Arenas, Vick and The Law

(Note: As promised on Twitter Wednesday afternoon, I am blogging following a very successful blackjack session in Las Vegas!  What?  A little table time after my CES work is complete is allowed!)

It is not unprecedented in any way for a star athlete to face off-the-court troubles.  And it’s not so shocking if those troubles involve the legal system.

As I’m sure you are aware of, Washington Wizards superstar Gilbert Arenas has been suspended indefinitely by NBA Commissioner David Stern following a horrible choice and even worse follow-up decisions.

The story linked above has a good run-down of the timeline, so I won’t go into details on everything, but here’s the

via: http://www.flickr.com/photos/notionscapital

main points:

Arenas lives in Virginia.  Following the recent birth of a child, he brought his guns to the Verizon Center.  The Verizon Center is in Washington, DC.  That makes the guns unregistered.  Bad decision.

Teammate Jarvaris Crittendon asked Gilbert to pay him money won in a gambling circumstance.  Gilbert left four guns in his teammate’s locker – as a joke.  Even worse decision.

Before Tuesday night’s game in Philadelphia, Gilbert pretended to shoot his teammates in a pregame huddle.

Wednesday morning, he is suspended without pay – with no end date.  That’s a cool $140,000+ per each game missed.

Gilbert has said that he didn’t think he did anything wrong.

I am NOT about to debate the 2nd Amendment.  Not happening in this forum.  However, Gilbert’s response was eerily similar to the chorus of defenders who said they didn’t find dogkilling all that offensive.

To me, it boils down to a very simple fact: in our democratic government, elected officials pass laws for their jurisdiction that all citizens must abide by, or face penalties.  If you don’t like said laws, you can petition to have them repealed, or just simply work to replace the official at the next election.

Not agreeing with the law is no defense when you break it.

So what happens next?  With the possibility of jail looming, his career on hold and his image in tatters, what’s going to happen with Gilbert Arenas?  If you were giving him advice, what would you say?