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Guns at Political Events: A Chilling Effect on the First Amendment
On August 11, a man with a loaded firearm in a holster appeared outside a town hall meeting in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, where President Obama was speaking. He carried a sign that said: "It is Time to Water the Tree of Liberty"—a reference to Thomas Jefferson's statement that "The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants." Neither the Secret Service nor police ushered the man away from the area of the president's town meeting. ("Protestor at Obama Healthcare Town Hall Carried 9mm Pistol-Legally," Guardian, August 12, 2009)
On August 17, a reported dozen people carrying guns, including two with assault rifles, were among protestors outside a convention center in Phoenix, Arizona, where President Obama was speaking. It was the latest incident where protestors with guns were seen outside events where the president had appeared to speak about his healthcare proposals, which right-wing opponents denounce as an assault on liberty. Neither the Secret Service nor police ushered the persons carrying guns away from the event, nor were any persons carrying firearms arrested. ("Armed Men Seen Outside Barack Obama Event," Telegraph/UK [via Common Dreams], August 18, 2009)
Compare this restraint by the Secret Service and police to the following events.
In July 2008, a 61-year-old librarian was arrested at a McCain campaign event in Denver for carrying a sign that read, "McCain=Bush." ("Woman Arrested at McCain Event for ‘McCain=Bush' Sign," AlterNet, July 7, 2008)
In 2005, three people were ejected by police from a Bush town hall meeting in Denver after they arrived in a car with a bumper sticker that read, "No More Blood for Oil." ("Politicians Are Stifling Dissent, Critics Say," Knight-Ridder [via Common Dreams], February 4, 2006)
In October 2004, three school teachers in Medford, Oregon, were threatened with arrest by police and thrown out of a political rally featuring President Bush after they showed up wearing T-shirts with the slogan, "Protect Our Civil Liberties." ("Teachers' T-Shirts Bring Bush Speech Ouster," NewsChannel 8, Portland [via Common Dreams], October 15, 2004)
In July 2004, a Wisconsin county supervisor wearing a blue-denim shirt over a T-shirt that said "Kerry for President" was ejected from a Bush campaign speech after the Secret Service reportedly took his driver's license, social security number, and phone number. (" County Supervisor Booted from Bush Event for Wearing Hidden Kerry T-Shirt," The Progressive, July 22, 2004)
From the standpoint of the U.S. Constitution, the heavy-handed treatment of liberal school teachers, librarians, and county supervisors and the more deferential approach to armed right-wing protestors, makes no sense. While there would be no threat to the Constitution in the months and years ahead if dozens or hundreds of school teachers showed up at Republican political events wearing T-shirts with political messages that did not incite violence, the threat of violence would be extreme if as many armed right-wing protestors appeared at Democratic events. Even in the absence of actual violence, the implicit threat of violence by the appearance of armed right-wing protestors represents an unacceptable chilling effect on the First Amendment rights of Americans.
Black's Law Dictionary defines "chilling effect" as "the result of a law or practice that seriously discourages the exercise of a constitutional right, such as ... the right of free speech." Who could credibly argue that the appearance of armed right-wing protestors at Democratic political events would have no chilling effect on the First Amendment rights of Democrats to attend those events, and to express their political preferences with regard to healthcare, global warming, or gun-control? Mustering the courage to show up and speak up at Democratic political events in the presence of armed right-wing protestors obviously poses an undue burden on the First Amendment rights of Democrats, including on Democratic presidents, congressional officials, and candidates for office.
Nor does the alleged Second Amendment right of an individual to a firearm trump the First Amendment rights of Americans. While the federal courts have treated First Amendment rights as fundamental to the Constitution, the same courts have not treated any Second Amendment right in a similar manner.
The Congress and the president have a compelling public interest and constitutional duty to protect the First Amendment, and the safety of elected officials and their supporters, by outlawing the discretion of gun owners to appear at political events with their weapons.
- Posted in
241 Comments so far
Show AllThank you for this piece. I have been thinking exactly the same thing. When the Bush regime was in power a guy was arrested for wearing an anti-war T-shirt in a Mall in upstate NY. Now people are bringing loaded guns to presidential appearances?
I wonder about the folks bringing guns to Obama's speeches. Are they independent citizens or are they being organized by the KKK or the GOP or some other racist organization?
I have no idea if they're truly independent folks or backed by some racist group, Baruchz, but you have to admit that the US government has brought this upon themselves. Big government can't keep growing bigger forever; there are limits, and as I said in another string, the Feds had better realize they'd best handle gun-toting citizens like these with kid gloves.
First, your comment on "big government" is just meaningless sloganeering that lumps actions that the people empower the government to do on their behalf, (Social Security), with the destructive power grabs that it is empowered to act on based on narrow interest (warrantless wiretapping). Second, where were all these armed patriots when the Patriot Act, Military Commissions Act and Telecom Immunity were passed? Why weren’t they peacefully marching alongside protestors who were being harassed eventually manhandled by paramilitary goons at the DNC and RNC conventions? Where were the threats to water the tree of liberty when the former tyrant and his puppet masters were calling their political opponents traitors and warning them to "watch what they say and watch what they do." Finally, I agree that the feds shouldn’t overreact. I think these people are at least seeking attention, and at worst provocation.
PaulfromGA believes that "the Feds had better realize they'd best handle gun-toting citizens like these with kid gloves." Apparently he is somehow defending these cretins who are not only are bringing guns to presidential events but are doing it blatantly. As the article implies, for some reason the Secret Service has been hesitant in arresting these jackasses while showing no hesitancy in arresting those who had come to a Bush rally wearing an anti-Bush t-shirt. It would appear that the ones who are defiantly bringing, of all things, guns [!] to these events believe for some reason that the Secret Service will not act against them and for some inexplicable reason the Secret Service has failed to arrest them. And if Obama gets shot there will be questions raised and people will be stunned as to how this possibly could have happened. Unbelievable.
Paulfrom GA, you said, "Big government can't keep growing bigger forever..." When you have a growing population, a culture steeped in money and greed, constant innovation both technological and other, politicians and media who prey upon fears and hatreds, well, you can pretend that a small government getting out of the way of all this will somehow work ok, but I beg to differ.
"...the Feds had better realize they'd best handle gun-toting citizens like these with kid gloves."
Apparently PaulfromGA forgot about the kid gloves the Feds used at Ruby Ridge and on the Branch Davidians.
You can play solider all you want with your quaint little guns. The Feds will take you out with a missile fired from a Predator Drone and you'll never know what hit you.
You are right to go after this poster for such macho B.S.. But you are WRONG to bring those two incidents of Federal Repressive Violence into it.
The people killed at Ruby Ridge were a FAMILY, including a mother holding her infant baby. The Branch Dividians were a kind of family as well. While they're initial shoot-out was driven by paranoia and the presence of firearms, the agents of the ATF succumbed to those things just as much as the men of the Branch Dividians. And even if this wasn't true, the women and the children -especially the children- were just as much the prisoners of these men as the men were prisoners of the ATF -they did not deserve their horrible death, and the Federal Agents who killed them deserve -legal- punishment.
You almost seem to rejoice in the notion of an annonymous and cowardly agent of a seemingly totalitarian system murdering one of your fellow Citizens from afar. You might want to examine what has happened to your thinking that this can be so.
-matti.
Should the government also handle armed leftist protestors with kid gloves? How about armed black civil rights protestors? How about those protestors who are just wearing a t-shirt or carrying a sign.
Unfortunately, leftists seem to generally be nonviolent by nature, and don't carry guns when they express their opposition to the US government being nothing more than a warmaking agent for powerful corporate intersts. Would you recommend that they start carrying guns?
This article should also mention all of the single-payer health care advocates who have been arrested in DC during the past few months.
I don't think armed citizens have a "chilling effect on the 1st Amendment"; rather, they have a chilling effect on Big Government, by reminding them that there ARE people who believe in freedom more than in Big Government's promises to "do anything" for them. (I suspect they think that Big Government will do anything TO them rather than FOR them.)
How do you feel about Big Corporation?
He doesn't support Big Corporations. He is libertarian-minded but reasonable. He used to support the conservatives until he came across sites such as this one and truthdig and turned independent. I don't think he's alone.
Well, one of the main reasons I support and trust (conditionally) 'Big Government' is that right now they're pretty much the only check to corporations taking total, overt control over everything. The moment corporations lose their "personhood", and thus much of their power, I'll entertain the idea of reducing the role of government regulation.
I would trust government if only government would quit snatching our tax dollars and spoonfeeding their big corporate cronies who in turn get to churn the money back and forth between the pols freely. I support neither government nor the big corporations. Both of them suck money like blood. Well, make that guzzle.
Yes, because Big Government with tanks and missiles and remote controlled airborned drones is afraid of guns.
You know what, from now on, EVERYONE should start carrying guns, knives, swords, bows, baseball bats, hockey sticks, tire irons, gardening shears, etc, EVERYWHERE in public.
To have a chilling effect on Big Government.
The more right wing whack jobs that show up with guns at town hall meeting, the more nation wide spy building and warrantless surviellance occurs.
But this time, the very same group that supported the Bush/Chenney unconstitutional patriot act reforms will be on the receiveing side of having the government turn your life upside down.
Thats right , all these whack jobs are doing is helping law enforcement send up red flags on republican right wing domestic disidents, and threats.
Hey WIGS, them democrats our in charge now, and Johnny Law is watching you!!!!!
Pay back is a bitch.
Welcome to next 8 years of Dems slowly unseating the rights strangle hold of unfair justice.
He folks, logic is all screwed up here.
Obviously it is perfectly legal to show up with a gun at such an event. It would have been legal in the Bush years too ... just nobody tried ... or was caught on TV doing so.
Of course this is just about dangerous T-Shirts you know. We can be assured that all people wearing anti Obama T-Shirts were arrested.
If you find some irony in this; feel free to keep it.
Folks need to let go of the false notion of the "lone gunman"...
JFK & Lincoln's assassins were tools of the Banksters who were trained & hired to assassinate the POTUS...
MKUltra CIA assassins killed RFK... and shot Reagan to give Poppy Bush control as VP...
Andrew Jackson was fighting the Banksters forming a private Central Bank before he was killed in a gunslingers draw...
Now that the truth has come out about the CIA using mercenaries like Blackwater to do their dirtywork...
These "conspiracy theories" have more creedence...
It's all fun and games in the media until a group confronts one of these gun swinging bastards and provokes one into firing into the crowd. In all fairness, could a group gang up on one of these "protesters", disarm them, and claim self defense?
In all fairness, could a group gang up on one of these "protesters", disarm them, and claim self defense?
Unless the armed person threatened them, any act against him/her would likely result in assault charges. If such an assault were to take place, the gun totters would be made into grand martyrs, galvanizing other people to show up at these events with guns. As long as they aren’t clearly threatening people, they should be just watched and mocked for perceiving that an expansion of medical insurance will lead to total disarmament and the coming of the *4th Reich
*modified
Howard,
You got this article upside down. As you point out people at events like this have had their rights abused when they wore t-shirts expressing their views which is their 1st amendment right.
You are now suggesting that citizens who are carrying out their right to keep and bare arms should have their rights abused.
The frigging point is that the police and the justice system are arresting and preventing some people based on political ideology from expressing their constitutional rights.
Neither the t-shirt wearers or the gun carriers where doing anything wrong. The wrong was done by the police state. AND THAT IS WHAT MUST BE ADDRESSED.
I was hoping someone would say this and spare me the trouble, so: ta muchly.
Authoritarianism cuts across other spectra, and authoritarians are no better for the nation when they're "liberals" than when they're "conservatives". So the proper thing to do is not play tit-for-tat, but stop our rights being assaulted no matter which right or who the assaulter.
Excellent posts Abe Winken and Mairead,
It may turn out that the second amendment is more important than any of them. Without it, you cannot expect to preserve the first amendment. If 100 million gun owners assert their right to "keep and BEAR arms", even if the Redcoats will win, it's going to be a hell of a Bloody Sunday.
And nobody wants that.
Cooler heads will prevail, and the Corp/gov will be forced to sit down and give redress for greivances like they are required to by the constitution.
The time for perfect safety in your life is over.
If you give up a liberty (the second amendment) to gain a little security, you will have neither, according to Ben Franklin.
TJ
"All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent." - Thomas Jefferson
Q: How many people were killed by t-shirts over the last 8 years?
Q: How many people were killed by guns over the last 8 years?
Case closed. The defense rests.
Q: Is it legal to openly carry firearms to public events in NH and AZ?
A: Yes.
Case closed. The actual defense rests.
If the People of these States want to change the laws relevant to these situations they are free to, and will, do so. I'm not quite sure why it is supposed to be MY business, I don't live in either of these places.
In the State I live in, a Citizen with a concealed-weapons permit can walk into the CAPITOL building with their firearm CONCEALED. They don't have to announce it to anyone or anything.
Now, I'm not quite sure why this would be any less "scary" than OPENLY carrying a gun at events as in NH and AZ. In fact it would seem to be MORE "scary" to me, since the weapon is hidden, it is unknown if the person has it, it is the Seat of Government not just a meeting hall, and there are only a few Campus Police spread out around the grounds not dozens of special security Agents concentrated on the specific area.
Yet for all this "scariness", nothing bad has ever happened. No one has ever come in guns-blazing and taken out a State Legislator or two. In fact, the most regular carriers of concealed-guns into the place ARE a few of the Legislators themselves!
One day, my fellow Lefties, we are going to realize that underneath some of the "gun-nut's" propaganda and simplistic sloganeering there ARE some kernals of truth. For example, whatever the general statistics seem to indicate, it really DOES require "murderous intent" for a gun to become a tool for purposefully killing a fellow human. Everything else is accidental. And accidents happen every day, on the highway for instance. 40,000 people killed in highway accidents every year, yet no one hear argues for making automobiles illegal. Bad analogy? Maybe. But I'm not sure.
While I agree that these armed fellows in NH and AZ were almost certainly looking to intimidate "anti-gun" folks with these actions, I would guess that they were also trying to encourage "pro-gun" people at the same time. Whatever THEY were up to, WE need to do more than just lose ourselves to a blind fear response and pray that the Feds will do something to stop the big scary mean men! We need to examine WHY some of us are so automatically afraid of a fellow Citizen being legally armed. We need to examine what connection it has to our personal experience or -more likely- TV pseudo-experience of guns being almost always illegally in the hands of dangerous, murderous individuals. And we need to examine why we don't -if we don't- have a similar fear-response to guns in the hands of the police, the Feds, or the Military -groups who we KNOW have commited repressive violence against us and others in the recent past.
And just in case you feel like stereotyping, my State is NOT Texas or New Mexico or some other "cowboy" place, its Washington, and I am not some sort of "gun-nut" in disguise, I'm a long-haired, nature-loving, hippie-peacenik, who has never owned a firearm in his life.
Just don't like to see folks who should be on the side of Rights and the Law, whining for some Tyrant to protect them from their fellow Subjects who they should be uniting with.
-matti.
Uncle Ho you nailed it! There is no end to the weaponization of America. Eventually
this nation will look like the Khyber Pass, where virtually everyone is packing heat. The hypocrisy is thick here. Conservative, God fearing, repugs, have no intention of turning the other cheek. We are not, can not, and will never be all well-trained militia men, aka Rambo. You will DIE in a shootout with someone who is. When you live without a firearm at the ready, you reach for other tools to deal with conflict, like for instance, dialogue, empathy, open-mindedness......
We haven't reached that Post-Apocalyptic Hell-on-Earth just yet, unless of course you live in one of the dozens of war-ravaged countries of this planet, but my guess is that there are many "folks" who can't wait for it happen here.
Abe Winken sez: "(The author is) now suggesting that citizens who are carrying out their right to keep and bare arms should have their rights abused."
***
Interesting interpretation.
What I thought he wrote was that the 2nd Amendment does not supercede the 1st Amendment protections of both peaceful assembly and free speech.
i know you and I are perfectly comfortable expressing our views when the hired security in our midst is augmented by unknown and unregulated gun-toters holding opposing opinions. But others apparently feel somewhat constrained in that situation.
I agree that that was the author's true point.
Hard to see how someone could miss it really.
Couple things though:
1. Aren't these "gun-toters" regulated? They have to have permits or something to carry the guns don't they? Or, at least they had the required checks and what-not done on them when they purchased the guns, right? I think you meant un-controlled, not "unregulated". But how are the Federal Agents and Cops at such events controlled? Isn't the underlying point of all the complaints that people with t-shirts or signs have been detained or roughed-up by the "hired-security" at such events in the past proof that our Rights to "peaceful assembly and free speech" are just as imperiled by them as anybody else?
2. Why would the Rights to speech and assembly trump the Right to bear Arms? Because they came before it on the list? Wouldn't that mean that the retention of Rights not delegated by the Constitution to the Federal Government by the States and the People would be considered less important than the previous Rights? That seems strange to me.
In the history of this nation there have been several attempts made upon the lives of presidents and candidates, many of them successful, at political events. Do you know how TR became president? Did you know he himself was shot while at a whistle stop, but was saved by his own speech in his pocket?
I think these manifold precedents alone would indicate the danger to democracy of arms at political rallies.
I am very much in favor of our Second amendment rights to bear arms.
But just as our first amendment right to cry fire in a crowded theater is abridged, I humbly suggest the evidence is clear and unambiguous that presenting firearms at political events is also too dangerous to the common welfare to be tolerated.
'The bullet defelcted by the speach story' has been proved to have been, 'embellished'-----you might wish to research the story further.
The 2nd Amendment is vital for several reasons.
1. If YOU have a GUN---and I do NOT--then you are better armed than I.
2. If we BOTH have a GUN--then we are equally armed.
3. The only difference is WHAT either of us intend to DO WITH out gun.
4. Intimidation can only occur when one 'party' has the 'potential' to over power the other.
5. The vast majority of the 'Gun Toters' are cowards (typically American I believe) who will 'melt like a snow flake on a stone warmed by the sun' whne met with equal aggression, and they only refer to those weapons when they feel that it will 'strike fear in the hearts' of those they wish to 'scare'.
6. The American people use the 'constitution only when it benefits them 'individually'. In fact. I have not been able to find one singel article, or statement or reference of any kind that would remind the American people that they went to war in Iraq, ostensibly because Iraq was in violatoin of UN Res. 1442---a 'binding treaty': while the USA was directly in violation of 234 treaties ,back home in the USA.".
7. When more Americans are honest with themselves (heaven forbid) they will be forced to be honest with each other---then their 'honesty' just might transfer to the rest of the world.
In other words, if you 'yelled fire' in a crowded theatre' and you could get 'shot'---'then you might keep your mouth shut'----and just run to the exit.
Only cowards like to 'shake the stick at the dog', but they will 'shake' when the
'same stick is pointed at them'.
If these assholes with their rifles and pistols and 'GW Bush smirks' are confronted with the same aggression; they melt and move on: or fire their weapons.
Which opens the door for the same to happen to them.
Good Luck America, you really need it.
Indeed.
1. What does the assasination of the ridiculously unconstitutionally-overpowered Prez. have to do with danger "to the common welfare"? These guys were shooting one specific person, right? Not everybody in the room?
2. Were any of these past assasins carrying their weapons openly and legally? If not, then the analogy would appear to have a flaw wouldn't it? Beware the man who brings a gun you CAN'T see, I say.
The answer to your first question would seem obvious. I think that question is silly.
As to your second question, both instances would seem to present the same capability for harm to persons.
Mandrake,
I think the fantasy of perfect safety is going to be our undoing. The Corp/Gov only exists because they have calculated, correctly so far, that the left wing will never merge with the right wing no matter how many banks they rob.
In North Korea, you can have neither a dissenting T-shirt nor a firearm in the "Commons". The only thing that has prevented us from becoming that is the second amendment and the bravery of gun nuts to show up with assault riffles in plain view, where a SS gov sharpshooter surely has them in the cross-hairs the entire event. Matti is correct. Assasins of presidents ALWAYS have concealed their weapons.
Always, without any exception that I am aware of.
TJ
"All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent." - Thomas Jefferson
As a Canadian I think the heat, and cut-throat capitalism of my southern neighbours has driven them over the edge. The right to openly carry firearms at political events featuring the President? Hell, most of these nutbars probably don't even vote.
In my limited travels, including my own country, I've never seen firearms treated as they are in the States. Nowhere- not in the UK, Belgium, France, most of Europe- are firearms such a part of the popular culture as they are in the USA.
Just what will it take for Americans to give up their obsession with these instruments of death?
I know someone who works undercover with the Ontario Provincial Police near the Windsor-Detroit border crossing. He said the majority of handguns used in violent crimes in Canada are smuggled from the US. He also said he is unimpressed(my choice of language- he was much less diplomatic) with the professionalism of his colleages in the States. I suppose given the working conditions that guns impose on US law enforcement official, the best and brightest are not attracted to that line on work.
The 2nd Amendment Trumps not just the 1st, but also the 4th - protection from unreasonable search and seizure.
Doesn't do much good to have a gun to shoot your phone when "da govvment" is listening, unless of course you "CAN SEE RUSSIA FROM YOUR BACKYARD!"
If anyone had shown up at a Bush event, any time from 2000-2008, with a gun, they'd have been summarily dispatched by the Secret Service, no questions asked. Now any rightwing freakjob is free as a bird to wave his guns at an Obama speaking event. The 2nd amendment has trumped the 1st, IF it is used to protest an alleged Democratic president. Not if it's involved protesting at a republican event of any kind. This clearly expresses the rightwing bias of "law enforcement" and its hands-off attitude when violence is obviously the intention and Democrats or liberals are the target. Once one of these NRA nuts caps Obama as he gives a public talk, nothing will be done about it. But let a liberal show up with a gun when some fascist fuck senator or congressman is speaking and watch how long it takes for them to be taken down.
If you showed up anywhere NEAR an event with Bush/Cheney appearing and had a dissenting t-shirt, cardboard sign, or bumper sticker, it would get you arrested by the secret service.
Now, loaded ASSAULT weapons are being carried by protesters by foaming-at-the-mouth birthers, teabaggers, and racists without a peep by the authorities. WTF? Bringing loaded guns to a POTUS appearance is a powderkeg with a lit fuse.
It might be profitable to start a pool naming date/time/place for the next Lee Harvey Oswald occurance to happen, as I'm sure it will.
The guy with the AR-15 was a PLANT.
He was in on it with the interviewer and the police.
It was a set-up.
It's manipulation.
Walk in peace.
proof of that?
Proof that the US is screwed beyond belief?
Walk in peace.
If you do not have evidence, then you are just speculating.
No, he's right, TPM exposed it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=
XqPSV0ZQL1Q&feature=channel_page
That link doesn't seem to work for me.
D'oh, probably because it's from my account subscription. But someone else posted it below too.
Thanks.
If I can ever get down there, I'll check it out.
Crazy amount of comments on this, huh?
Yeah, even quicker than a Nader piece :-)
Who or what is "TPM"?
And please don't send me to youtube. Youtube is over-used. It's use of flash video is incredibly inefficient, so much so that it only works satisfactorily with the newer fastest processors. Just like suburbia's inefficiency-by-design and the automobile, youtubes inefficiency-by-design appears to be a deliberate plot to force the consumer to buy expensive new computers with all the attendant environmental impacts involved in their life cycle. Planned obsolecense elevated to a new level...
My trusty 450 mhz machine still works well for everything except youtube.
TPM: Talking Points Memo
Talking Points Memo, it's considered to be a slightly left of center news organization...pretty much all internet based from what I know of it.