Of the seventeen pardons recently granted by President Obama for various crimes, one was to a person convicted of illegal possession of an unregistered firearm. So much for gun laws.
Bill Betz
Mesa
Letter: Considering gun debate, is Obama pardon hypocritical?
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Posted: Tuesday, March 5, 2013 6:09 pm
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Posted in Letters to the editor, Opinion on Tuesday, March 5, 2013 6:09 pm. | Tags:
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sockratties posted at 7:26 am on Wed, Mar 6, 2013.
In addition to the possession of an unregistered firearm, pardons were issued for concealing information, suppressing competition, aiding wire fraud, theft, distribution of satellite decryption devices, forgery, counterfeiting, transporting of altered securities, immigration fraud, drugs, filing false claims, unauthorized food stamps, and bank fraud.
Cherry picking the firearms rap is just an attempt to demean the president. Since Obama pardoned a turkey last year he must be undermining Thanksgiving Holidays, too!
valleynative posted at 8:28 am on Wed, Mar 6, 2013.
sockratties, you misunderstand the concept of "cherry picking". In this case, it doesn't matter how many other pardons were issued for what offenses, because nobody is using this case to generalize about "the sort of cases Obama pardons".
What matters is that this particular pardon, taken in any context, seems to suggest that Obama understands that gun registration laws are, regardless of what you see on TV dramas, largely useless burdens imposed upon honest citizens.
sockratties posted at 8:46 am on Wed, Mar 6, 2013.
VN.. my point exactly. If Bill had chosen drugs he could have implied that Obama was not serious about drug laws, or fraud, or bank fraud, ad nauseam. The fact is that he cherry picked firearms out of a selection rather than pardons in general. Incidentally, people such as governors partition for the pardons and there are hundreds the pres could have picked from. We don’t know why these were chosen.
Bluepoet posted at 8:49 am on Wed, Mar 6, 2013.
All this tells me is that, it's a slow news week, when this non-story comes out. And, I thought what the Cons called "lame stream" media, were propagandizing in favor of Obama? What happened? Did he pardon someone's pet peeve?
Presidential pardons are pretty much a tradition, for whatever reason. Some are more controversial than others (like pardoning Nixon). This isn't controversial at all, but someone is trying to make it so...
Hypocritical? Not, more like Hyper-critical...
Bluepoet posted at 8:53 am on Wed, Mar 6, 2013.
And, as is the case more and more often, no one is really doing any follow up, to find out exactly why anyone was pardoned...Who, what, why, when, where, and how are the basic building blocks to writing a news story. Nowadays, it's who, what, when, and where, and not even in a concise order.
valleynative posted at 9:16 am on Wed, Mar 6, 2013.
sockratties, yes, any of those other points would have been equally valid.
So your complaint is that the writer chose only one questionable pardon to mention?
DonMey posted at 10:40 am on Wed, Mar 6, 2013.
Pardons require lots of political connections. Did the guy earn the recommendation because he turned his life around with a great story for the press? Because he had powerful friends? None of the above?
Without details, I can't really form an opinion. And I don't care enough to get them.
downtownresident posted at 10:52 am on Wed, Mar 6, 2013.
Bill,
That's really a reach. Can't you find anything worse than that to hang on the poor sap.
Bill, Obama did not enact the "gun laws". Congress did that. Why are you blaming the president.
You forgot drunk driving, wife beating, drug dealing, the list could go on and on. You've got so much more to work with. Don't forget the Holocaust.[beam]
valleynative posted at 1:52 pm on Wed, Mar 6, 2013.
downtownresident: Congress hasn't enacted any new gun laws. Obama has been campaigning hard for them to do so. The charge of hypocrisy seems justified, although we don't really know the details of this particular case.
VofReason posted at 2:20 pm on Wed, Mar 6, 2013.
President Obama a hypocrit, say it isn't so. I think Bluepoet is right, it must be a slow news week. Which is really kinda strange, since we heard a few weeks back that if the Federal Government lost one dollar of its (over)spending, that the all of our lives would change and the world may just come to a complete end. Hmmm, guess not. I wonder what else the administration has told us that is also not true?
sockratties posted at 4:25 pm on Wed, Mar 6, 2013.
VN... my observation is that Bill tried to make an issue out of a non-issue.