Whether we agree with the rules around guns or not, we have to decide whether we’re going to follow them or whether we’re going to do no such thing. For some, they’re more than willing to be a test case for challenging gun laws. For others, not so much.

Then there’s Hunter Biden.

For him, it sure looked like he didn’t care about the laws on the books in pretty much any way, but particularly for the laws regarding the ownership of firearms by habitual drug users.

And now he’s facing potential charges for violating that law, as is only right. Equal protection under the law and all that.

However, now Hunter’s attorneys are citing a Supreme Court case his father denounced in an effort to keep those charges at bay.

To Hunter Biden’s father, the Supreme Court decision last June that expanded Second Amendment rights is a travesty for gun control.

But to Hunter Biden’s lawyers, it has been an opening.

In the months after the court’s landmark ruling that gave people a broad right to carry guns outside the home, Mr. Biden’s lawyers told Justice Department prosecutors — who were investigating whether to charge him in connection with a gun purchase — that a prosecution of him would likely be ruled moot, according to two people briefed on the matter.

While it is not uncommon for defense lawyers to point to shifting precedents to stave off prosecution, the circumstances of this argument, like so many elements of the Hunter Biden saga, are striking: A president’s son is invoking a court decision his father has described as an affront to “common sense and the Constitution” — and staking that claim on a majority opinion written by Justice Clarence Thomas, a vigorous supporter of gun rights whom many Democrats see as having helped enable the gun lobby.

The U.S. attorney in Delaware, David C. Weiss, is wrapping up his investigation into Hunter Biden as uncertainty mounts about the legality of many gun laws after the court’s landmark ruling last summer, which has led to a wide-ranging assault on existing firearms laws.
Mr. Biden is under investigation for several potential offenses, including whether he had lied on a federal firearms application in 2018 when asked if he was addicted to drugs. His lawyers, including the white-collar defense lawyer Christopher Clark, have argued that any charge against him would likely be thrown out after federal appeals courts rule on two major challenges that cite the Supreme Court decision as precedent.

I somehow doubt President Joe Biden has a problem with Hunter’s defense, despite his vocal disagreement with the decision itself.

Funny how that shakes out.

The problem for Hunter, though, is that while there are a lot of gun control laws on the books that likely will fall to the wayside in the coming years, the prohibition of gun ownership by habitual drug users may not be one of them.

After all, there is some degree of precedent from the time of the founding where laws existed that prohibited the carrying of guns while intoxicated. The courts may well decide that’s close enough to meet the text and history standard from the Bruen decision.

Further, charges for Hunter’s actions don’t have to be gun charges. You fill out that form under penalty of perjury. In other words, lying under oath. That’s not a gun matter and wouldn’t be impacted by the Bruen decision in the first place.

Yet, more importantly, is that there’s a certain hypocrisy in Hunter’s lawyers trying to use the Bruen decision to stave off potential charges. There’s no indicator that the younger Biden disagrees with his father on the issue of guns in general, much less with regard to Bruen. As such, he’s basically using a decision he apparently believes is wrong to try and get his butt out of hot water.

It’s just pathetic.

Either way, I’m sure there will be questions for the president about the actions of Hunter’s legal team and their citation of such a supposedly wrong Supreme Court decision in his defense.

I just doubt the president will answer them.