NEW YORK TIMES: “Webb defends gun-toting posse.”

I expect these charges to be dropped, as it appears they probably should be. But Webb should really get behind the kind of sensible gun law reforms that will protect all Americans’ enjoyment of the Second Amendment freedoms he so values.

UPDATE: At RedState, a suggestion that Webb should be doing more defending.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Quite a few readers are unhappy with me for saying the charges should probably be droppped. Jeffrey Hexel is typical:

I’m curious as to the legal reasoning behind your opinion that the charges against Senator Webb’s assistant “probably should be” dropped. The facts seem pretty clear cut, and they seem to the point to the fact that he broke the law. Regardless of the gun’s registration in Virginia, he was still committing a crime by bringing it to DC and committing an additional crime by carrying it in a concealed manner.

I agree that the DC handgun ban is a bad law, and I’m hoping that when it reaches the Supreme Court it will be overturned, but unless I’m missing something this is an open and shut case. Jim Webb’s advocacy of 2nd Amendment rights does not change the fact that his aide committed a crime. Or at least it shouldn’t.

I agree that he seems to have broken the law. But it’s within a prosecutor’s discretion not to prosecute, and cases of inadvertence like this are often dropped — and should be. (It’s not clear that Thompson even knew the gun was in the bag.) Reader Larry Boykin thinks I’m an elitist (“So, it’s alright to have one set of laws for the common man and another set of laws for the ‘elite’? That’s what you are advocating if you believe that charges should be dropped. “) but I think that charges should be dropped for anyone in these circumstances. Would they be? Well, I don’t know. I know of some similar cases where ordinary people weren’t charged — but it’s true that they weren’t at the U.S. Capitol. If charges are dropped here under public scrutiny, of course, that’ll be an argument for treating ordinary people in similar circumstances similarly in the future.