Free Speech or Armed Speech, Pick One

Armed Protestors against a COVID lockdown at                     

The Michigan State Capitol, April 2020

Armed counter protestors confronting gun control activists at the Virginia State Capitol, January 2020

Every time there is a mass shooting – and there too many of those of late, particularly with AR-15 assault rifles – they are followed by “our thoughts and prayers…” responses from right-wing leaders, quick to point out that the shooter was obviously mentally ill. Yet even the recent red flag laws, state and federal, have had little or no impact on the reduction of these heinous acts. But what is so much worse, in states with open-carry laws, is that those angry and sad protestors demanding a genuine gun control following “an incident,” particularly against military-grade semiautomatic assault weapons, are often confronted by self-righteous, but obviously well-armed “Second Amendment” counter-protestors… often carrying those same assault weapons.

Even as Joe Biden attempts to get a lame duck Congress to ban those assault weapons, the odds of passage are nil. The wildly legally flawed opinion in the 2008 Supreme Court case – Heller vs District of Columbia (the first case in American history, decided more than two centuries after that amendment become law, to make private gun ownership a fundamental American right) – continues to feed gun zealots, many of whom even believe (falsely) that the Second Amendment was passed to enable them to overthrow governmental leadership with which they disagree.

The United States is the only nation, not at war, that allows private citizens to own such assault weapons. In October, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released data on U.S. firearm deaths last year, counting more than 47,000 — the most in at least 40 years. We have at least one privately-owned gun for every man, woman and child living in the United States, including an estimated 20+ million AR-15-level assault rifles. The carnage from those “legal” guns is absurdly high. Further, the NRA mantra that “the only way to stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun” is fiercely countered by the fact that, even factoring in the expanded definition of “justifiable” within those states with “stand your ground” gun laws, fewer than one in thirty private gun homicides is justifiable.

The presence of armed civilians, not remotely operating under any official capacity under local law, at peaceful protests of unarmed civilians, is at least intimidating. Add their militia uniforms, flak vests, and military-like insignia, make these armed Second Amendment-wielding counter-protestors downright menacing. It’s hard to believe that people attempting to exercise their first amendment rights without threat of force (perceived or directly made) feel safe. With guns all around them, do those peaceful civilians really have “free speech” guaranteed under the First Amendment? Does the misinterpreted Second Amendment trump the First Amendment?

The frequency and intensity of these well-armed protestors has modified the scope and meaning of American democracy. In the November 26th New York Times, Pulitzer Prize winning journalist, Mike McIntire, lets us know that this phenomenon is alive and well today… except it is even bigger than when the above photographs were taken: “Across the country, openly carrying a gun in public is no longer just an exercise in self-defense — increasingly it is a soapbox for elevating one’s voice and, just as often, quieting someone else’s.

“This month [November], armed protesters appeared outside an elections center in Phoenix, hurling baseless accusations that the election for governor had been stolen from the Republican, Kari Lake. In October, Proud Boys with guns joined a rally in Nashville where conservative lawmakers spoke against transgender medical treatments for minors.

“In June, armed demonstrations around the United States amounted to nearly one a day. A group led by a former Republican state legislator protested a gay pride event in a public park in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho. Men with guns interrupted a Juneteenth festival in Franklin, Tenn., handing out fliers claiming that white people were being replaced. Among the others were rallies in support of gun rights in Delaware and abortion rights in Georgia.

“Whether at the local library, in a park or on Main Street, most of these incidents happen where Republicans have fought to expand the ability to bear arms in public, a movement bolstered by a recent Supreme Court ruling [New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen – which challenged NY’s restrictions on concealed guns] on the right to carry firearms outside the home. The loosening of limits has occurred as violent political rhetoric rises and the police in some places fear bloodshed among an armed populace on a hair trigger.

“But the effects of more guns in public spaces have not been evenly felt. A partisan divide — with Democrats largely eschewing firearms and Republicans embracing them — has warped civic discourse. Deploying the Second Amendment in service of the First has become a way to buttress a policy argument, a sort of silent, if intimidating, bullhorn.

“‘It’s disappointing we’ve gotten to that state in our country,’ said Kevin Thompson, executive director of the Museum of Science & History in Memphis, Tenn., where armed protesters led to the cancellation of an L.G.B.T.Q. event in September. ‘What I saw was a group of folks who did not want to engage in any sort of dialogue and just wanted to impose their belief.’

“A New York Times analysis of more than 700 armed demonstrations found that, at about 77 percent of them, people openly carrying guns represented right-wing views, such as opposition to L.G.B.T.Q. rights and abortion access, hostility to racial justice rallies and support for former President Donald J. Trump’s lie of winning the 2020 election.” How safe do you feel from gun violence in this nation? Does the ability of almost anyone in this country to acquire a firearm make us feel better? Exactly how many people must die before we actually do something about it… something real and meaningful, starting with taking military-grade guns off our streets.

I’m Peter Dekom, and it is so sad that the “land of the free” needs to be the “home of the brave” simply to exercise basic First Amendment rights.