I figured 2 years probation max. Prison is just stupid. I guess he is a hardened criminal that needs to be rehabilitated

Here’s the reason for the disparity of the sentences:

“One man with a gun can control 100 without one. ”

Vladimir Lenin quote

Obama wants to punish gun ownership.

I don’t see how Chris Brown gets 5yrs probation when Burress gets 2yrs in prison for shooting himself. If that doesn’t show how messed up our judicial system is, then i don’t know what does.

Psst,

Hey Lie-in-Court..

How do you square the Supremacy Clause of the US Constitution and the Second Amendment, with New York “law” that is repugnant to same?

The question, whether an act, repugnant to the constitution, can become the law of the land, is a question deeply interesting to the United States; but, happily, not of an intricacy proportioned to its interest. It seems only necessary to recognise certain principles, supposed to have been long and well established, to decide it….

The powers of the legislature are defined and limited; and that those limits may not be mistaken or forgotten, the constitution is written. To what purpose are powers limited, and to what purpose is that limitation committed to writing; if these limits may, at any time, be passed by those intended to be restrained? The distinction between a government with limited and unlimited powers is abolished, if those limits do not confine the persons on whom they are imposed, and if acts pro- [5 U.S. 137, 177] hibited and acts allowed are of equal obligation. It is a proposition too plain to be contested, that the constitution controls any legislative act repugnant to it; or, that the legislature may alter the constitution by an ordinary act.

Between these alternatives there is no middle ground. The constitution is either a superior, paramount law, unchangeable by ordinary means, or it is on a level with ordinary legislative acts, and like other acts, is alterable when the legislature shall please to alter it.

If the former part of the alternative be true, then a legislative act contrary to the constitution is not law: if the latter part be true, then written constitutions are absurd attempts, on the part of the people, to limit a power in its own nature illimitable.
…
If an act of the legislature, repugnant to the constitution, is void, does it, notwithstanding its invalidity, bind the courts and oblige them to give it effect? Or, in other words, though it be not law, does it constitute a rule as operative as if it was a law? This would be to overthrow in fact what was established in theory; and would seem, at first view, an absurdity too gross to be insisted on. Those then who controvert the principle that the constitution is to be considered, in court, as a paramount law, are reduced to the necessity of maintaining that courts must close their eyes on the constitution, and see only the law.

This doctrine would subvert the very foundation of all written constitutions. It would declare that an act, which, according to the principles and theory of our government, is entirely void, is yet, in practice, completely obligatory. It would declare, that if the legislature shall do what is expressly forbidden, such act, notwithstanding the express prohibition, is in reality effectual. It would be giving to the legislature a practical and real omnipotence with the same breath which professes to restrict their powers within narrow limits. It is prescribing limits, and declaring that those limits may be passed at pleasure.

…

Thus, the particular phraseology of the constitution of the United States confirms and strengthens the principle, supposed to be essential to all written constitutions, that a law repugnant to the constitution is void, and that courts, as well as other departments, are bound by that instrument.

That it thus reduces to nothing what we have deemed the greatest improvement on political institutions-a written constitution, would of itself be sufficient, in America where written constitutions have been viewed with so much reverence, for rejecting the construction.
…

MARBURY v. MADISON

Burress did an extremely stupid thing by defying the law (which is IMO un-Constitutional) and carrying his firearm where it was prohibited by that law. His second act of stupidity was actually putting his finger anywhere near the trigger when he had no reason to. Shooting himself should be punishment enough for the second act. The first does require some form of punishment, but 2 years in prison seems a bit over the top, unless as was pointed out he’s being made a poster child by NYC and Bloomberg. It is telling that Chris Brown gets 5 months probation for criminal assault and actually hurting another person where Burress gets this for hurting no one but himself. We do seem to get a lot of this stuff ass-backward don’t we?

I don’t see how this has anything to do with skin color but rather the stupidity of our laws surrounding gun ownership.