{"id":102322,"date":"2024-06-06T12:40:45","date_gmt":"2024-06-06T17:40:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/?p=102322"},"modified":"2024-06-06T12:40:45","modified_gmt":"2024-06-06T17:40:45","slug":"102322","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/?p=102322","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"

Why It’s Never Just About the Second Amendment<\/a><\/p>\n

The Second Amendment is part of the Bill of Rights, the first ten amendments to the Constitution. They were ratified when the ink was only just dried, in part because the Founding Fathers recognized that absent certain protections, some rights would be tempting to infringe upon.<\/p>\n

The First Amendment protects pretty much every form of speech and keeps the government from having a state religion, which would arguably be another way to control speech.<\/p>\n

The Second Amendment is the insurance policy that makes sure we can protect all the other rights from a tyrannical government. After all, a document isn’t going to be sufficient to deter a tyrant, as we well know.<\/p>\n

And that brings me to the recent win before the Supreme Court by the NRA. While the matter is far from settled, it’s clear that the justices were less than pleased by the attack on free speech by a New York state official.<\/p>\n

In the process, we can see how rights complement one another, which is why they all need protection.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Amy Swearer, writing at The Daily Signal<\/a>,\u00a0is of the same mind.<\/p>\n

The court\u2019s opinion is a win for the NRA and for broad free speech protections. But it also underscores an unsettling reality: The war for the Second Amendment often involves battles waged on a First Amendment front.<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

This is far from the first time that gun control activists have attacked the lawful gun industry and lawful gun owners by threatening their right to speak freely. \u00a0 \u00a0<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Consider California\u2019s passage of\u00a0AB 2571\u00a0in 2022, which essentially prohibited any person or organization remotely related to the \u201cfirearms industry\u201d from \u201cpromoting\u201d even the lawful and supervised use of firearms by minors. The law\u2019s reach was so broad that it effectively forbade youth sport shooting groups and youth hunter safety programs from advertising their existence. At the same time, however, the law would not have prevented the publication of messages advocating against those same groups or activities.<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

The state argued that the law was necessary to keep these \u201cdangerous products\u201d out of the hands of \u201cimpulsive, risky, [and] thrill-seeking\u201d young people, who were apparently enticed and lured by attractive advertisements or promotions to illegally purchase firearms and use them for criminal purposes. (Never mind that the state couldn\u2019t provide a single example of a minor being \u201clured\u201d to unlawfully purchase a gun because he or she saw an advertisement for a youth sport shooting group.)<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

This was, of course, just a cover for the state\u2019s real goal; namely, stamping out pro-Second Amendment viewpoints and traditions by preventing them from being readily passed down to future generations.<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Fortunately, California\u2019s efforts to prohibit truthful speech about lawful activities involving guns went too far for even the 9th Circuit, an appeals court notorious for finding ever new and creative ways to uphold restrictive gun-control laws.<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And California isn’t the only state that’s tried to do this, either.<\/p>\n

Our right to keep and bear arms matters, but we can only defend it if we have the opportunity to speak freely in its defense. The NRA was penalized for doing just that, simply because Vullo and her boss didn’t agree with them.<\/p>\n

That should never be the case, but just as the Second Amendment is there to defend the First, the First Amendment is essential in defending the Second.<\/p>\n

But it goes beyond these examples.<\/p>\n

Another one is how students aren’t allowed to wear anything depicting a firearm in public schools. There doesn’t even need to be a threatening statement, just the appearance of a firearm is sufficient for disciplinary action against the student.<\/p>\n

This creates an environment where classrooms are filled with people who don’t realize that guns are a normal part of the fabric of this nation. Yet this, too, is ultimately a free speech issue.<\/p>\n

After all, if kids can stage a walkout in defense of gun control, why not wear a shirt illustrating that firearms are a thing that exists?<\/p>\n

If students saw them like many of us did growing up, a part of the fabric of this nation that’s not associated with horrific acts but with self-defense, citizenship, and a proud sporting tradition, just how many would later go on to favor gun control.<\/p>\n

But we don’t know because they’re not allowed.<\/p>\n

Hell, students are routinely disciplined over pictures of them with firearms on social media, again often without there being any reasonable threat to anyone. Again, an attempt to push the lawful use of guns out of sight.<\/p>\n

The Second Amendment matters, but Freedom of Speech matters just as much if we want to preserve our rights.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Why It’s Never Just About the Second Amendment The Second Amendment is part of the Bill of Rights, the first ten amendments to the Constitution. They were ratified when the ink was only just dried, in part because the Founding Fathers recognized that absent certain protections, some rights would be tempting to infringe upon. The … Continue reading “”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[50,24,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-102322","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-goobermint","category-rights","category-rkba"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102322","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=102322"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102322\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":102323,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102322\/revisions\/102323"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=102322"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=102322"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=102322"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}