Defending the First Amendment

In Defense of the First Amendment

“A well-regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.” – The Second Amendment to the United States Constitution

  

When mass shootings occur, and gun-control advocates talk about banning certain types of weapons such as assault-rifles with high-capacity magazines, gun-rights advocates are quick to reply, “Guns don’t kill people. People kill people.”

In other words, don’t blame guns. Blame the people who use them. I find it interesting that many of those self-described defenders of the Bill of Rights do not use that same argument to defend the Constitution’s First Amendment, which reads as follows:

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.”

In authoritarian regimes such as North Korea, Russia, the Philippines, and Iran, the government jails, tortures, and murders journalists who dare to report the truth. Here in the United States, the beacon of free speech, President Donald Trump has said on more than one occasion that the free press is “truly the enemy of the people”. According to John Bolton, Trump’s former National Security Advisor, the president has even discussed jailing and executing reporters who refuse to give up their sources.

Blame the media for everything, Trump and many of his followers say. 

Those defenders of the Constitution should instead come to the aid of the First Amendment, employing the same argument they use to defend the Second Amendment, saying, “Don’t blame the media. Blame the people who consume the media.”

I am sick to death of the “Blame the Media” movement. As difficult as it may be for some people to accept, including the president, the media is not to blame for society’s problems. It is the media’s job to report on those problems. Like it or not, it just so happens that many of those problems involve Donald J. Trump. Does the phrase “Don’t kill the messenger” mean nothing to you, Mr. President?

Unfortunately, many of those folks who claim to be staunch supporters of the Bill of Rights fail to condemn Trump’s war against the free press. As a longtime member of the free press, and the parent of a cub reporter, I take that wanton disregard personally.

The president’s distain for the First Amendment doesn’t end with the media. Trump has recently sent armed federal agents into the city of Portland, Oregon, to suppress Black Lives Matter demonstrations. Video and photographic evidence shows these agents deploying tear gas, batons, and rubber bullets against peaceful protesters. I will readily admit that there are, without a doubt, some people participating who are not peacefully assembling. Portland authorities have every right to arrest those law-breakers. However, the federal government has no authority to use violence against those who are peacefully exercising their Constitutionally protected First Amendment right to assemble.

The silence of the pick-and-choose Constitutionalists is deafening. 

People who ignore or support Trump’s blatant disregard for the sanctity of the First Amendment while adamantly defending the Second Amendment are hypocrites, plain and simple. Imagine their reaction had the president sent paramilitary agents to stop the gun-toting protesters who stormed the Michigan state house to voice their displeasure with the governor’s stay-at-home order aimed at protecting lives amid the coronavirus pandemic.

Donald Trump and his followers pay a great deal of lip-service to believing in the Constitution. It’s time they refamiliarize themselves with the other amendments to that hallowed document, beginning with the First.