https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/hunter-biden-indicted-federal-gun-charges-rcna39623
The indictment against the president's son comes after a plea agreement on tax and gun charges fell apart in July and amid a probe of his finances by House Republicans.
If he's guilty of claiming he wasn't using illegal drugs when he filed for a gun permit, I feel like at least 25% of gun owners are also guilty (depending on what man-made lines you live between)
What's more interesting here, this particular gun charge has a direct parallel that has been ruled unconstitutional in one of the appeals circuits. It's not yet made it to the Supreme Court, but it very well could.
So, it's even more likely to be unconstitutional, and Republicans are silent on it.
Republicans having an aneurysm over deciding whether or not to infringe their own rights to own the libs.
This may unintentionally be the start of firearm reform in America by actually making enforcing accepted practice.
Starting precedent that lying on a gun license get jail time should have been a non-starter for the 2A crowd.
Hopefully Hunter will the the first or many to be held responsible for lying to get a firearm .
Literally don't, because Hunter Biden didn't try to overthrow our entire government. That would be Republicans who have committed every crime under the sun, yet Garland's DOJ goes after Hunter Biden to "appear non-political.".
Look, if he committed a crime, whatever, arrest him, but I don't see the same DOJ arresting Ron Desantis for clear human trafficking laws broken, or even Greg Abbott. Not even Matt Gaetz was charged with anything. 16 Republicans got off Scott free for helping with the insurrection.
Republicans disproportionally get away with almost every crime, and it's a miracle we even got a Trump mugshot etc. Yet nobody is in prison or anything yet and the Trump trials drag on, and Hunter Biden is indicted quickly and makes the news. He's not even in office. It's an attempt by the Garland DOJ to look "fair" to Republican voters or "centrists."
These voters don't care though, because they already choose the facts that feel comfortable to their brain, and not reality.
The DOJ should go after all criminals. That someone is a criminal doesn't mean their opponent isn't as well. If you allow crimes because "someone is on the other side committed a crime" you just agreed to corruption.
If the law should exist is an open question we can debate, but that is a somewhat different subject.
Cool, the government could go after the tens of thousands of people per year who commit the same crime. But the government actually prosecutes about 10 people per year for this.
An almost identical crime was found to be unconstitutional in another appeals circuit. So yeah... This looks to be purely political.
Now, the tax shit. They actually have a bit of a case there, but that one is unlikely to result in jail time for the president's son.
I would only agree with you if I didn't think that tons of laws are bullshit. Isn't literally everyone technically a criminal by now? There needs to be some room for discretion.
You do wrong, you should be held accountable, but the conservatives are such boners about this. Generally, they don't even want forms when buying guns, and there's several cases where others have filled out the same, and it was overturned. There's a chance he gets completely off instead of the original probation.
I couldn’t give any fewer fucks.
If he did an illegal thing, he should get the same treatment from the legal system that the rest of us would. That’s it. And I honestly don’t care about the matter at all beyond that single point.
And it looks like he's getting railroaded, not getting the same treatment as your average Oklahoman on fentanyl would.
But he did show his ass by lying on a federal form, so I feel like I've got better things to stress about.
Nothing fancy; just whipped up some ramen. If you’re into that, Sun Noodle is the shit - I particularly enjoy their tonkotsu, tan tan, and mazemen varieties. Also, a soft-boiled egg really levels it up.
So the charges here are based on the fact that he lied on a gun purchase application where he claimed he was not an active drug user at the time. You'd think all those 2A folks would be concerned about this considering the number of them who must also have lied based on the quantity of narcotics sales and meth busts in red states.
A lot of gun rights groups have been champing at the bit for a good chance to challenge that section of Form 4473 for a while now. A common point of contention is that e.g., holding a medical marijuana card would be a disqualifier if truthfully filling out a 4473. It's so rarely actually prosecuted that finding a test case isn't particularly easy, though.
It will be interesting -- and telling -- to see how they react to this case.
The NRA is pretty low on the list of organizations that would have tried to push the issue if this involved someone not named Hunter Biden. They're very much a culture war outlet that won't go to bat for anyone they consider an undesirable.
There are other advocacy groups that have been talking about this issue for a number of years, though. And there have been lower court rulings this year that make whether that provision of Form 4473 is going to be able to withstand scrutiny questionable.
Like I said, where these gun rights groups land on this case is going to be pretty telling about where they stand generally. The culture warriors will come up with excuses. It should be an interesting barometer for whether these groups actually believe in universal application of what they consider rights.
It's being done for the wrong reasons (to satiate those calling for political retaliation against a politician's kid, not the pursuit of justice for its own sake) but in this unjust dystopia, a rich douchebag being held accountable for his actions is still refreshing.
I just wish they'd go after all/any the brazen, out in the open cases of insider trading that happen all day every day... at all.
Yeah how about all those covid stimulus dollars that went to big companies who lied and used it for yachts and shit
Anyone else sick of watching grown ass people in the Republican party behave as if they're on The Jerry Springer show? It's intentional in their part. They know their idiotic followers love it
I, for one, look forward to the Supreme Court ruling 5-4 that Hunter Biden deserves the death penalty for this. While simultaneously ruling that all drug users must open carry at all times. Naturally Justice Thomas would pen the majority opinion based on a strict originalist reading of the 18th Amendment.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Two counts are tied to Biden allegedly filing a form claiming that he was not using illegal drugs at the time he purchased a Colt Cobra revolver in October 2018.
U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland named Weiss special counsel in August, as negotiations over the tax and gun charges collapsed.
The two sides reached a plea agreement in July which called for Hunter Biden to plead guilty in Delaware federal court to two misdemeanor counts of failing to pay his taxes in return for prosecutors recommending a sentence of probation.
A separate felony gun charge for illegally owning a Colt Cobra .38 Special handgun would have been dropped in two years if Biden honored the terms of what’s known as a diversion agreement.
“The agreements are not straightforward and they contain some atypical provisions,” U.S. District Judge Maryellen Noreika noted, including one that could theoretically protect Biden from other tax-related crimes in the same time period.
In subsequent court filings, Weiss’s office noted that without the plea agreement in place, there were venue issues and the case would most likely have to go to trial in California or Washington, D.C.
The original article contains 745 words, the summary contains 190 words. Saved 74%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!
Good. Not sure I agree with the law, but the law is the law and being the son of a president especially means you face the consequences.
Hunter Biden “provided a written statement on Form 4473 certifying he was not an unlawful user of, and addicted to, any stimulant, narcotic drug, and any other controlled substance, when in fact, as he knew, that statement was false and fictitious,” according to the indictment.
So he lied on a form about not being a drug user.
Good to know that Republicans will be champing at the bit to take more guns away and give this enforcement some teeth.
Let's drug test Congress.
That'd depend on who's getting those guns. Rules are tricksy business in Republicanland.
Something which, notably, happens on around 1% of all applications, but is prosecuted less than 0.000005% of the time.
From 2008 - 2012 there were 32 million background checks, and 373,900 rejections.
Between FY 2008 and FY 2015, an 8-year period, ATF formally referred 509 NICS denial
cases that included 558 subjects to USAOs for possible prosecution. The USAOs
accepted for consideration of prosecution 254 subjects (or less than 32 subjects per
year) and declined to prosecute 272 subjects.
32 prosecutions a year for an average of 6 million background checks (completed, there is a much larger number for bg checks initiated)
huh? I'm guessing you didn't mean to reply to me.
I was asking why the OP changed the title of the article to add "son of the president". As if it'd somehow make people care more about this total non-story.
I think it is a huge story. Hunter has money, so his attorneys can move the case up the chain. The court may have to rule if it is constitutional or unconstitutional for a government form to restrict gun sales to people. Hunter walks on that charge if deemed unconstitutional, and if deemed constitutional, it could maybe set precedent that the government can legally enforce stricter gun regulations.
E.g. No assault charges in the last x amount of years unless deemed okay by a medical professional. No firearms over a certain caliber, etc.
So for the trump appointee to win, he has to do what is good for the populous, which he can't do. It's against his programming. Who knows though, maybe the clock will be right at that time of day?
I hear you, that would definitely make the case more interesting, if it ever gets to that. That money also means he's way more likely for him to hire lawyers to get him off on some technicality so judges never have to take that on.