Some of the charges that have been brought against Hunter Biden involve his illegal purchase of a handgun. Now, "Hunter Biden's Lawyers Say the Gun Ban He Violated Is Unconstitutional, Widely Flouted, and Rarely Enforced," reports Reason.
Biden's gun purchase violated 18 USC 922(g)(3), which makes it a felony for "an unlawful user" of "any controlled substance" to receive or possess a firearm. And since Biden falsely denied illegal drug use on the form he filled out when he bought the gun, he also is charged with violating 18 USC 922(a)(6), which applies to someone who knowingly makes a false statement in connection with a firearm transaction, and 924(a)(1)(A), which redundantly applies to someone who "knowingly makes any false statement or representation with respect to the information" that a federally licensed dealer is required to record.
Biden's motion notes that Section 922(g)(3) "was recently found unconstitutional by the Fifth Circuit." In August, the appeals court overturned the Section 922(g)(3) conviction of Patrick Darnell Daniels Jr., who was caught with two guns and the remains of a few joints during an April 2022 traffic stop in Hancock County, Mississippi. Applying the Second Amendment test established by the Supreme Court's 2022 decision in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen, the 5th Circuit concluded that Daniels' conviction was "inconsistent with our 'history and tradition' of gun regulation."
Although Daniels was lucky that the 5th Circuit agreed with his Second Amendment argument, he was extremely unlucky to need the court's intervention in the first place. As Biden's lawyers note, Section 922(g)(3) "is very broad (unconstitutionally so), covering millions (if not tens of millions) of gun owners who use substances controlled under federal law, including marijuana, even if those drugs are legal at the state level." Yet the Justice Department "almost never" prosecutes people under that provision.
His attorneys are not only arguing that the laws are unconstitutional, but that the rarity of their enforcement proves that their enforcement against Hunter Biden is politically motivated.
Of course, various Second Amendment civil rights groups have long argued that we don't need new gun laws, but only that the one's already on the books need to be enforced. Hunter's arguments essentially underscore that point.
And then there is the issue of selective prosecution--long permitted under the doctrine of prosecutorial discretion--and widely used by the DOJ against its political opponents. The only reason they are prosecuting Hunter at all is because they have been backed into a corner, facing a complete loss of legitimacy if they don't pursue the charges. They've already delayed investigations so long that the statutes of limitations have run on the majority of charges that could have been brought. Earlier this year they removed the entire team investigating Hunter's tax violations after the lead investigator blew the whistle on DOJ interference in the investigation to protect Hunter. (See also here concerning preferential treatment of his case). This case will be a test of whether the DOJ is so compromised that they cannot ever be trusted to be nonpartisan.
For once I'm rooting for a Biden.
ReplyDeleteIf he wins on this point, it will be because of who he is, not because (or whether) the law was unconstitutional.
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