If Hunter Biden’s name had been Jim Bob Jones would he have been tried and convicted for lying on a federal firearms purchase form?
In all honesty, I’d say not.
The son of the president is a political target of Republicans hoping to tar his father with the influence peddling schemes that have made Hunter Biden millions. The gun charge was the surest means to assure he became the only presidential offspring in history to be convicted of a felony.
The trial on tax evasion charges that will come later this year, while promising more salacious and damaging testimony, are less certain to deliver a guilty verdict, and may ultimately be avoided with a plea deal.
The gun case was ironclad, as demonstrated by the jury’s speedy return of its verdict. But it doesn’t change the fact that almost no one else who does what Hunter Biden did has had to face the legal consequences.
The president’s son was charged with three violations of federal law for falsifying the form a purchaser must fill out before buying a gun. Hunter Biden failed to disclose his drug addiction, as required, when he bought a handgun from a Delaware dealer in 2018.
In 2019, 27 million background checks were done on gun buyers. Of that number, 478 individuals were reported to federal prosecutors for lying on the form. And just 298 faced charges.
That puts Hunter Biden in rare company and adds credence to the claims that his prosecution was at least in part politically motivated.
But it doesn’t mean he should not have been charged. Just the opposite — the other 180 violators who walked away with not so much as a wrist slap should have been in the courtroom with him.
The federal law Hunter Biden violated was championed by his father when he was in the Senate. It was designed to help answer a key concern of those advocating for more responsible gun policies: How to keep firearms out of the hands of those most likely to abuse them.
Yet, like so many measures passed in response to cries to “do something” about guns, lax enforcement has rendered the screening form requirement largely useless.
In general, gun laws aren’t aggressively enforced. Remember that Anthony McRae, the shooter who killed three students on the Michigan State University campus, was previously arrested on a felony gun charge that would have prevented him from purchasing a firearm. He was allowed to plead down to a misdemeanor.
A Republican-backed law pending in Congress called the Prosecuting Gun Crimes Saves Lives Act would prioritize the prosecution of those who illegally purchase guns. It’s gone nowhere for lack of support by Democrats, who keep pushing for more restrictive gun laws that end up being undermined by progressive or lazy prosecutors.
On the day his son was convicted, President Joe Biden attended an anti-gun rally calling for even more gun laws. He also, disingenuously, said he respected the legal system that convicted his son. Never mind that his Justice Department tried to orchestrate a sweetheart plea deal that would have spared Hunter Biden from facing any consequences.
Hunter Biden may not have been treated the same as others who violated the screening law. But all future violators should be treated the same as Hunter Biden.
—The Detroit News/TNS