Million Mom March activist caught with illegal handgun

According to the Florida Times-Union editorial staff:

It was the ultimate paradox last week when a gun-control activist was arrested for possession of an illegal firearm.

After her son was shot dead nearly three years ago, according to the State Journal-Register of Springfield, Ill., Annette Stevens became active in the anti-gun Million Mom March's Springfield chapter.

There has been a series of drive-by shootings in Stevens' neighborhood lately, the newspaper reports -- and police, acting on information that she had close connections with one of the feuding groups believed responsible -- obtained a warrant to search her house. Inside, they found a handgun with its serial number scratched off..

"Good enough for me, but not for thee", eh liberals? She did offer up an explanation, though...

Stevens says the gun belonged to her dead son -- and, once she found it, she never got around to disposing of it.

But if guns are as dangerous in the hands of others as her organization believes, it seems odd that she was so indifferent about having one in her own house.

A more rational explanation, assuming her innocence, would be that Stevens -- with her son in his grave and bullets flying in her neighborhood -- simply wanted a fighting chance to protect herself, in case there was a problem and the police couldn't get there in time.

If that were the case, a lot of people would understand and sympathize with her.

Reality sometimes is incompatible with idealism.

I'm sorry to hear about her son. As a parent, I can envision no greater tragic loss. However, emotional suffering does not good public policy make. The Founding Fathers did not make the Bill of Rights to pertain to individual rights, but exclude the Second Amendment in order to reserve some group rights. And they damned sure didn't say that we had the right to keep and bear arms "unless we lose a kid to gun violence."