Anti-gunners often describe pro-gun politicians as being “bought” by the National Rifle Association. The argument implies they’re being bribed into supporting our Second Amendment rights. They can’t comprehend that someone might genuinely believe in the right to keep and bear arms.

Or, and it’s just a theory, it’s a grade “A” case of projection on their part.

After all, we have yet another anti-gun politician being brought up on charges of corruption.

One of the most powerful and longest-serving City Council members in Chicago history appeared in federal court Thursday on a charge that he tried to shake down a major fast-food restaurant chain seeking city remodeling permits.

Alderman Ed Burke, 75, is charged with one count of attempted extortion for conveying to company executives in 2017 that they’d get the permits only if they signed on as clients at Burke’s private property-tax law firm in Chicago, a 37-page complaint unsealed on Thursday says.

For many Chicagoans suspicious of dealings behind closed doors at City Hall, Burke has personified the city’s machine politics for decades. Dozens of aldermen have entered U.S. District court on corruption charges, but Burke seemed too powerful, too wealthy and too savvy to land himself in the kind of legal trouble he now faces.

He sat in a packed Chicago federal courtroom Thursday afternoon with his arms folded, wearing his trademark pinstriped suit with a pocket square. Minutes later, he stood before U.S. Magistrate Sheila Finnegan, who asked if he understood the charge and that a conviction could carry a lengthy prison sentence.

“Yes, your honor,” he answered calmly.

Burke’s attorney, Charles Sklarsky, commented briefly to reporters as he left the courthouse with his client, saying he looked forward to proving Burke did nothing wrong.

…

Prosecutors told the judge that Burke, who has publicly opposed the National Rifle Association and proposed multiple gun-control ordinances over the years, had 23 guns at his offices alone. The judge said one condition of his continued release is that he gets rid of all his guns, including any at his home. He also was required to turn over his passport.

So even under the best of circumstances, that he’s wrongly prosecuted (and don’t hold your breath on that one), he’s still a colossal hypocrite. I mean, he’s made efforts to curtail people’s right to keep and bear arms, and yet he has 23 firearms just at his offices? Seriously?

Now, Burke’s transgressions pale in comparison to Leeland Yee‘s, of course. However, like Yee, we have an anti-gun politician who thinks none of the rules apply to him.

I suppose we should be thankful he wasn’t trying to sell them to people (allegedly).

While Chicago politicians are busy trying to make rules to control the lives of their citizens, they have an unfortunate tendency to demonstrate their own inability to follow those rules. Meanwhile, they create gun regulations that average citizens have to follow. There’s nothing right about that, even if you support gun control.

If guns are dangerous, you shouldn’t want them in your possession.

What Burke’s hypocrisy does is prove what we already knew, that the issue isn’t guns in general, but guns in your hands that’s troubling to them.

Meanwhile, Burke has done a good job of living up the stereotype of a Chicago politician for the rest of the country to point at and laugh. It’s just too bad people like this create so much damage before they’re caught.