Like you and me, only better
A senate staffer working for James Webb was busted trying to get a pistol into the senate building. It was the senator’s gun. I guess the senator was taking advantage of the recent Parker v. DC decision? Nah, he’s one of the privileged who gets to disregard laws for little people. Anyway, if you’re just going to violate the law willy-nilly, you may as well do it big and go ahead and get the machine gun.
Silly people in Parker had to actually, you know, sue to make progress in this area.
March 27th, 2007 at 8:49 am
He might have been carrying a “machine gun,” at least as defined in DC. One of the accounts said it was a 9mm. Most 9mms have at least 15 round magazines or so. Well, in DC, anything that can fire semi-automatically more than 12 rounds without reloading is a “machine gun.” I’m actually not making that up. I looked up the law in DC’s code a while back. It’s also illegal to have a single round of ammunition (or even a piece of brass!) that isn’t “registered.” I’m not entirely sure how the register brass and ammo, but it’s required. I usually have to do a pretty good cleaning of my jeep if I might be going into DC. Wouldn’t want to be prohibited from owning a gun because I had a stray .22LR round lying on my floor.
March 27th, 2007 at 8:55 am
I think he ought to be prosecuted just like a citizen would be in the same situation. If Webb conspired to make this happen, he ought to be charged.
Hey, like they tell us..if you don’t like the law…CHANGE IT.
I also wish someone would ask Mr Bush for the import papers on Saddam’s Highpower pistol that he keeps in the Oval Office. They no longer let soldiers bring home a captured trophy gun….how the heck did the President get that one?
March 27th, 2007 at 9:06 am
If Webb leads the way to change the law, Robert, we likely lose standing to take Parker to the Supreme Court. While I don’t think they will issue some sort of sweeping opinion that will knock gun control laws off the books, within a very specific case that’s extreme as the DC one is, they will be more likely to say individuals have the right to arms. It’s not going to make anyone perfectly happy, but it would likely pave the way to similar specific and extreme case lawsuits.
March 27th, 2007 at 10:14 am
Finally! I fianlly posted something related to a gun before you did 🙂
It is almost like scooping Glenn!
March 27th, 2007 at 10:17 am
As TheConfusedOne points out at Slashdot, it was undocumented gun and ammunition.
March 27th, 2007 at 11:21 am
On that machine gun thing I found something here.
March 27th, 2007 at 6:51 pm
If it was done right, Parker would be moot. It just might be fatal to a political career for an elitist to pass a law that only applied to give him the Privilege to exercise a Right. While denying it to others.
Ergo, I do not expect he will approach that issue as a legislator. If he does it right, the dems will disown him, if he does wrong, the people of SW Va. will disown him.
June 18th, 2007 at 8:45 am
[…] Webb’s staffer was arrested and detained for illegally having a gun in DC. There was question about whose gun it was: A senate staffer working for James Webb was busted trying to get a pistol into the senate […]