Last month, D.C. attorney general Irvin Nathan announced that he would not be prosecuting David Gregory for displaying an empty ammunition magazine on his national TV show Meet the Press—even though NBC knew ahead of time that this action would violate D.C. law. In a letter to NBC, Nathan admonished Gregory for knowingly flouting the law, but said he decided to exercise “prosecutorial discretion” and not pursue a criminal case. “Prosecution would not promote public safety in the District of Columbia, nor serve the best interests of the people,” Nathan wrote.
In the Washington Post story about this episode, I was quoted as calling Nathan’s decision “a wise use of prosecutorial discretion” but that the episode “illustrates the absurdity of some of these gun laws.” My position apparently paralleled that of the NRA—even though Gregory had waved the illegal magazine in front of the group’s executive VP, Wayne LaPierre—but “thousands of gun advocates” signed a White House petition calling for Gregory’s arrest because he ought to be treated the same as anyone else.
Indeed, a friend soon pointed out to me that D.C. authorities were not treating people equally: Last summer, Army Specialist Adam Meckler, a veteran of the Afghanistan and Iraq wars, was arrested and jailed for having a few long-forgotten rounds of ordinary ammunition—but no gun—in his backpack in Washington. Meckler violated the same section of D.C. law as Gregory did, and both offenses carry the same maximum penalty of a $1,000 fine and a year in jail. [H/t: Jason Epstein]
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