Shooting Your Mouth Off

Scott Hardie | May 26, 2014
The Second Amendment gives you the right to have guns, but not the right to use them. Could the First Amendment?

Reading about the asshole who opened fire in Santa Barbara over the weekend, who acted out of a pathological hatred of women, I wondered at what point the gun lobby, forced to come up with a new defense under public pressure after so many mass shootings, might attempt to argue that an act of violence intended to prove a point becomes an expression of an idea, and that expression of an idea is worthy of protection under the First Amendment. The current Supreme Court has already ruled that giving money to my Congressman to further his re-election is a constitutionally-protected form of speech -- so, what if I shoot my Congressman to prevent his re-election? Would a shooting to make a political or societal point not qualify as protected free speech under a certain warped moral reasoning? I can imagine such a legal argument being attempted. The America that we live in is so extremely pro-gun that I can almost imagine it working. That's pretty scary.

(Tangent specific to Santa Barbara: The father of the shooter's childhood bully offered the defense that "my daughter couldn't have bullied him, my daughter is sweet and innocent, plus my daughter is younger and smaller than him," which is exactly the kind of bullshit that lets childhood bullies off the hook. Parents everywhere: When presented with evidence, don't ever deny that your sweet innocent little babies have the capacity to become cruel monsters when you're not looking. It enables them to continue, and it makes you complicit.)

Samir Mehta | May 26, 2014
[hidden by request]

Scott Hardie | June 5, 2014
I don't know. There are so many violent, agitated people out there who hate certain politicians that I can imagine the idea of assassination as political speech gaining some traction among them, even if no court would actually favor it as a legal defense. If what happened to Gabrielle Giffords were to happen to a truly hated figure like Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton, it would be celebrated in some circles (the "most rabid NRA members" that you mention).

Agreed about the overreaction hurting the "cause," and about the cost of empathy. Great points.