Maybe the biggest piece of chutzpah in Joe Biden’s statement on pardoning his son Hunter is this: “Without aggravating factors like use in a crime, multiple purchases, or buying a weapon as a straw purchaser, people are almost never brought to trial on felony charges solely for how they filled out a gun form.”
Now, first of all, there was an aggravating factor here: Hunter didn’t just lie about being a drug addict when he bought the gun, he then lost the gun, which is the sort of irresponsible behavior that is supposed to be prevented by not allowing drug addicts to buy guns. But leave that aside. Hunter was convicted by a jury of his peers for violating 18 U.S.C. §922(g)(3), under which “it shall be unlawful for any person who is an unlawful user of or addicted to any controlled substance . . . to receive any firearm or ammunition which has been shipped or transported in interstate or foreign commerce.” Let us say that you think statutes such as Section 922(g)(3) are too harsh and too broadly written and ought to be limited to apply only to situations with certain specified aggravating factors. And let us further suppose that you have in mind, not a general prosecutorial judgment of the facts or evidence of particular cases, but a particular list of those aggravating factors: use in a crime, or multiple purchases, or buying a weapon as a straw purchaser. These are the sorts of facts that are capable of being investigated by the police, charged in an indictment, and proven to a jury.
Well, you or I might have that opinion, and our best recourse would be to write an op-ed, or a letter to the editor, or write a letter to our representative in Washington, or even to vote for a political candidate who promises to change the law. But Joe Biden was a United States senator for 36 years, after which he has spent twelve additional years as vice president or president of the United States. He was chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee. It was literally his job — a job over which he exercised more influence than any other American over the past half century — to ensure that these particular laws were properly written. He was the principal author and legislative proponent of the 1994 crime bill, which increased the penalties for violations of these laws. He signed new federal gun legislation in 2022 that amended portions of this particular statute. At any time since Richard Nixon was reelected and Hunter was a toddler, Joe was in a position to ensure that the law did not ensnare other people’s children at the hands of literal-minded prosecutors. He managed to get through his thirties, his forties, his fifties, his sixties, and his seventies as a maker of federal laws without seeing a problem. Only now, when the 82-year-old Joe and his 54-year-old ne’er-do-well son are ready to shuffle off the public stage, does he notice a problem.
And these people wonder why we think they believe the rules don’t apply to them.