Is it time to treat the First Amendment just like the Second? :: 12/13/2014

Two stories in today’s Seattle Times best illustrate the hypocrisy of the political left when it comes to the exercise of civil rights – in this case the First Amendment – and might provide an object lesson to anyone favoring restrictions on the Second Amendment.

One article explains that the Downtown Seattle Association and other Seattle business groups complained to Mayor Ed Murray and the city council about the downtown protests after the Ferguson grand jury decision. These protests were launched without permits and “caused significant disruption and impacts to transportation, commerce, jobs, retailers, residents, employees and tax revenues,” the Times reported.

Their lament drew a quick reaction from the Seattle chapter of the National Lawyers Guild, described as “an organization of activist-minded law students, legal workers and attorneys.” In their letter, the Guild wrote, “We are saddened that the Downtown Seattle Association and its partners in the business community do not understand the First Amendment and the right to protest in the most public of places in Seattle — downtown.”

The Public Defender Association has also chimed in with a statement, the newspaper reports. “The law is clear that permit requirements are a prior restraint on speech and assembly. We appreciate that city officials appear to recognize this, and do not apply the street use permit process to speech activities. They are correct and that practice should continue.”

Should protesters, like this crowd in Chicago, be treated differently in their exercise of the First Amendment than people who exercise the Second?

In the other story, about concerns over police photographing protesters gathered at Nike Town, it was noted that under Seattle Police guidelines, “photography at protests is sharply limited.” The Times notes, “If demonstrators are not acting unlawfully, police can’t photograph them.” The story also says that new Seattle Police Chief Kathleen O’Toole has asked for a review of what happened because of “concerns raised by a reporter for The Stranger newspaper.”

Now a question for the attorneys and the Stranger: Why should peaceful protesters be treated any differently in their exercise of the First Amendment than law-abiding, peaceful gun owners be treated in their exercise of the Second Amendment? Background checks for all firearms transfers, including loans or gifts and private sales might just as easily be considered “prior restraint.”

Note to protesters: If you don’t care to be photographed in a public place on the suspicion that you just might be preparing to commit a crime, don’t squawk because gun owners don’t care to have the government recording every time they loan or borrow a firearm, especially to a friend or neighbor they have known for years, perhaps decades, on the mere suspicion that some crime might occur. That’s how Second Amendment advocates could explain why blindly voting for a “universal background check” initiative is insidious. Passing a law that ratchets down on someone else’s civil right is not nearly as noticeable as your own civil rights ox being gored.

Recently, this column sent e-mails to the editorial boards of some daily newspapers, all of which supported passage of Initiative 594. Prompted by readers, Examiner asked how many members of those panels were gun owners. One reaction, from a member of the board of a prominent Puget Sound daily, was particularly interesting.

“That, in my view,” wrote the respondent, “falls under the category of a personal question – and it’s not appropriate for me to ask our employees that question for you.”

A firearms owner would say that was the right answer, actually. It has to do with invasion of privacy. Yet it seems just fine, to that editorial board, for the government to have that kind of information on law-abiding private citizens; to build a file on how many firearms someone owns, and record every time that firearm is loaned and retrieved, and to repeatedly check the backgrounds of people who have committed no crime, and may even have a license to carry concealed, which, in itself, requires a background check.

In the firearms community, such reasoning amounts to world-class hypocrisy. A civil right, whether it is peacefully protesting on a downtown street or peaceably owning or carrying a firearm for any number of reasons – or for no reason at all – is still a civil right. If the First Amendment is sacrosanct, so also must the Second Amendment be equally respected.

Just as it is none of the government’s business who peacefully protests in a public setting, First Amendment advocates seem to insist, it is equally none of the government’s business – or anyone else’s – when someone harmlessly exercises the right to keep and bear arms, Second Amendment activists might argue. Do they have a legitimate point?

The Stranger habitually sneers at Second Amendment activists and, exercising the First Amendment right of free speech and the press, clearly advocated placing the “universal background check” restriction on gun owners. The Stranger is a popular alternative newspaper among Seattle’s far left, the folks who overwhelmingly voted for I-594. It was not their right being stepped on.

How many of those attorneys and public defenders and newspaper editorialists voted for I-594? If they don’t understand the parallels between restricting peaceful protest and being photographed by the police, and building records on gun owners, then they shouldn’t be practicing law or pounding keyboards for a living.

------------------------------------