Britney Griner Released In Prisoner Swap

[CJD]

(12-14-2022, 11:02 AM)HarleyDog Wrote: But you don't think its odd, ironic, senseless, contradicting or stupid Biden and the left would exchange a basketball player who disobeyed the laws of a foreign nation and got arrested for the merchant of death, a convicted terrorist? I thought the left was all about gun control? So, we shouldn't hear anything more regarding school shootings and other misuse of firearms from the left going forward. Or at least I would think so because if they did, who could possibly take them serious?

I think releasing a prisoner was a requirement of the trade. The left knows what he did is wrong (illegally sold arms), he was arrested and convicted and then, due to circumstances, was used in a prisoner exchange despite being a criminal. He is a criminal, literally, because of the concept of gun control.

There is no contradiction in this line of thinking.

The right, on the other hand, is opposed to many forms of gun control. After any given school shooting, they say you shouldn't blame the person who sold the guns or neglected to do a background check because it is not their responsibility to know or care what the gun is used for. It's the person who bought the gun who is responsible for their actions. The very idea that we should restrict who is and is not allowed to own a gun based on their behaviors/past/intentions is something that literally drives millions of right wingers to the polls every 2 years. 

...and yet, we are getting this performative outrage about an arms dealer being the equivalent to a mass murderer now, seemingly for the first time ever from the Right?

There's definitely a contradiction in this line of thinking.

Like I said to Brad, I think the right would have found a way to be angry regardless of who we used in this exchange. If it was a spy, a murderer, an arms dealer, a bomb maker, whatever. We would have gotten the same performative outrage.

We weren't going to be able to trade a Russian girl scout for her. We had to give up someone who committed a crime. That's the way hostage/prisoner exchanges work.

At the very least, this is an arms dealer who has been out of commission for 14 years. In a business that is all about connections and an understanding of how to keep deals under wraps/undetected/away from the authorities, being locked away for nearly a decade and a half likely means he's long since been replaced in those circles and/or he is no longer familiar with the technologies and tactics used today. Not to mention, we know what he looks like, how he operates, who he knows and who he is indebted to. I think there's a fairly good chance he is not able to restart his operations or will be a fairly low level offender for the remainder of his life. And you know he'll be on every watch list on the planet.