Monday, March 23, 2009

Limits to freedom



Back in 2003, there were a number of folks upset with how the Secret Service was dealing with protesters at Pres. Bush's public appearances, Blogcritics.org among them. You can read the whole thing here, but this passage jumped out at me:

In the letter to Ashcroft recently released, the members of Congress called the prosecution of Bursey for carrying his sign outside the designated free speech zone "a threat to the freedom of expression we should all be defending."

"As we read the First Amendment to the Constitution, the United States is a 'free speech zone.' In the United States, free speech is the rule, not the exception, and citizens' rights to express it do not depend on their doing it in a way the President finds politically amenable ... We ask that you make it clear that we have no interest as a government in 'zoning' Constitutional freedoms...


No interest in zoning Constitutional freedoms? Since when? It looks to me as if someone decided to interpret the Constitution with some consistancy for a change and read the First Amendment the same way the Second Amendment has been read for many years.

But they are actually right. There are no zones of Constitutional freedoms. Per the First Amendment, the entire United States is a free speech zone. And per the Second, it is a free to bear arms zone as well.

As we read the Second Amendment to the Constitution, the United States is a 'free to bear arms zone.' In the United States, the individual right to keep and bear arms is the rule, not the exception, and citizens' rights to bear arms do not depend on their doing it in a way that Sarah Brady or anyone else finds politically acceptable.

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