Collins: Republicans’ zeal against Biden’s son a double-standard

While they’re attacking Hunter Biden’s gun possession, they’re working to relax similar gun measures.

By Gail Collins / The New York Times

Boy, Republicans can’t get enough of Hunter Biden and his drug-gun thing, right?

Well, it is a pretty juicy story. The son of the president, with a long history of substance abuse, is being prosecuted for denying he was using drugs when he bought a revolver.

But don’t you think the focus is kind of … narrow? Endless talk about how Hunter lied. Not much comment at all on the fact that just being asked whether you’re on drugs is a pretty modest approach to firearm safety.

All state laws are different. Delaware, where Hunter got his revolver, recently made some big changes. It will require anyone who buys a gun to first complete a firearm safety training program.

Don’t imagine Hunter would have made it through that one in his addict era. Yet many, many of the people doing the loudest howling about the president’s son are connected with the people who have challenged the reform law in court, arguing that it’s a violation of their civil rights.

As Jonathan Weisman pointed out in The New York Times, it’s “hard to make much of allegations that Hunter Biden lied about his drug use to purchase a handgun when your party is sponsoring legislation to ease gun-purchasing restrictions for veterans struggling with mental illness, not to mention the case before the Supreme Court that could allow domestic abusers to buy firearms.”

Just saying.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

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