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]

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.

Not only did he violate D.C. gun laws, but according to D.C. police [who have confirmed multiple times], he knowingly violated the law after being denied the use of the illegal magazine on the show.

[Mr. Jeeves]

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?

Gonzalo Lira: Structural Pliancy

[tumblindice]

“Gregory was indeed planning to commit a crime”

Exactly. A ‘crime’ is defined as a joint union of act and intent.
Here the crime is possession. NBC and Gregory hoisted themselves on their own petard.
And from what I’ve read they compounded the crime by lying about getting permission from the DC police.
Nothing unusual about the MSM lying but that’s not ordinarily a crime, just `artistic license.’

[Junior_G]

Sometimes a society becomes too stupid to survive.

Or half of it, anyway.

Unfortunately, they're the half in full control of the country--government, education, and culture.

[JLS]

Mark Steyn ping. This is a really apt column.

Freepmail me, if you want on or off the Mark Steyn ping list.

Thanks for the ping Servant of the Cross.

[JLS]

Mark Steyn ping. This is a really apt column.

Freepmail me, if you want on or off the Mark Steyn ping list.

Thanks for the ping Servant of the Cross.

[mylife]

Standard Steyn.
Keen eye and wit.

[Slings and Arrows]

"“Do you really think we want those laws observed?" Said Dr. Ferris. We want them broken. You better get it straight that it's not a bunch of boy scouts you're up against - then you'll know this is not the age for beautiful gestures. We're after power and we mean it. You fellows were pikers, but we know the real trick and you'd better get wise to it. There’s no way to rule innocent men. The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren’t enough criminals, one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws. Who wants a nation of law-abiding citizens? What’s there in that for anyone? But just pass the kind of laws that can neither be observed nor enforced nor objectively interpreted and you create a nation of law-breakers - and then you cash in on guilt. Now, that's the system Mr. Reardon, that's the game, and once you understand it, you'll be much easier to deal with."

Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged, Part 2, Chapter 3, Page 404

[Mrs. Don-o]

Well, Steyn brandishes wit.

I am interested in why nobody ever "blurts out" a lie. I suppose it's a testament to the spontaneity of truth.

[Gay State Conservative]

Save for later

[neverdem]

The NRA should be demanding Gregory be prosecuted for violation of local gun laws...To not prosecute Gregory would show the utter hypocrisy and absurdity of these gun laws.

The NRA and the right have a serious opportunity here.

The argument for letting him walk rests on his membership of a protected class — the media. Notwithstanding that (per Gallup) 54 percent of Americans have a favorable opinion of the NRA while only 40 percent have any trust in the media, the latter regard themselves as part of the ruling class.

The BS media doesn't deserve that limited degree of credibility that it has, 40 percent. It also shows the gullibility of the left.

The NRA and the right need to demand that Gregory be prosecuted, or that idiotic law prohibiting high capacity magazines be repealed. The government has a history of abandoning not just their own at Benghazi, but innocent civilians as well.

WHEN ‘ASSAULT WEAPONS’ SAVED KOREATOWN

High-Capacity-Magazine Bans: Threatened shopkeepers used 30-round magazines to fire warning shots and avoid taking lives.

It's time to go after the BS media hammer and tong. They were complicit in giving the government pass on innocent dead from Ruby Ridge, Idaho and Waco, Texas to Fast and Furious.

[Gritty]

Beautiful and right to the point!

[BwanaNdege]

Steyn’s command of the English language and of several others continues to enlighten and entertain me.

Here he describes the federal Fish & Wildlife officer issuing a $535 fine to “eleven-year-old Skylar Capo [who] made the mistake of rescuing a woodpecker from the jaws of a cat and nursing him back to health for a couple of days” as a “gauleiter”.

“Gauleiter” - What an apt term!

Definition of GAULEITER
1a : a district leader in Nazi Germany who served as a provincial governor
1b : a subordinate political official resembling a Nazi gauleiter in function or in autocratic manner
2: a person with an arrogant overbearing outlook or manner

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/gauleiter

Ah, Steyn... Once again, out of the park!

[jessduntno]

“...insanely obsessed and preoccupied with guns; namely, elite leftists like Gregory.”

They just can’t wait to get us unarmed. Look what they are doing to the Constitution now, for cripes sake.

[BwanaNdege]

Wow, just WOW!

Understand that, plus H.L. Mencken’s quote and you understand current politics.

“The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.”
H. L. Mencken

http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/h/hlmencke101109.html#iHXw2V7hMjVg6cps.99

I would probably add Rush’s euphemism of “low-information voter” plus:

Lord Acton: “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”

And finally, Alexis de Tocqueville: “The American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that it can bribe the public with the public’s money.”

There is your college level course in Political Science.

For a Graduate Level course, include:

“But Jesus would not entrust himself to them, for he knew all men.” John 2:24

“I am sending you out like sheep among wolves. Therefore be as shrewd as snakes and as innocent as doves.” Matt 10:16

[virgil283]

"But don’t be fooled: These people who claim they want the end of regulations don’t want to help us—they want to exploit us. ......Thanks..'V'

[Slings and Arrows]

Miss Rand understood the looter mentality.

[SIRTRIS]

>>>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</b>Will Gregory plead ignorace or did he have a crack researh team advising him the all clear? Stupidity is no excuse!!

[SIRTRIS]

>>>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 crimeWill Gregory plead ignorace or did he have a crack researh team advising him the all clear? Stupidity is no excuse!!