"No, your 2nd Amendment can't beat up my 1st Amendment"
EJ Montini, The Republic | azcentral.com Published 6:37 a.m. MT June 28, 2015
ALL Amendments count, but in my opinion, freedom overall trumps gun freedom. My opinion might not win over a gun, however . . . Legally it is VERY complicated.
"The First Amendment Guide to the Second Amendment" {COMPLICATED!}
by David Kopel 21 April 2014
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2014/04/21/the-first-amendment-guide-to-the-second-amendment/?utm_term=.297bcf933f85
Parts of a long article on the 1st Amendment includes:
In Part III, I argue that the First and Second Amendments share several common interpretive principles. These are:
- The Amendment Is Not Limited to Its Core. First Amendment free speech/press is not only about politics, and the Second Amendment is not only about self-defense.
- The First and Second Amendments Have Synecdoches. “Press” means more than just printing presses, and “arms” includes more than just weapons.
- Rights That Are Not Expressly Stated May Be Inferred from Other Rights—Examples Include the Right of Association and the Right of Self-Defense. Both Amendments protect non-textual rights whose existence is readily inferred from the text.
- Not All Original Practices Are Per Se Constitutional Today. Laws against blasphemy or seditious libel are clear examples in the First Amendment context. They warn us to not accept uncritically every possible municipal gun law from the Founding Era.
- Both Amendments Accommodate Technological Change. The First Amendment applies to the modern press (e.g., television and blogs), and the Second Amendment applies to modern firearms and accessories.
- Both Amendments Aim for the Preservation or Restoration of Ordered Liberty and Civic Virtue. They seek to cultivate virtuous, responsible, and self-controlled citizens who will use their rights to improve the moral character of themselves and of the public, and who will preserve constitutionally ordered liberty.
- Guns and newspapers are not like movies of men having sex with sheep. A point that is perhaps more obvious to the general public than to legal academia."
My brain is tired now! You'll have to read the rest for yourself.
"The Guns Won"
Charlottesville showed that our First Amendment jurisprudence hasn’t reckoned with our Second Amendment reality.
By Dahlia Lithwick and Mark Joseph Stern 14 Aug 2017
"Complaints abound that law enforcement officers looked on from the sidelines as the brutality quickly escalated into a crisis. The tragedy culminated in the death of 32-year-old Heather Heyer when a white supremacist rammed his car into a group of peaceful protesters."
Here's the sad rub of a judges decision to rule for people carrying guns vs free speech, or at least a way to see how the 2nd Amendment won over the 1st Amendment.
"Seen in isolation, Conrad’s order [U.S. District Judge Glen E. Conrad ] was grounded in solid First Amendment doctrine: Charlottesville could not, he ruled, relocate the racist demonstrators “based on the content of [their] speech.” This is textbook law, but one is left to wonder whether it takes into account armed white supremacists invading a city with promises of confrontation. Conrad’s decision seems to have been issued in a vacuum, one in which Second Amendment open-carry rights either swallowed First Amendment doctrine altogether or were simply wished away, for after-the-fact analysis. The judge failed to answer the central question: When demonstrators plan to carry guns and cause fights, does the government have a compelling interest in regulating their expressive conduct more carefully than it’d be able to otherwise? This is not any one judge’s fault. It is a failure of our First Amendment jurisprudence to reckon with our Second Amendment reality."
