David Gregory and Why Law Is Only for the Little People

National Review ^

[GulliverSwift]

I do not intend to reiterate here just how extraordinarily difficult it is to execute laws that aim to track pieces of unserialized metal. Nor, for that matter, will I attempt to lay out what any earnest attempt to do so would end up doing to privacy rights in the United States. Rather, I want to focus on the grossly unequal manner in which such rules will inevitably be enforced, and to examine also what this does to the notion of equal protection. From my perspective, the startling thing about the Gregory affair is not so much that the powers-that-be eventually declined to prosecute him for his transgression, but that he was so unfailingly sure that he would be allowed to break the law without consequences. In a vacuum, it is easy to make the case that there was no need to indict NBC for its crime. Indeed it is difficult to imagine a set of circumstances in which doing so could be considered a good use of the city’s time and resources. But the entitled nonchalance with which Gregory presumed that his behavior would be ignored should worry all of us.

Can we honestly presume that your average pro–Second Amendment protester would have been afforded such latitude? Imagine, if you will, that a Gadsden-flag-wrapped NRA member from Dryden, N.Y., takes to a podium to denounce that state’s SAFE Act and, shouting about tyranny and the Founders, holds aloft a 30-round Magpul magazine — in full view of the authorities. Does he get away with it? I’m not so sure that he does. Nor, for that matter, am I convinced that such latitude would be conferred upon someone who, unlike Gregory, was genuinely unaware that the rules had changed.

[Theodore R.]

It seems like the “little people” can never figure things out correctly.

[ripley]

Well, he is a brilliant, intellectual, Progressive genius and he is to be trusted with the power to transgress the laws that are passed for the control of the people who thump bibles, love guns, and believe in an invisible man in the sky; the dangerous ones are all those Christians out there, ya know?

/s/

IMHO

[mylife]

These laws are rarely enforced and an ATF agent told me they typically use them to tack on 5 years to the sentence of people who commit a crime with a gun that is in violation.

It is still a stupid law and these stupid laws put many people unknowingly on the wrong side of the law.

[NFHale]

There’s a REASON you have that 30-round Magpul magazine to begin with.

And it’s for exactly the moment when they try to take them away.

[OKSooner]

It woulda been fun to have been on the set with the little p***k at the time:

"Oh, you mean like what you're doing RIGHT NOW?"

[ClearCase_guy]

That's really what so many laws are for. The authorities will ignore this or that, or the other thing. Right up until the time they decide to "get" you. Then -- holy smokes! -- you're in violation of about 17 different ordinances!!!!!!!

[mylife]

Yuppers.

[purplelobster]

That crazed nut David Gregory should not be allowed to handle firearms or even sharp objects. I recall that after he became unhinged in a Bush press conference he vaulted to the top of the MSM pile and got the Meet the Press job. He frightened viewers with his rage over any comment that contradicted the White House talking points. These days he’s probably frightening children and the elderly as he sits on a park bench mumbling conspiracy theories.

[gogeo]

Well...that’s what makes them the little people!