Last month, D.C. attorney general Irvin Nathan announced that he would not be prosecuting David Gregory for displaying an empty ammunition magazine on his national TV show Meet the Press—even though NBC knew ahead of time that this action would violate D.C. law. In a letter to NBC, Nathan admonished Gregory for knowingly flouting the law, but said he decided to exercise “prosecutorial discretion” and not pursue a criminal case. “Prosecution would not promote public safety in the District of Columbia, nor serve the best interests of the people,” Nathan wrote.

In the Washington Post story about this episode, I was quoted as calling Nathan’s decision “a wise use of prosecutorial discretion” but that the episode “illustrates the absurdity of some of these gun laws.”  My position apparently paralleled that of the NRA—even though Gregory had waved the illegal magazine in front of the group’s executive VP, Wayne LaPierre—but “thousands of gun advocates” signed a White House petition calling for Gregory’s arrest because he ought to be treated the same as anyone else.

Indeed, a friend soon pointed out to me that D.C. authorities were not treating people equally: Last summer, Army Specialist Adam Meckler, a veteran of the Afghanistan and Iraq wars, was arrested and jailed for having a few long-forgotten rounds of ordinary ammunition—but no gun—in his backpack in Washington. Meckler violated the same section of D.C. law as Gregory did, and both offenses carry the same maximum penalty of a $1,000 fine and a year in jail.  [H/t: Jason Epstein]

Well, that’s disgusting, and D.C. authorities ought to be ashamed of themselves. But the correct response isn’t to waste taxpayer dollars on prosecuting David Gregory, but rather to not prosecute the Adam Mecklers of the world. 

Now, I’ve never been a prosecutor or even practiced criminal law, so it could well be that it’s outside the ethical bounds of discretion not to charge someone who so brazenly flaunts the law as Gregory and the NBC producers did. But if incidents like these doesn’t make people realize that it’s lunacy to criminalize, as a strict liability offense, no less (meaning that your knowledge or mental state is irrelevant), the mere possession of magazines, bullets, and other gun-related accoutrements (without even getting to an “assault weapon” ban, etc.), then nothing will. A magazine is a metal box with springs, of which there are hundreds of millions in the country.  A bullet is a piece of metal that, in the absence of a gun, is less deadly than a rubber band. It’s people who insist on demonizing such objects that lend creedence to those on the other side who believe that any gun regulation is a step toward confiscation and tyranny.

Let me be even clearer: Criminalizing the possession of a magazine or bullet is as extreme as legalizing the private ownership of nuclear missiles. The idea that celebrities should be treated no differently than anyone else is an important one to draw from the David Gregory incident.  But it’s even more important, at least in the context of our ongoing discussion over gun policy, to understand that putting stupid laws on the books doesn’t make us any safer and indeed draws resources away from actions (like investigating, prosecuting, and preventing violent crime) that do.