Those starkly unequal outcomes reinforce the impression that Biden got a

 Those starkly unequal outcomes reinforce the impression that Biden got a 

"sweetheart deal" because he is the president's son. But they also illustrate the wildly uneven application of this rarely enforced statute. Although the potential defendants include millions of gun-owning drug users, violators are almost never caught. And if they are unlucky enough to be prosecuted, their punishment can range from a slap on the wrist to years behind bars.

Whether or not Biden benefited from his father's position when the Justice Department initially agreed to forgo prosecution on the firearm charge, he now faces a potential prison sentence because of a law his father views as a commonsensical restriction on gun ownership. Although Joe Biden says marijuana use should not be treated as a crime, his administration insists that marijuana users are so dangerous that they cannot be trusted with guns. And last year, the president signed a bill that increased the maximum penalty for his son's crime while adding yet another potential felony charge for people who do what he did.

If the government pursues the gun charge against Hunter Biden, his lawyers reportedly told the Justice Department before his plea deal was announced, they will challenge the prosecution on Second Amendment grounds. That development would create an instructive clash between father and son, underlining the irrationality and injustice of a policy that the president stubbornly defends.