Why 2A comes after 1A
The First Amendment of our Constitution protects…among other things, the freedom of speech, which is followed by, wait for it... the Second Amendment: the right to bear arms. I do not think that is a coincidence. And recently in Texas, the wisdom of that 1st & 2nd Amendment pairing played out before our eyes on the evening news.
You may remember, a pair of wanna-be jihadists, a pair of radicalized Islamist roommates from Phoenix, attempted to attack a cartoon drawing contest depicting the Prophet Muhammad, hosted by the American Freedom Defense Initiative and its’ president Pamela Geller.
And while you may not agree with Ms. Geller or her tactics in this hyper-sensitive politically-correct world we live in, there is no dispute Ms. Geller’s event was a Constitutionally-protected act of free speech. Nor is there any dispute that the gun-toting security officer that sorted out the two jihad Joeys with his handgun before they could commit another massacre of innocent Americans was exercising his Constitutionally-protected right to bear arms. When you think about it, it all worked out quite nicely, unless you are a liberal or the aforementioned jihadists.
These so-called “progressives” came out of the woodwork to put the blame on Ms. Geller and her event. New York Times reporter Rukmini Callimachi tweeted “Free speech aside, why would anyone do something as provocative as hosting a Muhammad drawing contest.
Free speech aside? Really. FREE SPEECH ASIDE? You may as well say the laws of physics aside. In America, there is no context in which the qualifier “freedom of speech….or religion, or peaceable assembly, or keep and bear arms” should EVER be used in a sentence. And yes, I understand the irony of that statement in the context of free speech, but now you are just splitting hairs.
The point is, we have the right to say just about whatever we want in the USA, no matter how stupid it might be. We also have a Constitutionally-protected right to disagree. What we do not have in this country is the right to free speech "as long as I agree with what you say otherwise I am going to kill you kind of free speech." And it was the inevitability of those people who want to qualify our freedoms for which the Second Amendment was created. And we should all thank God and the Framers for that.
