Another Cawthorn Publicity Stunt

 

by Pa Rock

Citizen Journalist

Madison Cawthorn, a Republican congressman from North Carolina, knows better than to try and take a gun on board a passenger plane.   He has to know better because he was stopped at the Asheville Regional Airport in his home state last year when he tried to pass through a boarding checkpoint while carrying an unloaded pistol.   He was not cited in that incident, but just warned that it was not allowed.

But warnings aren't enough deterrent for some individuals - and he did get his name in the news!

Yesterday Congressman Cawthorn again tried to board a plane with a gun in his possession.  As Cawthorn was preparing to board a flight at the Charlotte Douglas International Airport in North Carolina, security personnel found a loaded 9mm handgun in his carry-on bag.  Cawthorn, who admitted that the gun was his, was charged with a misdemeanor and then released.  The charge was "possession of a dangerous weapon on city property."  The Charlotte-Mecklenberg Police Department  kept the congressman's gun.

Because this was his second offense, it would seem obvious that Congressman Cawthorn knew that it was illegal to take a gun into the city airport and try to board a plane with the gun in his personal possession, so the question arises as to why he attempted to board a plane while armed.  Was it due to a mental condition such as paranoia, or could it have been a cheesy campaign stunt to get his name in the news while reminding his voters that he is a champion of their Second Amendment rights?  

Whatever Cawthorn's actual motivation for his criminal activity, he will have a chance to explain himself when he goes to court.  The Class 2 misdemeanor can result in as much as sixty days in jail, though it is unlikely that a member of Congress would suffer such an indignity, at least not on a mere second offense.

It is also being reported that the congressman, as a result of the two airport incidents, has likely lost his expedited pre-check boarding status.  Now he will have to wait in line with us peons.

Madison Cawthorn does have a history of odd behavior with weapons.  Last year a county sheriff in North Carolina warned him regarding a fixed-blade dagger that he carried beneath his wheelchair when he attended a local school board meeting.   And recently while virtually attending a House Veteran's Affairs Committee meeting dealing with the harmful effects of burn pits, Cawthorn was observed by other meeting attendees to be cleaning his pistol.  One first responder who was a participant in the meeting said this about the congressman cleaning his gun during the meeting:

"It was immature.  He's a child.  He lacks common sense.  I think the congressman was overcompensating for something that he lacks and feeling inadequate among the heroes on that call."

Congressman Cawthorn has also recently made the news for claiming that he had been invited to GOP congressional sex and cocaine orgies, for referring to President Zelensky of Ukraine as a "thug," and for being pulled over for speeding and then found to be driving on a revoked license.  His brushes with controversy, in fact, are occurring so frequently that they are beginning to smell like publicity stunts.

Surely not!