Hunter Biden and an American Gilbert and Sullivan Scenario
In her latest exclusive column for the Byline Supplement, Bonnie Greer examines the operatic ironies of the Hunter Biden trial
Imagine that Gilbert and Sullivan were still alive today and decided to write an opera about the Second Amendment to the Constitution of the United States.
The curtain would rise on a young woman dressed as the Statue of Liberty. She would begin by singing the text of the amendment in a high soprano voice:“A well regulated Militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms shall not be infringed.”
“The right of the people shall not be infringed!” A gathering chorus proclaims.
That chorus would be made up of Americans of all hues and professions, brandishing their various firearms and would include the ghost of my own dear father, who slept with a gun beneath his pillow.
We are swiftly into the next scene.
It is in a court room and this is a high-profile trial. The defendant’s side looks like money. A hush descends and the judge rules that the young male defendant seated before him is guilty of owning a gun while being a drug user. He is also guilty, the judge rules, of lying about his drug use on a purchase form.
The young man declares in a soaring, but tremulous tenor voice, that it is unconstitutional for drug users to be banned from possessing guns. Why? It is his Second Amendment right to have a gun!
In a counter scene at the same time on the same stage: a very distinguished, grey-haired gentleman – a light baritone – is making a speech at a very high-profile event to mark something to do with National Gun Prevention Month.
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