposed do not.

[The Great RJ]

Gregory needs to be prosecuted under the District’s gun laws. He not only was in possession of the high capacity magazine, someone had to buy it and intentionally smuggle it into the District unless it was purchased illegally within the District. The NRA should be demanding Gregory be prosecuted for violation of local gun laws just like any law abiding NRA member would be for doing the same thing. To not prosecute Gregory would show the utter hypocrisy and absurdity of these gun laws.

[fella]

S O L O N The Lawmaker of Athens (died 559 B.C.) by Plutarch

Athens, unlike Sparta, was a money-mad commercial city. The constitution written by Solon mitigated the class struggle between rich and poor, and allowed for the growth of democratic institutions.

Solon was born into a well-to-do family of Athens. He worked as a merchant in the export-import trade, and he considered himself relatively poor. He did not worship money, as is evident from these poems of his:

The man whose riches satisfy his greed

Is not more rich for all those heaps and hoards

Than some poor man who has enough to feed

And clothe his corpse with such as God affords.

I have no use for men who steal and cheat;

The fruit of evil poisons those who eat.

Some wicked men are rich, some good men poor,

But I would rather trust in what's secure;

Our virtue sticks with us and makes us strong,

But money changes owners all day long.

Poetry was for Solon a way to entertain himself, and he also used poetry to give his ideas easy access to the minds of the Athenians.

The seven wise men of Greece were well-known, both to each other and to the general public. Anacharsis, who was one of these wise men, came to visit Solon in Athens. When Anacharsis saw Athenian democracy at work, he remarked that it was strange that in Athens wise men spoke and fools decided. Solon admired this man's ready wit and he entertained Anacharsis as his guest for a long time. Solon showed Anacharsis some laws that he was drafting for the Athenians. Anacharsis laughed at Solon for imagining that the dishonesty and greed of the Athenians could be restrained by written laws. Such laws, said Anacharsis, are like spiderwebs: they catch the weak and poor, but the rich can rip right through them.

[DPMD]

Unfortunately for him, Gregory was indeed planning to commit a crime: the crime of possessing a high capacity magazine in DC. And he did commit the crime.

Let’s see how he likes gun laws.