United States – -(AmmoLand.com)- The defense of the Second Amendment requires a lot of things. Money, time, passion, and aptitude are among them. But there is one requirement for the successful defense of the Second Amendment that loyal Ammoland readers should keep in mind: The First Amendment.
Like it or not, at this time, and barring a horrific dystopian scenario, Second Amendment supporters are using our First Amendment rights – freedom of speech, freedom of the press, the right to peaceably assemble, and the right to petition for the redress of grievances – to defend our Second Amendment rights.
How effective have we been? Let’s look at how badly anti-Second Amendment extremists have wanted to use the power of government to silence our voices in one way or another over the years. In some cases, we even have them admitting it to friendly media outlets.
In 2002, Michael Barnes said this about McCain-Feingold: “Even though the measure will impact our election activities as well, it will cut into the NRA’s even more, reducing the gun lobby’s ability to obstruct the progress of sensible gun laws.”
A series of Supreme Court decisions, including Citizens United, have largely shot down bills like McCain-Feingold. This is not to say that anti-Second Amendment extremists are giving up on campaign “reform” schemes intended to create all sorts of legal booby traps for those they want to shut up. But anti-Second Amendment extremists have shifted gears, turning to Silicon Valley in one track, while also adding financial deplatforming and outright abuses of power to their toolbox.
Then there are the outright lies used to justify the abuses, like the time Letitia James called the National Rifle Association a “terrorist organization.” There are loyal Ammoland readers who don’t like Wayne LaPierre or who may have serious differences with the NRA’s strategy and tactics.
But here’s a question for those who think the NRA’s stance isn’t hard-line enough: If James is calling the NRA a terrorist organization. What do you think will happen should she get what she wants in the form of the organization dissolution?
Furthermore, that outrageous slander opens a new danger in this era: If using our First Amendment rights to protect the Second Amendment is terrorism, what might that talk lead someone to do? We already have seen mobs shut down conservative speakers – and even those on the left who value free speech – on college campuses.
In addition, the fact is that even successfully defeating something like Wisconsin’s “John Doe” investigations can sap money, time, and passion from a person. People who think they are winning the argument don’t resort to tactics like those of Letitia James or the perpetrators of the “John Doe” abuses.
Second Amendment supporters need to also be First Amendment absolutists. You may not like someone, but the fact is, a collective defense of the First Amendment is critical in ensuring that anti-Second Amendment extremists at the federal, state, and local levels are defeated via the ballot box.
About Harold Hutchison
Writer Harold Hutchison has more than a dozen years of experience covering military affairs, international events, U.S. politics and Second Amendment issues. Harold was consulting senior editor at Soldier of Fortune magazine and is the author of the novel Strike Group Reagan. He has also written for the Daily Caller, National Review, Patriot Post, Strategypage.com, and other national websites.
Thus, the reason we need to frame this debate in terms of freedom instead of just firearms.
Our rights are mutually supportive, if we lose one, we lose them all.
That is why the Anti-liberty left is attacking ALL of them, not just the 2nd amendment.
Remember, Anti-liberty leftists LOVE guns, they just don’t want us to have them. They buy them just like everyone else, but they still support the government taking them from their political enemies in the Pro-freedom community.
What a good little puppet of the NRA you are Harold. An organization so blatantly against its very mission and one whose board is politically mismanaged so that WLP can’t be removed should be allowed to wither and die. Its board and leader are so corrupt that they should be led straight to a public gallows. Your half-hearted defense of the 2nd yet pavlovian defense of the NRA makes you but a quisling to the rest of us. It’s the go-along-to-get-along people like you that have allowed the steady erosion of our rights in the first place. You and the… Read more »
Maybe you got it backwards. The Second Ammendment was intended to protect the rest of them…. Or so I was told in Civics class. But, that was many years ago and things have changed. The Bill of Rights are simply recommendations now, liberties that can be changed and taken away at will.
There is no “free speech” if the mobs come to intimidate you and threaten violence for your exercising that right. There is no free speech if that free speech is censored, labeled as “DISINFORMATION”, taken down, silenced, shouted down, and threatened with violence. (“They” will tell you that VOTING is your sacred, greatest right . . . AND THEN THEY RIG THE ELECTION!) In the end – the SECOND amendment is the greatest defender of the Second Amendment, because they FEAR and effectively armed citizenry, and know they can only push an EFFECTIVELY armed citizenry so far. (If AR15 type… Read more »
Letitia James’ efforts to dissolve the NRA as an organization has already been shot down by the courts. Hopefully an effort to prosecute LaPierre for malfeasance and the board for ignoring their responsibilities to the members will succeed.
the leftists are correct when they say democracy is in jeopardy. Again they are telling us their plans, right to our faces, out in the open and most will not believe them until it’s too late.
Progress! You were parroting the “single issue” nonsense last week. There are other indirect 2A issues too, such as illegal invasion & mass legal immigration of future DemCom voters.
Now stop covering for the crooks who betrayed us, ran NRA into the ground, malspent & pocketed $1B every few years & bared NRA’s neck to the NYAG.