Hunter Biden Gun Charges Guilty Verdict

Submission 857

Part of a series on Hunter Biden. [View Related Entries]

Overview

Hunter Biden Gun Charges Guilty Verdict refers to Hunter Biden's convictions on three counts related to an illegal gun possession charge, nearly nine months after he was first indicted for lying about his drug use on a firearm application form in September 2023. Biden was convicted in mid-June 2024, with memes and jokes about his guilty verdict being shared online soon after.

Background

On September 14th, 2023, Hunter Biden (son of President Joe Biden) was indicted in Delaware on three federal firearm charges. He was accused of making false statements about drug use on a firearm application form and accused of illegally possessing a firearm for 11 days in October 2018.

On June 3rd, 2024, Biden was put on trial for the aforementioned charges, with a woman named Zoe Kestan testifying that she met Hunter Biden at a strip club in midtown Manhattan where he played a Fleet Foxes song off his phone while she gave him a lap dance. Kestan said under oath, "I felt really safe around him."^[1]

On June 11th, 2024, Hunter Biden was found guilty on three felony charges for federal gun violations, making him the first child of a sitting U.S. president to be convicted in a criminal trial.^[2]

Online Reactions

As the story garnered significant press coverage in June 2024, some X / Twitter users shared misinformation about Hunter Biden's trial, including a video in which a naked man can be seen running through a hotel lobby to grab a woman. X users like @GenXNewsOnX^[3] and @ValVenisEnt^[4] reposted the video on June 9th and June 8th, 2024, however, a Community Note corrected the post to show that the video has no connection to Biden, and instead originates from an unrelated Instagram page.^[5]

Redditor /u/TheGreatestOrator posted about Biden's conviction to the /r/news subreddit on July 11th, gathering over 38,000 upvotes in a day.

Various internet users also shared jokes or memes about Biden's guilty verdict on June 11th, 2024, including X^[6] user @SirajAHashmi, who gathered over 33,000 likes on a post that showed Jesus cradling Biden and saying, "Its okay, they called me guilty too" (seen below, left).

Also on June 11th, X^[7] user @Nomads4Pritzker posted a meme in which Tony Soprano calls Hunter Biden a hero, gathering over 25,000 likes in a day (seen below, right).

Later on June 11th, 2024, ironic walkout posters in protest of Hunter Biden's verdict were shared online, as seen in posts by X users @lizmaebrooks^[8] and @CraigAdams42069,^[9] both of which gathered over 13,000 and 19,000 likes, respectively, in less than a day (seen below).