It’s been a rough couple of weeks for European royalty when it comes to guns. Well, gun safety really. First, the 13-year old grandson of Spain’s King Juan Carlos shoots himself in the foot with a shotgun. Then the king himself is embroiled in controversy over the optics of his going elephant hunting in Botswana while Spain’s economy is in the toilet. Those, however, are but minor bumps in the road compared to what happened in Paris yesterday . . .
Pippa Middleton, sister of the future queen of England and known by ga-ga tabloid editors and commoners alike as Her Royal Hotness, was a passenger in a convertible that was being closely followed by – go figure – a papparazzo. Whoever was driving figured the best way to get rid of a guy with a camera was to waive a pistol around as a not-so-subtle warning to back the hell off. ‘Cause who’s gonna find out, right? Pippa evidently isn’t hanging around with Mensans.
Under Byzantine French law, even though she was only a passenger in the car, Pippa could be liable for criminal charges. Or so thesun.co.uk says.
The source confirmed that if the gun was REAL, brandishing it in a public place is punishable by up to seven years’ jail “for all parties involved”.
Even if it was FAKE the maximum jail term is two years. The source said: “Certainly if you were in a car and knew somebody was using a gun to warn people off you’d be liable to arrest.”
Somehow we think that the sister of the future queen will manage to skate on any potential legal entanglements.
A security source said: “Waving a weapon in public is not only illegal — it’s incredibly stupid.”
‘Nuff said.
Ah yes, European royalty. They live of off the people. Have no real job, serve no real purpose, yet can do no wrong. Not one person in that car will see the inside of a courthouse, let alone a jail cell. Now the question is; where the hell did this moron get a pistol? Firearms are exceedingly hard to acquire in Europe. Oh wait he is ROYALTY!
I have never figured out the British/European fascination with royals and royalty. I thought they threw off the shackles of monarchic oppression years ago in exchange for socialist oppression. These royals should have been stripped of their wealth and sent packing years ago. At least back in the day they had defend against coups and assaults on their castles. Now they not only still have their wealth, but they don’t even have to work to keep control of it.
Oh well, just one more European proclivity I will never understand.
“Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.”
That’s everything you need to know about European politics.
I’m with you on the double standard thing.
The royalty do earn their keep, though. The British Crown brings in a MASSIVE amount of money each year. Most of it comes from American tourists.
Royalty…prohibited under the U.S. Constitution, yet still coveted by many American politicians.
coveted by U.S. politicians? Try again…longed for by most U.S. citizens. Look at the collective fascination with Kennedys, Bushs, Clintons. The desire imbue power based on familial prestige alone is not so removed from the european’s fascination with the monarchy, if not more scary as our royalty has more power.
Remember the “tragic loss of America’s Crown Prince” (JFK, Jr.), when the idiot flew himself and two other people into the ocean – at night, in low visibility conditions, when he was NOT IFR qualified? Gravity – the one law that even the aristocracy must obey.
And have you noticed how the entire east coast antique media goes into a gushing, adulatory feeding frenzy whenever some European royal inbred whosis (especially English) comes to visit the US?
After reading Dicken’s “A Tale of Two Cities” (waaay back when) I tended to sympathize with the French aristocrats who encountered the guillotine during the French Revolution (1789-1792). Not any more – the French people had it right (back then). I would really like see our self-anointed aristocracy in this country introduced to some sophisticated European French nuance, courtesy of Dr. Guillotine (hey, you know who you are, Mr. and Ms. “I know what’s best for the peasants”).
Gee, does that make me one of Janet Nappie’s “extremists”? Or am I just a good member of the suffering peasantry, longing to remove the boot of the aristos from our necks?
The political and super-rich elites want to formally be royalty, and many of the sheeple masses of commoners romanticize having an elite extended special-class family group they can adore and physically watch to so worship and hope to join. People can be so weak and blind to forever needing authoritarian figures to look up to, follow, and obey.
+1
King Juan Carlos helped save Spain from a fascist coup attempt in ’81. Still, there is something unseemly about a free people consenting to be ruled legally (if not in fact) by a monarch.
Throughout the 90’s, every time someone from Europe would go off about “…how stupid you Americans are for allowing guns…” my first rejoinder would be to ask them “So why do you allow a bunch of spoiled, inbred morons to call themselves king and queen of you idiots? Don’t you think if you peasants owned guns you could have rid yourselves of these cousin-humping parasites by now?”
They never had a come-back to those questions. They’d just sit there, looking at me as tho I’d just proposed repealing the law of gravity or something.
I have a British friend who actually boasted that England has an actual “upper class” that is royalty and that the US upper class isn’t really an upper class.
Also he was born in South Africa.
Then you have a South African friend….
And he’s driving no less.
The stupid smirks on their faces should get them a year at least.
Driving and finger on trigger!!….. Yeesh….
I noticed that too. Keep your finger OFF the trigger!
Also his buddy laughing in back might have an extra hole to laugh out of should they hit a pot hole.
I guess he doesn’t know who Marvin is.
+10 DD, great reference.
Thats exactly what I was thinking.
+1000
Love it!!!!
Double facepalm…
Where can I get a set of shades like douche-bag in the back’s?
Sally Jesse Raphael
She is a babe.
Pippa’s other ass…
‘Her Royal Hotness’; yes I remember a photo of Pippa on the royal wedding day. Pippa was wearing a form fitting white dress and it accented her great hips and butt as she walked away from the camera. My jaw dropped looking at the photo. It was an expression of perfect DNA.
Pf, he could’ve shot someone on the street and still got away with it. And the peasants still would adore their rulers.
Waving a gun in public like a 13 year-old with a new cap-gun, finger on trigger, while driving a convertible paid for by mommy and daddy… All hail our so called betters.
On a side note, what are the odds this douche has ever even shot his ego toy?
Didn’t you read the part about it being a toy gun? Does it look real to you experts in the photo?
You guys are unbelievable with your double standards. You’d condemn this use of pointing a toy gun but justify that silly girl at the NRA convention who drew from her bra.
Only the bra was loaded, the gun wasn’t.
I didn’t read the part about it being a toy. I did read the part that said even if it was a toy it would be good for two years. Yet here you are trying to justify a gun law violation. What was that about a double standard?
You misunderstand, Bill. I’m the one who says pointing a toy gun at someone violates the 4 Rules of Gun Safety just like doing it with a real gun.
I think we can agree that pointing something gun-shaped toward someone is a recipe for trouble. If it isn’t real, you are performing a threatening action to no effect, and you can draw real, live fire. A real gun drawn in self defense, well, that’s something different. Far be it from me to deny a woman the ability to kill a rapist in order to prevent emotional scarring. Additionally, a vivacious lady who draws an unloaded weapon from her bra at an NRA expo is doing so for our amusement, as well as for demonstrative purposes for women who would consider bra carry a practical and covert means of protecting themselves. I can only see you having a problem with that, mikeb, if you have something against gorgeous women or their right to protect themselves from murder, rape, mugging, etc.
All that being said, if I have kids some day, they’re getting my dad’s Red Ryder toy rifle and they’re playing cowboys and indians in the back yard like every other red-blooded American child has for the past hundred years.
Still haven’t read anything about it being a toy gun.
I read it yesterday, but I saw a couple reports this morning.
It’s not that we didn’t try, yet 10 years of Oliver Cromwell, no dancing on a Sunday and probable descent into civil war anarchy (again) made us invite them back. I think you guys did better getting rid of royalty than the french, I wouldn’t wish 10 years of ‘Le Terreur’ on anyone. Oh, and the Middletons married into royalty. As a family they are from monied middle class stock.
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