Plaxico Burress and the handgun hypocrites

December 6, 3:14 PMDallas Libertarian ExaminerGarry Reed

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Plaxico Burress in happier times
(source: Antonelli/New York Daily News)

For those of you who can't keep track of celebrity athletes doing dumb things without a program, it was the Giant’s wide receiver Plaxico Burress (#17) who accidentally shot himself in the leg with his own gun while partying in a New York nightclub.

Since his injury prevents him from playing football, and since he has already been suspended by his team without pay, and since he likely faces even harsher penalties from the league, meaning he could conceivably be banned from football forever, thereby losing his multimillion dollar income, and since he is facing trial on charges of failing to have a signed permission slip from the New York ruling classes allowing him to exercise his Second Amendment right to wield a weapon, Burress has just missed the target of giving literal meaning to the cliché about shooting oneself in the foot.

(On a positive note, for doing something this stupid he is now qualified for a contract offer from the Dallas Cowboys.)

His legal situation is serious. As an Associated Press article points out, “prosecuting gun offenders is a high priority for Manhattan prosecutors.”

But let’s not be too quick to assume that Burress will actually face any time in the crowbar hotel, even though packing a pistol without permission is punishable by up to 15 years in prison. He is a celebrity, after all, and celebrities aren’t treated like the rest of us.

Even the District Attorney’s chief deputy, according to the article, confirms that there have been some instances where a person guilty of illegal gun possession didn’t “need” to go to jail.

That instance would be a celebrity instance.

In 1999, Rapper Busta Rhymes got slapped on the wrist with five years probation for the loaded .45 in his Mercedes after convincing a Manhattan judge that “an armed robbery made him fear for his life.”

Compare that to the case of a young non-celebrity who was riding in a car containing four other men and one .40-cal handgun. Apparently nobody copped to ownership or actual possession of the gun, but the young non-celebrity just had to be charged with something. He had a “need” to go to jail. And since the young non-celebrity didn’t have a celebrity lawyer with a celebrity-sized legal fee, the poor non-celebrity “pleaded guilty to a reduced charge of ‘attempted’ criminal possession of a weapon in exchange for a one-year jail sentence."

What, in a sane world, is “Attempted” possession of a weapon? Either one possesses a weapon or one doesn’t. How does sitting in a car containing four other people and a gun constitute an “attempt” to “posses” a weapon, criminal or otherwise?

Attempted criminal possession of a weapon is another one of those manufactured crimes that has no purpose whatever other than to throw someone in jail so some prosecutor can notch his or her metaphorical gun belt and move up in the political lawyering rankings.

In a libertarian society, Plaxico Burress committed no crime because a crime requires someone to initiate force or the threat of force or fraud against someone else. So unless he filed charges against himself, Burres would walk. (Well, okay, technically he would limp.) But because he broke some rules that obsessive-compulsive government rules-writers concocted in today’s authoritarian society, the legalcrats will be all over him like GSR on a trigger finger. Expect them to come up with a dozen or so charges against Burress and his buddies that you never heard of before. And maybe they’ll even invent some new ones just so they can steal fifteen minutes in a celebrity’s spotlight.

Meanwhile, don’t worry yourself too much about Plaxico Burress. Even though anti-gun Mayor Michael Bloomberg publicly wants to throw the book at him, only poor non-celebrities do jail. Rich celebrities don’t. Burress will emerge from this with no permanent long-term damage done to his leg or his career.

Damage to his billfold, however, may be another matter.

(Read more on America's ongoing and repugnant manufactured crime wave here.)