A 66-year-old Washington state man is staring down up to a year in federal prison and a $500,000 fine for shooting a bald eagle on his own rural property — while killers in Memphis, Baltimore, and the nation's capital walk the streets or face charges that barely register the full weight of the law.

Benjamin G. Allen of Brush Prairie was charged Tuesday with violating the Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act and unlawfully killing a migratory bird, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Western District of Washington. Allen kept chickens not far from where the dead eagle was found with two shotgun pellets in its brain, KABC-TV reported. A witness heard a gunshot on Feb. 5 and called it in. Federal agents descended on the property, interviewed Allen, and the U.S. Attorney's Office filed charges. Allen has been summoned to appear in federal court in September.

The message from the federal government is clear: shoot a bird, and the full apparatus of the state lands on your doorstep. Shoot a man, and you're lucky if anyone shows up at all.

In Memphis, 21-year-old Ashton Williams was arrested after shooting and killing his HVAC coworker Larry Swindle during a dispute over tools at a job site, WIS10 reported. Williams claims self-defense — saying Swindle punched him, put him in a chokehold, and threatened him. He's been charged with voluntary manslaughter, not murder. A man is dead over a tool argument, and the system calls it manslaughter.

In Parkville, Maryland, Baltimore County Police arrested 36-year-old Roderick Gardner Jr. on first-degree murder charges for a July 21 shooting that left one person dead, Baltimore News reported. Gardner is being held without bond — at least someone is off the street.

And in Northwest D.C., a man was shot dead and another wounded Tuesday night on 9th Street, according to WJLA. Police have no suspect description. Another dead American, another case where the feds are nowhere to be found.

Bald eagles haven't been endangered for years, but the 1940 Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act still gives federal prosecutors the power to hit a citizen with a half-million-dollar fine for a misdemeanor. The same Justice Department that couldn't be bothered to aggressively prosecute Antifa arsonists who torched federal buildings or BLM rioters who devastated American cities in 2020 can mobilize instantly when a rural property owner shoots a bird that may have been threatening his livestock.

The Texas man Santos Guerrero pleaded guilty in May to shooting a bald eagle on his property near Houston and faces up to a year and a $100,000 fine. Travis John Branson of Cusick, Washington, got nearly four years and a $777,250 fine for a years-long killing spree of eagles and hawks on the Flathead Indian Reservation — selling parts on the black market. That's a commercial operation, and the prosecution makes sense. Allen's case is a 66-year-old man with chickens.

The founders didn't draft the Constitution to protect birds from property owners. They drafted it to protect citizens from a government that picks and chooses whose rights matter. When the feds can drop $500,000 in fines on a man for shooting a bird on his own land while Americans are gunned down in their neighborhoods and workplaces, the priority gap tells you everything about who the system actually serves.