A gun influencer recently said he was “disappointed” in the silence among firearm owners amidst Hunter Biden‘s federal gun trial.
“I am disappointed in the shortsightedness of the 2A community in the Hunter Biden case. Remove political partisanship from the equation, you don’t have to like Hunter Biden. Hell I don’t obviously. But this is a chance to further prove the unconstitutionally of the 4473,” Eric Blandford, the Georgia State Director for the Gun Owners of America, wrote on X, formerly Twitter.
Hunter Biden, the son of President Joe Biden, is currently on trial in Wilmington, Delaware, for federal charges of illegally possessing a firearm after allegedly lying about his status as a drug user when buying a pistol in 2018. The trial began last week and is expected to continue in the coming days.
While Hunter Biden’s past drug use has been well-documented, he has pleaded not guilty to the gun charges, arguing that he completed a rehab program shortly before he purchased the weapon and checked off “no” on a federal form that asked whether he was an “unlawful user of or addicted to any controlled substance.”
Gun owners must complete the 4473 form, which the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives refers to as the Firearms Transaction Record, when purchasing a firearm from a licensed seller.
While speaking with the Associated Press, Jacob Charles, an associate professor at the Caruso School of Law at Pepperdine University, explained that one limitation of the 4473 form is the ability to verify whether someone is an unlawful drug user.
“It’s fairly rare for this line on the background check form to be prosecuted alone…It can be difficult to prove these kinds of cases because unless someone confesses or is under the influence at the time, there’s not always a lot of evidence,” Charles said.
Newsweek reached out to Hunter Biden’s lawyer, Abbe Lowell, via email for comment.
RYAN COLLERD/AFP via Getty Images/Getty Images
Blandford isn’t the only gun rights advocate to rally around Hunter Biden. CJ Grisham, the founder of Open Carry Texas, told the Wall Street Journal that “Hunter Biden is innocent.”
“I think Hunter Biden is a despicable person, and I definitely don’t believe in his politics, but the fact of the matter is he is charged with a bogus crime,” Grisham said.
In 2023, some firearm advocates responded positively to the indictment against Hunter Biden, as President Biden has been critical of guns throughout his time in office. Despite the support from Blandford, the senior vice president of Gun Owners of America offered a different view on the case.
“Gun Owners of America opposes all gun control, but so long as this President continues to use every tool at his disposal to harass and criminalize guns, gun owners and gun dealers, his son should be receiving the same treatment and scrutiny as all of us,” Erich Pratt said in a statement after Biden’s indictment in September 2023.
Billy McLaughlin, a spokesperson for the National Rifle Association (NRA), told Politico last year that “laws should be applied equally against all criminals” when asked about the indictment.
Newsweek reached out to the NRA via email for comment.
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Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
