Pity poor David Gregory of NBC News. His real crime is against intellectual honesty and integrity.

I agree with The Wall Street Journal this morning in their unsigned editorial (behind firewall, sorry), calling the notional indictment of the old-school media journo “nonsensical”. (For background on the issue, see here, and here.)

But allow me to expand on their thoughts…

The real authorities who should be after Gregory, if they existed, are the irony cops. Set aside the lost irony of an inside-the-beltway elitist self-righteously mocking Wayne LaPierre’s idea of sending armed guards to America’s schools while sending his kids to a school with…um, eleven armed guards. That sort of subtlety can easily be missed even by someone whose job it is to communicate and use the English language.

But imagine if Mr. LaPierre had been a little more astute last week when confronted with the illegal 30-round magazine Mr. Gregory was flaunting on national TV. I imagine his elevator wit has him saying something like this:

You know, David, I see you blatantly brandishing that 30-round magazine here in the District of Columbia and I know—as I’m sure you do yourself—that possession of such is a criminal offense. Now, I disagree with the law, so I’m surely not going to be a hypocrite and suggest you be hauled away to jail in the way you suggest others should be for having that. I at least do have the courage of my convictions…a courage I only wish you shared. However, your flagrant violation of the law offers all your viewers two very telling lessons: First, that when elites like yourself speak on your high horses about denying others their rights, it rarely ever affects you. After all, that magazine is illegal in DC, but possessing it would serve your purpose, so you seem to have come across one yourself, haven’t you? Secondly, just look at how useless such laws are anyway. I’m not going to try to goad you into revealing your source, David. But I imagine you didn’t just walk into the CVS and pick that up, did you? Seems someone along the line must have disregarded and broken the law, doesn’t it?

Perhaps if those who deem themselves the arbiters of the “dialog” we’re supposed to be having about gun violence in America today were in any way interested in actually having a “dialog”, we could get somewhere.

-Nick (ColoradoPatriot, from HHQ)