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The article you linked to includes an explanation: "Influencing our judgment in this case, among other things, is our recognition that the intent of the tempor

The article you linked to includes an explanation: "Influencing our judgment in this case, among other things, is our recognition that the intent of the temporary possession and short display of the magazine was to promote the First Amendment purpose of informing an ongoing public debate about firearms policy in the United States, especially while this subject was foremost in the minds of the public"

sigzero 13y ago
They could have just shown a picture. He possessed it. He should have faced the consequences period.
- leobelle 13y ago
  Why? Edit: Another question gets downvoted. Hacker News really hates when people ask questions. You can go through my recent comment history and see where other questions[1] I ask get downvoted too. Whatever you do, don't ask people on Hacker News about whatever comments they make. I think at this point pg would be doing everyone a favor if he just rebooted this site or just closed it down completely given what it the community has turned into. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7342487 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7342487
  - hga 13y ago
    Because any normal person would be facing charges, like this guy: http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/jan/20/dc-businessman-trial-one-shotgun-shell-wasnt-given/?page=all http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/jan/20/dc-businessm... Don't think those of us in "flyover country" aren't paying attention to this political corruption in the nation's capitol.
    - imgabe 13y ago
      If a normal person would face unjust charges and a famous, powerful person doesn't, equality isn't achieved by enforcing unjust charges on everyone, it's achieved by not enforcing them on anyone.
      - hga 13y ago
        "Equality" is more important than the Rule of Law?
        imgabe 13y ago
        Laws don't just pop up out of the ether. They're created by fallible people. If a law doesn't make sense and isn't making society better, it should be repealed. It shouldn't be kept in place and slavishly enforced out of blind adherence to "Rule of Law". And yes, equality is something that governments attempt to achieve through laws. Equal application of the law is one of the founding tenets of the US government. In my opinion, yes, equality is a more worthy goal to pursue than blanket enforcement of every law that happens to have gotten onto the books.
        hga 13y ago
        Well, it depends on who thinks it "doesn't make sense". The D.C. city government believes suppressing gun ownership in every way they can get away with "makes society better" (well, it makes their ruling over their subjects easier, it's easy to punish areas that don't vote correctly by removing a lot of their police protection, or so I heard when I lived next door in Arlington for a dozen years; classic Anarcho-Tyranny). They have a lot of company, as I'm sure you've noticed. And the fact is they uniformly enforce these laws, albeit with quite a few jury nullifications, except when people like David Gregory and institutions like NBC commit these crimes. Knowingly in NBC's case. I wish more people would admit we have a severe problem with having effectively having two sets of laws, one for our nomenklatura and another for the rest of us.
        imgabe 13y ago
        The "DC city government" is an abstract notion representing an ever-changing group of people. As such, it is incapable of conscious thought and does not actually believe anything. Certain individuals who are part of the DC government believe those things. Some other individuals don't. We count up the ones on each side and then democracy happens. We have the courts to make sure the majority hasn't gone completely crazy. DC went through a long time where they were leading the US in murders. When people are getting shot around you left and right, it's pretty reasonable to think that maybe you could stop that if you could stop people from having guns. The purpose of the laws was to stop people from getting shot. It's pretty clear that David Gregory was not going to shoot anyone, so putting him in jail was not going to serve the purpose of the law. Are they willing to be as rational if the person isn't famous? I don't know. I'm not aware of any other cases where a non-famous citizen has gotten ahold of an illegal ammo clip to use as a prop in an argument about gun control.
  - nateabele 13y ago
    Maybe you were downvoted because posting "Why?" with no follow-up is dumb, adds nothing meaningful to the discussion, and wastes peoples' time.
    - nsmartt 13y ago
      Adding "He had no malicious intent" would serve to make the asker's intention more clear, but still wouldn't add much to the discussion because it had already been established. I don't think asking why should be discouraged.
    - deleted 13y ago
      [deleted]
- imgabe 13y ago
  What purpose would have been served by imprisoning this person? Is the general public better off / safer if he's behind bars? Is he a threat to the welfare of others? Was anyone injured (physically, monetarily or otherwise) by his actions? What benefit are we achieving to counterbalance the cost of imprisoning him? "We need to enforce the law because it's the law so we need to enforce it" is shitty, circular reasoning. This is the exact reason we have judges and juries in the first place: to interpret laws so they don't get blindly applied in places where they don't benefit us.
  - loqi 13y ago
    ...for certain values of "us".
  - anonymoushn 13y ago
    The state is a threat to the welfare of the people, and allowing it to selectively enforce laws is worse for people in the long run than requiring it not to.

sigzero 13y ago

They could have just shown a picture. He possessed it. He should have faced the consequences period.

leobelle 13y ago
Why? Edit: Another question gets downvoted. Hacker News really hates when people ask questions. You can go through my recent comment history and see where other questions[1] I ask get downvoted too. Whatever you do, don't ask people on Hacker News about whatever comments they make. I think at this point pg would be doing everyone a favor if he just rebooted this site or just closed it down completely given what it the community has turned into. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7342487 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7342487
- hga 13y ago
  Because any normal person would be facing charges, like this guy: http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/jan/20/dc-businessman-trial-one-shotgun-shell-wasnt-given/?page=all http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/jan/20/dc-businessm... Don't think those of us in "flyover country" aren't paying attention to this political corruption in the nation's capitol.
  - imgabe 13y ago
    If a normal person would face unjust charges and a famous, powerful person doesn't, equality isn't achieved by enforcing unjust charges on everyone, it's achieved by not enforcing them on anyone.
    - hga 13y ago
      "Equality" is more important than the Rule of Law?
      - imgabe 13y ago
        Laws don't just pop up out of the ether. They're created by fallible people. If a law doesn't make sense and isn't making society better, it should be repealed. It shouldn't be kept in place and slavishly enforced out of blind adherence to "Rule of Law". And yes, equality is something that governments attempt to achieve through laws. Equal application of the law is one of the founding tenets of the US government. In my opinion, yes, equality is a more worthy goal to pursue than blanket enforcement of every law that happens to have gotten onto the books.
        hga 13y ago
        Well, it depends on who thinks it "doesn't make sense". The D.C. city government believes suppressing gun ownership in every way they can get away with "makes society better" (well, it makes their ruling over their subjects easier, it's easy to punish areas that don't vote correctly by removing a lot of their police protection, or so I heard when I lived next door in Arlington for a dozen years; classic Anarcho-Tyranny). They have a lot of company, as I'm sure you've noticed. And the fact is they uniformly enforce these laws, albeit with quite a few jury nullifications, except when people like David Gregory and institutions like NBC commit these crimes. Knowingly in NBC's case. I wish more people would admit we have a severe problem with having effectively having two sets of laws, one for our nomenklatura and another for the rest of us.
        imgabe 13y ago
        The "DC city government" is an abstract notion representing an ever-changing group of people. As such, it is incapable of conscious thought and does not actually believe anything. Certain individuals who are part of the DC government believe those things. Some other individuals don't. We count up the ones on each side and then democracy happens. We have the courts to make sure the majority hasn't gone completely crazy. DC went through a long time where they were leading the US in murders. When people are getting shot around you left and right, it's pretty reasonable to think that maybe you could stop that if you could stop people from having guns. The purpose of the laws was to stop people from getting shot. It's pretty clear that David Gregory was not going to shoot anyone, so putting him in jail was not going to serve the purpose of the law. Are they willing to be as rational if the person isn't famous? I don't know. I'm not aware of any other cases where a non-famous citizen has gotten ahold of an illegal ammo clip to use as a prop in an argument about gun control.
- nateabele 13y ago
  Maybe you were downvoted because posting "Why?" with no follow-up is dumb, adds nothing meaningful to the discussion, and wastes peoples' time.
  - nsmartt 13y ago
    Adding "He had no malicious intent" would serve to make the asker's intention more clear, but still wouldn't add much to the discussion because it had already been established. I don't think asking why should be discouraged.
  - deleted 13y ago
    [deleted]
imgabe 13y ago
What purpose would have been served by imprisoning this person? Is the general public better off / safer if he's behind bars? Is he a threat to the welfare of others? Was anyone injured (physically, monetarily or otherwise) by his actions? What benefit are we achieving to counterbalance the cost of imprisoning him? "We need to enforce the law because it's the law so we need to enforce it" is shitty, circular reasoning. This is the exact reason we have judges and juries in the first place: to interpret laws so they don't get blindly applied in places where they don't benefit us.
- loqi 13y ago
  ...for certain values of "us".
- anonymoushn 13y ago
  The state is a threat to the welfare of the people, and allowing it to selectively enforce laws is worse for people in the long run than requiring it not to.