There is so much concern for the tender sensitivities of a former drug addict from Delaware. It’s incredibly touching how the media, and Biden supporters, are rallying around a man who has come close to destroying his family, as so many addicts have in the past.

All my life, I have been told that “addiction is a disease” and that we cannot attack the people who are afflicted with it. I have lost friends who think that my draconian stance on drugs and the people who do them is far less than Christian and that I am lucky I don’t have firsthand experience with the horrors of substance use. And that’s OK because I refuse to be guilted into looking at someone like Hunter Biden and give him a pass for criminal behavior simply because he committed it while under the influence.

When someone embraces a chemical regardless of the consequences, it’s not enough to say that they need “help.” Sure, they need help, and in this society there are numerous ways to obtain it. But that does not mean that the privileged son of the current president gets to avoid the consequences of his actions.

There is that first step, that first cognizant act of taking something that does not belong in our system. And while the opioid epidemic taught us that addicts can be created out of innocent victims of pain, the vast majority of those who become addicted do so because they want to escape, want to numb, or accentuate, or obfuscate, or travel in a chemical dimension of ecstasy. That also goes for alcoholics, who have a slightly more conventional doorway to addiction: drink at parties, drink at home, then drink alone.

So what do we do when these people commit crimes, and put others in danger? It’s one thing to find within ourselves a well of empathy and try and put ourselves in their places. It’s fine to hope that people who have fallen into the depths of addiction will be able to claw their way out.

But when someone lies on a form to buy a gun, we don’t get to smile mournfully and nod our heads as we hear about his “struggle.” We shouldn’t excuse his act, which brings him so close — a bullet away — from shattering someone’s life because he “didn’t think” he was an addict. He does not deserve the benefit of the doubt when he clearly committed a felony, simply because President Joe and mom Jill love him. And we certainly shouldn’t give him a pass because that dad and mom live in the White House, and he isn’t like one of those normal “addicts” who wander aimlessly on the streets.

That’s probably the thing that infuriates me most about the way that the media and Biden supporters have framed the case against Hunter Biden. Whether it amounts to actual nullification, where the weak-souled sisters and brothers on the Delaware jury don’t want to believe that Hunter considered himself to be an addict when he applied for the gun and therefore had no “mens rea” to commit the crime, or whether it’s simply this ridiculous groundswell of misdirected kindness for a man who made a mockery of his life and family, we should not avoid holding Hunter responsible for his crimes.

And no, the crimes were not the fact that he was an addict, and might still be one. The crimes are not that he is the pampered fair-haired boy of the current president. The crimes are not that he’s a Democrat, a mediocre businessman with a penchant for dropping daddy’s name, a deadbeat dad with absolutely no redeeming qualities, or a man who slept with his brother’s widow.

The crime is simple, and I’m sure those who support gun control can agree: Hunter Biden tried to get a gun in violation of laws that protect the public against people like him. If any of the folks who think the Second Amendment is fake or fungible, and who want to ban assault rifles and do all sorts of things to keep guns out of people’s hands have the audacity to excuse what Hunter did, we should point fingers at those rank hypocrites.

And speaking of hypocrites, let’s go after lawyers who were gleefully rejoicing over a document fraud misdemeanor case against former President Trump but who now sniff that Hunter’s felonies are no big deal. In the end, Hunter Biden is not important. It would be a blessing if he would simply fade into the ether of a warm Delaware evening, and trouble us no more with his soap opera of a pathetic life. But he lied to get a gun. He’s what CNN is so delighted to call Trump: a convicted felon.

Copyright 2024 Christine Flowers, distributed exclusively by Cagle Cartoons newspaper syndicate. Flowers is an attorney and a columnist for the Delaware County Daily Times, and can be reached at cflowers1961@gmail.com.