Washington Post on AG McDonnell: They Don’t Get It

If you’d like to see what it looks like when a newspaper editor willingly puts on a set of blinders and expounds on a topic while missing the clearly obvious, check out this one in today’s Washington Post. Wrong – dead wrong – right from the word “go”.

WOULDN’T IT be nice if Robert F. McDonnell, the attorney general of Virginia, were as intent on enforcing the state’s gun laws as New York Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg is?

The issue the Post is referencing is the recent argument going on between Virginia’s Attorney General Bob McDonnell and New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg. McDonnell sent Boomberg a letter advising him that a new law in Virginia that takes place on July 1 of this year would make Bloomberg’s practice of sending undercover agents into gun stores to buy guns illegally… um, illegal.

The Post’s editorial calls Bloomberg’s approach “no-nonsense” and “effective, imaginitive law enforcement”. What it was was a set of illegal straw purchases, a fact that the Post even admits. What makes this definitely not effective law enforcement is the fact that Mayor Bloomberg has absolutely no jurisdiction or authority to conduct that kind of effort outside of the city of New York. (Frankly, I’m not sure he can inside the city of New York.) Without that authority his actions amounted to him paying people to commit crimes on his behalf. Why this hasn’t resulted in a federal investigation is just beyond me.

Perhaps an example along the same lines would suffice. Lets say the editors of the WaPo decided they were going to send people into pharmacies around the DC area with forged prescriptions to see how many pharmacies were doing their jobs to verify them before handing out controlled drugs. If they did that without notifying the law enforcement agencies who have the jurisdiction over such things, would they expect to be considered “imaginative”? I’m betting their legal department would never even let them make the attempt because those lawyers are very familiar with the concept that committing a crime in an effort to find more crime isn’t a valid defense in a court of law.

The Post goes on to wax hysterical about how a law that seeks to protect Virginia’s sovereign jurisdiction and keep mayors of other states’ cities from considering our Commonwealth to be their turf because they say so will render sting operations a thing of the past. Ridiculous. By definition, the Mayor’s operation wasn’t a sting because 1) there was no valid law enforcement involved and 2) no effort was made to even notify Virginia’s police forces. Contrary to the Post’s assertion, the rogue operators in this little drama are indeed the “detectives” sent here by the Mayor. Whether there are gun dealers in Virginia who failed to live up to the letter of the law or not does not offer carte blanche to the Mayor to send his own troops into everyone else’s back yards. The Post’s anti-gun owner attitude has colored its vision on this matter so completely they are willing to forgive any criminal activity so long as it paints gun ownership in a harsh light. That they articulate such a stance just proves that where real crime deterrence is concerned, They Don’t Get It.™