No mention of self-defense against Antifa? And yet the picture is from Oregon? Really? This article feels biased to me. A simple google search shows that self defense may be a part of the reasoning as well. Just google "antifa attack right wing protesters". And you will find this: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2017/08/28/black-clad-antifa-attack-right-wing-demonstrators-in-berkeley/ . The Washington Post is not a right-wing paper, but yet the headline says that antifa attacked "peaceful" right-wing demonstrators in Berkeley. I'm not claiming that intimidation may not be at play as well, but to write a whole article without mentioning Antifa or self-defense blows my mind.
Since the Black Lives Matter protests have subsided, there has not been a lot of news about Antifa activity, whereas there have been other stories. The point is that protests that involve the carrying of weapons are wrong because they intimidate others rather than show group solidarity or convince others of the validity of the cause they represent. I'd be as appalled if a contingent of armed Antifa followers marched in my county seat as I would be if another group presented that way. I'm what you'd call a liberal- probably- but Antifa does not represent me or anyone I know because they use such tactics. The carrying of weapons during a protest are intimidating manifestations no matter what the point of view is. They are in contradiction to the ideals of free speech and the right to peacefully protest. That was the point; the author did not go into much detail about specific instances.
As I said, I am not in favor of any group being armed or intimidating others in the name of protest. Your comment does not show that you read what I said.
We can argue about who are the primary offenders- that would be kind of pointless since the issue is not who but whether anyone should carry arms to a protest. As for me not understanding the open carry message and 'its intended audience' you're probably right; I don't understand open carry. What do you mean, "its intended audience"? What audience is intended for the message? Are we not all the audience here? Many of my neighbors are armed- they have weapons at home, that is, for hunting and self defense. This is not threatening to me, or to anyone else, and I would not deny them the right to own weapons. But if we were on opposite sides of a political issue at a meeting or rally, and someone carried arms to the meeting, it would be seen by me and others as threatening behavior and intimidation. I am not a target, soft or otherwise. I am a peaceful citizen of this country. I do not assume everyone agrees with me. And that is fine. That is one of the great aspects of our country. We are disagreeing here, for instance, and it is not threatening to either of us to do so. I'd like our disagreements to be civil issues, not armed stand-offs.
Carrying any kind of weapon in public requires a heightened degree of responsibility for the use of that weapon. Stand Your Ground laws and other types of "self-defense" laws wrongfully put the risk of use on the unarmed. We have given over to the State the responsibility to defend and protect us from our fellow citizens in public, retaining the right to defend our "castles." Ordinary citizens rarely carry weapons in populated public places for the sole purpose of defending oneself against a well-grounded belief in potential violence that the citizen rightfully believes the state's agents will be unable to prevent. The true purpose, as Neier articulates, is to intimidate those who would disagree with you. At best, open carry is a kind of preemptive self-defense to threaten others into silence and fear: don't f*{k with me, or I might just f*[k you up. I'm like a wild animal: volatile and unpredictable.
You see open carry as a means for citizens to warn/threaten the government. That’s still a threat. You believe it is important for citizens to warn and threaten the government at this point in time. I don’t believe things have gotten so bad in this country that we need to intimidate our officials with the threat of violence. I believe people who hold the view that they need to take up arms to protect themselves from our government are more likely to harm me and my family (if I encounter them on the street) than people who do not hold these views.
Open-mindedness doesn't make you soft, but closed-minded rigidity is quite limiting. Men and women who wander around in public openly carrying weapons because they think the government is out to get them are a risk. The US (Thank God) is not Nicaragua, Russia, nor Syria. Nor, despite all our challenges, are we close to that. So yes, people whose view of risk is so warped they believe they need to brandish a gun to threaten our political leaders, are fighting a war we already won in 1783. Their judgment is quite suspect, and I believe them a risk to my personal safety. I do not look for them and do not want to encounter them on the streets. I have fired a gun, and believe there is a time and place for picking up arms. We are no where close to that. Good luck persuading anyone to agree with you when you start off insulting them. Too bad we couldn't have an interesting dialogue on the subject.
We seem to be living in the age of redefinition. Mr Neier wants us to believe that the first amendment is only about “peaceful persuasion” not actual free speach! He doesn’t appear to like the 2nd amendment or guns for that matter (Heller & Brunei we’re both about very basic American rights).
He doesn’t like the GOP, right wingers. He uses the lynch dog whistle and skirts the violence of the Black Panthers. He doesn’t mention Antifa, or the BLM (pigs in a blanket) riots. Violence is the real problem, not guns. If Soros’ money is free speech, why not guns?
Several years ago, I went to a small, peaceful Tea Party demonstration at the capital, and was shocked to see so many guards armed with automatic rifles - the only victim of gun violence on January 6th was poor Ashley Babbitt.
Mr Neier is just a partisan, with an authoritarian agenda.
The fact is that brandishing a firearm is today a crime literally everywhere in the USA. The simple act of carrying a firearm in a proper manner (not using it to threaten) does mean the person is brandishing a firearm just because that person is taking part in a protest.
This author is saying that carrying a firearm during a protest is brandishing a firearm -- it is not. Let’s not conflate the two.
To be clear, if during a protest, someone brandishes a firearm (ie, displays the firearm in a manner intended to intimidate), they should be immediately arrested...period.
But if that person is simply carrying a firearm in a proper manner as they exercise their right of free association and free speech, doing so does not turn carrying the firearm into brandishing the firearm. The fact that someone looking at the person wearing a firearm somehow feels threatened because they’re in the presents of someone wearing a firearm is completely irrelevant.
Atlhough I have a lot of respect for the author's efforts on behalf of free speech rights, and I wish I could agree, I think there is an important point not addressed here. We now have a violent far-left in this country that believes it has the right to silence speech it doesn't like, with lethal violence if necessary.
In some places such as the pacific northwest the local prosecutors actually take the side of the violent far-left. That is the crucial context that must be understood. Brandishing a weapon at a demonstration is not necessarily an act of intimidation, it is often an act of self-defense that makes free speech possible.
I applaud your ignorance of history: it is a great way to invent theories to your cause. Keep listening to the propaganda of your gun faction and never read a book of actual history (Mr Halbrook, the proponent of the inane theory about the Nazis, is a NRA lawyer, not a historian).
The entirety of Europe had very strict weapon and gun control laws, increasingly strict since at least the mid-19th century; the only exception were hunting guns. Imperial Germany was remarkably strict, as it had to defend itself from "revolutionary mobs"... in case you missed that part of history, while your country was engaged in frontier shooting and then a civil war over the right to keep slaves, the middle class of Europe was engaged in dealing with a bloody revolutionary uprising after another (and look, the "people" there, the proletarians of 1948 and the communards of 1870, had plenty of weapons -- those who revolt always manage to capture plenty -- up to cannons: and yet they were put down. By the military, not by other armed yet untrained citizens). Europe had very strict gun laws, Germany even more.
Hitler did not change any gun regulation for the general population: he removed the right of the Jews to own any guns and allowed the members of the Nazi party to own more guns, using EXACTLY THE SAME ARGUMENT as your side uses: that citizens needed to defend themselves from the criminal elements of society (Socialists and Jews according to Hitler).
Europe is not the US. Switzerland is the only country in Europe where every adult (male) citizen owns military guns, and they do not carry them around: they hold them in a closet in case the country calls them to its defence, for every adult (male) citizen is in the Reserve for his entire life.
History is not assessed by "what ifs". If the Jews had guns in 1930/45, they would have been massacred all the same, because if even some of them managed to organise themselves they were just ordinary, not belligerent people, and they had against themselves very efficient, well armed military and para-military organizations, plus the hatred of non-Jew Germans stoked by propaganda.
Leave Europe alone. We have had Red and Black terrorism all over, and the Troubles in the UK, then Islamic terrorism on top, and never thought that having more guns in the hands of concerned citizens would be better. For us Europeans, your debate on gun ownership and the concept of citizen self-defence is nuts. I read your Constitution, it speaks of "a well organized militia", not of individuals toting about their guns and shooting at perceived treats.
For an European, the question is inexistent out of one single point: look at the number of gun deaths in the US, where citizens freely own and carry guns, and the number of gun deaths in Europe (https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-41488081).
And then tell me that your gun ownership (including the right to own assault weapons) makes your ordinary citizen safer.
Of course gun deaths will be fewer in a country where few civilians have guns, but what ultimately matters is the number of homicides, not just the number of gun deaths.
For instance, civilian possession of firearms (both legal and illicit) is far more limited in Jamaica (8.74 per 100 population) than in the US (120.5 per 100 population) -- but the intentional homicide rate per capita in Jamaica (48.35 per 100 population) is much higher than in the US (4.96 per 100 population).
And "gun deaths" would include suicides, so comparing US gun deaths with homicides alone in a country where civilian possession of guns is much more restricted would be misleading. The proper comparison would be US homicides per capita vs. homicides per capita in Country X, Y, or Z and suicides per capita in the US vs. suicides per capita in Country X, Y, or Z.
No mention of self-defense against Antifa? And yet the picture is from Oregon? Really? This article feels biased to me. A simple google search shows that self defense may be a part of the reasoning as well. Just google "antifa attack right wing protesters". And you will find this: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2017/08/28/black-clad-antifa-attack-right-wing-demonstrators-in-berkeley/ . The Washington Post is not a right-wing paper, but yet the headline says that antifa attacked "peaceful" right-wing demonstrators in Berkeley. I'm not claiming that intimidation may not be at play as well, but to write a whole article without mentioning Antifa or self-defense blows my mind.
Since the Black Lives Matter protests have subsided, there has not been a lot of news about Antifa activity, whereas there have been other stories. The point is that protests that involve the carrying of weapons are wrong because they intimidate others rather than show group solidarity or convince others of the validity of the cause they represent. I'd be as appalled if a contingent of armed Antifa followers marched in my county seat as I would be if another group presented that way. I'm what you'd call a liberal- probably- but Antifa does not represent me or anyone I know because they use such tactics. The carrying of weapons during a protest are intimidating manifestations no matter what the point of view is. They are in contradiction to the ideals of free speech and the right to peacefully protest. That was the point; the author did not go into much detail about specific instances.
As I said, I am not in favor of any group being armed or intimidating others in the name of protest. Your comment does not show that you read what I said.
We can argue about who are the primary offenders- that would be kind of pointless since the issue is not who but whether anyone should carry arms to a protest. As for me not understanding the open carry message and 'its intended audience' you're probably right; I don't understand open carry. What do you mean, "its intended audience"? What audience is intended for the message? Are we not all the audience here? Many of my neighbors are armed- they have weapons at home, that is, for hunting and self defense. This is not threatening to me, or to anyone else, and I would not deny them the right to own weapons. But if we were on opposite sides of a political issue at a meeting or rally, and someone carried arms to the meeting, it would be seen by me and others as threatening behavior and intimidation. I am not a target, soft or otherwise. I am a peaceful citizen of this country. I do not assume everyone agrees with me. And that is fine. That is one of the great aspects of our country. We are disagreeing here, for instance, and it is not threatening to either of us to do so. I'd like our disagreements to be civil issues, not armed stand-offs.
Carrying any kind of weapon in public requires a heightened degree of responsibility for the use of that weapon. Stand Your Ground laws and other types of "self-defense" laws wrongfully put the risk of use on the unarmed. We have given over to the State the responsibility to defend and protect us from our fellow citizens in public, retaining the right to defend our "castles." Ordinary citizens rarely carry weapons in populated public places for the sole purpose of defending oneself against a well-grounded belief in potential violence that the citizen rightfully believes the state's agents will be unable to prevent. The true purpose, as Neier articulates, is to intimidate those who would disagree with you. At best, open carry is a kind of preemptive self-defense to threaten others into silence and fear: don't f*{k with me, or I might just f*[k you up. I'm like a wild animal: volatile and unpredictable.
You see open carry as a means for citizens to warn/threaten the government. That’s still a threat. You believe it is important for citizens to warn and threaten the government at this point in time. I don’t believe things have gotten so bad in this country that we need to intimidate our officials with the threat of violence. I believe people who hold the view that they need to take up arms to protect themselves from our government are more likely to harm me and my family (if I encounter them on the street) than people who do not hold these views.
Open-mindedness doesn't make you soft, but closed-minded rigidity is quite limiting. Men and women who wander around in public openly carrying weapons because they think the government is out to get them are a risk. The US (Thank God) is not Nicaragua, Russia, nor Syria. Nor, despite all our challenges, are we close to that. So yes, people whose view of risk is so warped they believe they need to brandish a gun to threaten our political leaders, are fighting a war we already won in 1783. Their judgment is quite suspect, and I believe them a risk to my personal safety. I do not look for them and do not want to encounter them on the streets. I have fired a gun, and believe there is a time and place for picking up arms. We are no where close to that. Good luck persuading anyone to agree with you when you start off insulting them. Too bad we couldn't have an interesting dialogue on the subject.
We seem to be living in the age of redefinition. Mr Neier wants us to believe that the first amendment is only about “peaceful persuasion” not actual free speach! He doesn’t appear to like the 2nd amendment or guns for that matter (Heller & Brunei we’re both about very basic American rights).
He doesn’t like the GOP, right wingers. He uses the lynch dog whistle and skirts the violence of the Black Panthers. He doesn’t mention Antifa, or the BLM (pigs in a blanket) riots. Violence is the real problem, not guns. If Soros’ money is free speech, why not guns?
Several years ago, I went to a small, peaceful Tea Party demonstration at the capital, and was shocked to see so many guards armed with automatic rifles - the only victim of gun violence on January 6th was poor Ashley Babbitt.
Mr Neier is just a partisan, with an authoritarian agenda.
The fact is that brandishing a firearm is today a crime literally everywhere in the USA. The simple act of carrying a firearm in a proper manner (not using it to threaten) does mean the person is brandishing a firearm just because that person is taking part in a protest.
This author is saying that carrying a firearm during a protest is brandishing a firearm -- it is not. Let’s not conflate the two.
To be clear, if during a protest, someone brandishes a firearm (ie, displays the firearm in a manner intended to intimidate), they should be immediately arrested...period.
But if that person is simply carrying a firearm in a proper manner as they exercise their right of free association and free speech, doing so does not turn carrying the firearm into brandishing the firearm. The fact that someone looking at the person wearing a firearm somehow feels threatened because they’re in the presents of someone wearing a firearm is completely irrelevant.
Atlhough I have a lot of respect for the author's efforts on behalf of free speech rights, and I wish I could agree, I think there is an important point not addressed here. We now have a violent far-left in this country that believes it has the right to silence speech it doesn't like, with lethal violence if necessary.
In some places such as the pacific northwest the local prosecutors actually take the side of the violent far-left. That is the crucial context that must be understood. Brandishing a weapon at a demonstration is not necessarily an act of intimidation, it is often an act of self-defense that makes free speech possible.
Point of clarification. Heller case was about the right to own a gun for self-defense and the Bruen case dealt with concealed carry licensing.
The issue seems to be open carry.
"Prominent right-wing leaders have remained silent about the fact that some of their followers are bringing weapons to protests."
Some of their followers. How widespread is this, and is it just limited to the "Right Wing"? Please give examples of both.
I applaud your ignorance of history: it is a great way to invent theories to your cause. Keep listening to the propaganda of your gun faction and never read a book of actual history (Mr Halbrook, the proponent of the inane theory about the Nazis, is a NRA lawyer, not a historian).
The entirety of Europe had very strict weapon and gun control laws, increasingly strict since at least the mid-19th century; the only exception were hunting guns. Imperial Germany was remarkably strict, as it had to defend itself from "revolutionary mobs"... in case you missed that part of history, while your country was engaged in frontier shooting and then a civil war over the right to keep slaves, the middle class of Europe was engaged in dealing with a bloody revolutionary uprising after another (and look, the "people" there, the proletarians of 1948 and the communards of 1870, had plenty of weapons -- those who revolt always manage to capture plenty -- up to cannons: and yet they were put down. By the military, not by other armed yet untrained citizens). Europe had very strict gun laws, Germany even more.
Hitler did not change any gun regulation for the general population: he removed the right of the Jews to own any guns and allowed the members of the Nazi party to own more guns, using EXACTLY THE SAME ARGUMENT as your side uses: that citizens needed to defend themselves from the criminal elements of society (Socialists and Jews according to Hitler).
Europe is not the US. Switzerland is the only country in Europe where every adult (male) citizen owns military guns, and they do not carry them around: they hold them in a closet in case the country calls them to its defence, for every adult (male) citizen is in the Reserve for his entire life.
History is not assessed by "what ifs". If the Jews had guns in 1930/45, they would have been massacred all the same, because if even some of them managed to organise themselves they were just ordinary, not belligerent people, and they had against themselves very efficient, well armed military and para-military organizations, plus the hatred of non-Jew Germans stoked by propaganda.
Leave Europe alone. We have had Red and Black terrorism all over, and the Troubles in the UK, then Islamic terrorism on top, and never thought that having more guns in the hands of concerned citizens would be better. For us Europeans, your debate on gun ownership and the concept of citizen self-defence is nuts. I read your Constitution, it speaks of "a well organized militia", not of individuals toting about their guns and shooting at perceived treats.
For an European, the question is inexistent out of one single point: look at the number of gun deaths in the US, where citizens freely own and carry guns, and the number of gun deaths in Europe (https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-41488081).
And then tell me that your gun ownership (including the right to own assault weapons) makes your ordinary citizen safer.
Clinging to myths is a very bad path.
Of course gun deaths will be fewer in a country where few civilians have guns, but what ultimately matters is the number of homicides, not just the number of gun deaths.
For instance, civilian possession of firearms (both legal and illicit) is far more limited in Jamaica (8.74 per 100 population) than in the US (120.5 per 100 population) -- but the intentional homicide rate per capita in Jamaica (48.35 per 100 population) is much higher than in the US (4.96 per 100 population).
https://www.indexmundi.com/facts/indicators/VC.IHR.PSRC.P5/rankings
https://www.gunpolicy.org/firearms/region/jamaica
And "gun deaths" would include suicides, so comparing US gun deaths with homicides alone in a country where civilian possession of guns is much more restricted would be misleading. The proper comparison would be US homicides per capita vs. homicides per capita in Country X, Y, or Z and suicides per capita in the US vs. suicides per capita in Country X, Y, or Z.
Ditto