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Gun charges dropped against Jim Webb aide
Posted by David Hardy · 27 April 2007 09:25 PM
Story here.
What's interesting is that (as I understand the law, anyway) Congress has exempted the Capitol from DC law. So provided that he wasn't questioned, or clammed up, they might indeed have had a problem proving a case against him. After all, if he had just taken the gun out of one office, left the Capitol, wandered around the lawn, and come back in, he would have broken no law. That wasn't what happened, but disproving it beyond a reasonable doubt might have been a problem. (Not that that stopped them, years ago, from giving quite a bit of flak to Ted Kennedy's bodyguard. But then that bodyguard showed up with a lot more than one pistol!)
Uh...yeah...it was an evidence problem. Or maybe the statute is unconstitutionally vague.
This guy was never, NEVER, going to be prosecuted. He is in "the system" and unless there is a huge public outcry or the need for a politically ambitious prosecutor to sacrifice someone for his own upward mobility, those in the system are never going to throw one of their own over the side.
Look at the recent East St. Louis machine gun case. Several cops and a local doctor get arrested for possession of illegal machine guns. The charges against the cops were recently dropped because the statute is allegedly unconstitutionally vague as applied to them. They did a few hours of community service and are now back on the donut shop beat. The doctor on the other hand is awaiting trial.
http://www.subguns.com/boards/sword.cgi?read=852591