Irony, or hypocrisy? You decide.
In one of those events that barely even raises an eyebrow anymore, one of the leaders of the “Million Mom March” in favor of (even more) gun control, was arrested on firearms violations.
A Springfield woman who began lobbying against gun violence after her son was shot to death in 2002 was arrested last week when police allegedly found an illegal gun and drugs in her home.
First, lets be clear – she wasn’t lobbying against gun violence, she was lobbying against gun ownership. The Million Mom March was all about driving guns out of everyone’s hands, regardless of criminality.
So just what was she busted for? Having a gun with a scratched-off serial number, and not having firearms owner ID card (required by Illinois). Two classic gun-grabber laws, here being applied to someone who admits that she had the gun in question.
In other words, she admits violating the laws in question. One wonders if she will plead guilty and volunteer for jail time, as her beliefs would seem to require. Well, one wonders only if one is terminally naive – she is fighting the case, apparently unwilling to live with the consequences of the restrictions she wants to impose on others.
Definitely, damned hypocrisy: remember the pacifist John Lennon, and his generous funding of the IRA.
Hypocrisy or cluelessness.
Either way I hope she get’s nailed for it.
She’s part of the problem : creating all those “gotcha” laws that seem ony to bother and hurt firearms owners who try to be honest and legal.
In my experience, everyone who has a strong interest in dictating to other people how they might live their lives has a deep infection of hypocrisy running through their veins.
This goes across the board, from the authoritarian David Blunkett, who directed the Metropolitan police to investigate little boys playing knock knock ginger on his [married] girlfriend’s doorbell and who, while “cracking down” on illegal immigration, used his lofty position to facilitate her maid’s permission to work in Britain, to fire and brimstone Southern Baptist preachers who don’t recognise one another in Hooter’s.
The pressing desire to assume control over other people’s lives is a pathology that needs treatment.
On the firearm charges I would still vote against the conviction (if I were on the jury – which, as a noncitizen, I would not be).
The laws in question are unconstitutional and a jury has a duty (as all the Founding Fathers agreed) to judge both the “facts of the case” and the STATUTE itself.
The fact that this confused lady supports the statutes in question is not relevant, she should still walk (at least on those charges).
Good point, Paul, if I were on that jury, the better angels of my nature would lead me to agree with you.
However, given her views, she shouldn’t even be contesting this case. She has admitted violating the statutes in question, and (unlike us) she doesn’t think those statutes are illegitimate. If she had the courage of her convictions, she would plead guilty, refuse a deal, would serve her time.
Yes, her position would seem somewhat intenable (to be gentle), however never underestimate the very human power of denial.
Verity, fair-dos though. When in Hooters, one would not particularly be paying attention to the faces of other men 😀
Rich
Excuse me for randomly butting in here, but can’t it be hypocrisy and irony – living in together in perfect harmony, side by side? Sorry.
Gonna go link ya now. Good one. Thanks.
“And as for the gun, she admits to having it in the house. But she said it belonged to her son. She didn’t find it until six or seven months after he died. Not knowing what to do with it, she wrapped it up, put it in a drawer and forgot about it.”
If that’s true it’s neither ironic nor hypocritical – just an instance of not thinking straight.
Mike – This woman whose thoughts have been focussed for three years, day after day, on trying to remove the rights of individuals to own a gun “forgot” she had a gun in the house?
Actually, I think she was being quite rational … her relatives were mostly criminals.
The one thing a criminal fears most in the US is accidentally encountering an armed citizen.
Advocating victim disarmament for us mere peasants is clearly within her and her relatives’ self-interest.
NB: ‘Million’ in leftist agitprop parlance means ‘any number above one hundred’ (cf ‘Million Men Marches’ of Al Sharpton, Je$$e Jack$on et al.)
Matt O’Halloran – Hmmm. Interesting. So an estimated million in US lefty agitproptalk has approximately the same value as the dollar against the pound. When the BBC reports, regarding lefty causes, “a demonstration of an estimated 500,000 people marched in central London today to protest [fill in the blank]” … that also means ‘a number in excess of 100 but we wish it were higher’.
Although sometimes, if they really can’t narrow the shot to cut out all the people calmly walking around going about their business, not incommoded in the least, they will lower it to “an estimated 200,000”.
No Verity, she wasn’t thinking straight.
For three years she wasn’t thinking straight, while she organised all these attempted infringements on the civil civil liberties of others? For three years she wasn’t thinking straight?
Don’t buy it.
Well, lets face it, gun grabbing types frequently are not the most capable rational thinkers going. Hypocrisy is sure to abound for people who can’t make the link that “if you can’t do X then I can’t do X”.
One of the things that brought me to libertarianism was that I came to the realisation that I shouldn’t try and deny others the rights to which I felt entitled. True love for ones fellow man is to allow him to choose his own destiny, not to exert your will over his for his own ‘protection’
Rich
The firearms law she is charged with violating is a Federal one. The serial number had been obliterated. This is presumed to be evidence that the gun was either stolen or obliterated. Not the first law we need rolled back.
As for her anti-gun activism, it was either hypocrisy or denial. She got involved with the MMM after her son was gunned down, but the evidence is that this occurred because he was involved in an ongoing gang war. The mother’s home was searched because of her continued close ties to a gang linked to drive-by shootings.
Triticale,
She’s also afoul of Illinois state law, which says that possession of a gun without a FOID card is a felony.
“Not knowing what to do with it” is no defense — if she were a law-abiding citizen (in Illinois terms) she would have turned the gun over to the police toot sweet.
I say all this empirically, of course. For years I both owned and carried a gun in Illinois without a FOID card (thus breaking TWO laws — unlicensed AND carrying a concealed weapon).
I only succumbed to the apparatchiks when my son was born, and got a FOID card — but I still carried a gun all the time.
When the strain of breaking the law became too onerous, I got the hell out of Illinois as soon as I could.