Man convicted in 'Biden defense' gun case

Vice President Joe Biden’s gun-handling advice apparently doesn’t carry much weight in Washington state courtrooms.

A man was convicted in the state’s Clark County on Tuesday for following Biden’s advice, offered after the Newtown massacre, to fire shotgun blasts in the air — in this case, to ward off carjackers.


Biden made the comments after the December 2012 massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School that left 28 dead, when he and other Democrats called for the federal ban on semiautomatic weapons to be reinstated.

“If you want to protect yourself, get a double-barrel shotgun,” Biden said during a question-and-answer video on whitehouse.gov, in which he tried to discourage a mother from buying an AR-15 semiautomatic assault rifle.

The vice president said he told his wife the same thing: “I said, ‘Jill, if there’s ever a problem, just walk out on the balcony here, put that double-barrel shotgun and fire two blasts outside the house.’” (Biden lives in the official vice presidential residence on the grounds of the U.S. Naval Observatory in Washington, D.C., which is guarded by the Secret Service.)

“I promise you whoever’s coming in is not gonna,” Biden said, adding later that he had two shotguns at home and wouldn’t dream of giving them up.

Jeffrey Barton, a 53-year-old from Clark County, Washington, did exactly that when he caught intruders in his vehicle at 3 a.m. in July of last year. He walked over, punched one of them in the face and fired three shots in the air to scare them.

Later, Barton told reporters, “I did what Joe Biden told me to do. I went outside and fired my shotgun in the air.”

Barton was originally charged with a misdemeanor for illegally discharging a firearm, but in August prosecutors dismissed that charge and instead leveled one of obstructing a police officer.

Allegedly, when police officers arrived at the scene, Barton did not cooperate with officers’ commands.

Barton’s attorney told local media that his client was cooperative but incensed because the officers told everyone to show their hands, which was “not a polite greeting.”

In response to the conviction, Barton told a local paper that he would be leaving Clark County. “That’s what you get for exercising my Second Amendment rights and protecting my family.”

Barton will be sentenced later this month. The maximum punishment he could receive is a $5,000 fine, as well as up to a year in jail.