What if you throw a water balloon at a friend, and accidentally hit a politician who happens to be passing by? Life in prison?
Its a clog-remover. Some serious chemical power and catalysts in it. Not recommended for contact with skin, let alone ingestion even in small amounts.
Actually, it’s a long held tenet of common law that violations against officers of the law (even if they be politicos) are more heinous than the same violation of an ordinary citizen. Society has a stake in making it much more painful to attack people in authority, otherwise, those in authority would be discouraged from holding office or positions of authority. It could even lead to undue influence through threats of violence (even childish threats), aka, blackmail.
No one thinks that a harsher penalty for killing a cop is outrageous to an American’s sense of equality under the law. Thus, it really shouldn’t be outrageous to see a silly attack against a high ranking public official be treated severely.
Peace.
This could have easily been a GQ.
Back in the middle '90s, someone pointed a fake gun at Prince Charles. The “gunman” claimed to be “making a statement” or some jazz like that, and got life in prison.
What struck me about this (pre-9/11, at that) was the apparent ease with which the guy got into the event with a weapon, even a fake one, and the lack of speed with which Charles’ bodyguards reacted. If it had been a real gun, Wills and Harry would now be orphans. I also remember that at the time, I was working with an expatriate Brit, who said wistfully, “Too bad he didn’t try that with John Major…”
Have you got a cite for that?
What was the charge?
I remember someone got into the Queen’s bedroom, and that somebody else tried to kidnap Princess Anne.
I don’t remember any of these people getting our strongest legal punishment.
Err…I’ll get back to you on that. When I was composing my post, I meant to say, “UK Dopers, I may be remembering this wrongly…” but somehow I left that out.
The incident did happen, though, regardless of what the sentencing was; I’m sure of that. And no, I’m not conflating this with the time ol’ Chuck got hit with flowers!
Thanks, Desmo! Okay, so it wasn’t life…