“It’s not a crime to simultaneously invoke your First and Second Amendment rights by posing naked with a gun in your hand,” writes David Holthouse in the Denver weekly Westword. “But it’s a crime for a convicted felon to possess a firearm.” Katica Crippen, a.k.a. Dragon Lady, learned that lesson the hard way. While on parole for a drug-trafficking conviction, she posed nude while brandishing her Internet boyfriend’s guns for their live date photo shoot. What started out as innocent fun landed Crippen 18 extra months in the clink after the U.S. Attorney’s office found out about the incident. “When a good-looking lady says, ‘Take my pictures nude while I handle your guns,’ what are you gonna do, say no?” says the photographer and now-former boyfriend, who was also charged with a firearms violation for illegally providing Crippen with the guns. Dragon Lady was originally serving time for dealing speed to an undercover cop during her days with the Sons of Silence biker gang. The case has drawn national attention, with biker magazines and pro-gun Web sites encouraging readers to send her fan mail and the conservative Cato Institute calling her case an example of the over-enforcement of gun laws. Meanwhile, the cognoscenti of pin-up girl art everywhere are trying to get their hands on pictures of the gun-toting Dragon Lady.
–Nick Garafola
Go there>>
http://www.westword.com/issues/2003-02-13/feature.html/1/index.html
