Except you’ve been hiding underneath a rock or getting all of your info from Fox Information (granted, these two are functionally equal), you understand that North Carolina Rep. Madison Cawthorn was just lately cited for bringing a loaded handgun to the Charlotte Douglas International Airport. It was his second such offense. He’s additionally scheduled to look in courtroom subsequent month for allegedly driving with a revoked license.
As a serial lawbreaker, one would possibly suppose Cawthorn would face the identical type of warmth because the lowly plebs who’ve additionally conveniently “forgotten” concerning the weapons of their meticulously curated carryons and located themselves in handcuffs. Like this guy. Or this one. Or this one. Or this lady. Or this one. And people are simply from this month.
Or possibly, since Cawthorn is in Congress, the klieg lights needs to be skilled upon his and his compatriots’ relentless efforts to show our nation into an enormous Insane Clown Posse mosh pit with limitless ordnance.
In actual fact, one political occasion is extrapolating precisely that lesson from Cawthorn’s newest misadventures. I’ll offer you one guess which one.
A pair of Home Democrats urged the Transportation Safety Administration on Thursday to crack down on the rising menace of firearms at airports, days after a Republican congressman was caught bringing a gun to a TSA checkpoint.
[…]
“Members of Congress on either side of the aisle agree that those that break the legislation and endanger the protection of different passengers — and particularly repeat offenders similar to Rep. Cawthorn — should be held to account,” learn the letter from Homeland Safety Committee Chairman Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., and transportation subcommittee Chairwoman Bonnie Watson Coleman, D-N.J.
“TSA should pursue acceptable motion with out worry or favor in opposition to all such offenders, no matter whether or not they’re public figures similar to Rep. Cawthorn,” they wrote.
Whereas insurance policies on whether or not or to not arrest these offenders range by state, and even metropolis, one lawyer CNBC spoke with hinted that Cawthorn did obtain the kid-glove remedy within the wake of his alleged violation. Brad Smith, a Charlotte, North Carolina, legal protection lawyer, stated at Charlotte Douglas, such violators are usually arrested on the scene.
“As a rule you’re taken to jail, and booked,” Smith stated. “The DA’s workplace completely prosecutes these circumstances.”
And they need to prosecute this one, too; in the event that they do, Cawthorn faces up to 60 days in jail for his misdemeanor cost. However much more vital than prosecuting offenders like Cawthorn is rousting him and his fellow gun fetishists from Congress. As a result of till we do, we’re going to proceed to see alarming information objects—like this one from February:
With a surge in weapons being found at airport checkpoints, some safety consultants are suggesting increased fines and even placing violators on a no-fly record to forestall firearms from getting on planes.
Airport screeners discovered 5,972 weapons at checkpoints final 12 months, simply breaking a report set in 2019 regardless of a drop in air journey, and 86% of these weapons have been loaded, in keeping with the Transportation Safety Administration.
Weapons seizures are rising as airways report report numbers of disruptive passengers on flights. Collectively, that “makes for a poisonous mixture,” Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman, D-N.J., stated Tuesday.
Since vacationers caught with weapons have a tendency to assert they “forgot” they’d loaded weapons tucked in with their tiny toiletries, TSA leaders proceed to level out how irresponsible that’s, from the Garden State—
“Claiming to overlook that you’ve got a gun with you is inexcusable,” Thomas Carter, TSA’s Federal Safety Director for New Jersey, stated in an announcement. “In the event you personal a gun it is advisable to know the place it’s always.”
“The regulation stopping the carrying of weapons onto planes has been in place for many years, so that is nothing new,” stated Robin “Chuck” Burke, TSA’s Federal Safety Director for the [Norfolk, Virginia] airport.
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“Forgetting that you’ve got a loaded handgun in your possession is a careless mistake to make, particularly when you’re headed to the airport for a flight,” stated Burke.
Sadly, Republicans usually tend to impeach President Joe Biden for attempting to sneak by way of airport safety in a tan go well with than cross wise gun-control legal guidelines, even when these legal guidelines can be important to sustaining airport safety.
Then once more, when was the final time Republicans got here out for something aside from chaos?
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