As just about any gun owner knows, the Second Amendment is under almost constant attack. Our enemies, and that is what they are, use just about any tactic to try to gut the Second Amendment and take away our rights.
Gun owners, at least the ones that are paying attention are used to this by now. Speaking for myself, I can’t say I like it and I spend some amount of time helping to fight it, but I’m sort of used to it.

Over the past few years, many of the same people and forces have decided that the First Amendment isn’t so hot either. They especially seem to dislike the part that says,

Congress shall make no law… abridging the freedom of speech,

Ironically, much of the “press”, which is included in the First Amendment, seems not to like the freedom of speech part when it applies to mere citizens.

These people use a variety of tactics to suppress speech that they don’t like.

Here is a case in point.

2 University of Oklahoma students expelled over racist video

NORMAN, Okla. (AP) – The University of Oklahoma’s president expelled two students Tuesday after he said they were identified as leaders of a racist chant captured on video during a fraternity event.

Here is the problem. The University of Oklahoma is a state college, run by a government agency. It’s covered by the “Congress shall make no law…” part of the First Amendment and several US Supreme Court decisions. Which is not to stay that racist speech should be celebrated or lauded. It’s just that offensive speech is protected. Which is the point of the First Amendment, because non offensive speech doesn’t require protection.

The other part of the problem is that once the government, or any of it’s agencies, start defining offensive speech, the First Amendment has effectively been repealed.

Other countries, in fact most other countries have no real equivalent of the First Amendment. In those countries, the government or lobbies powerful enough to influence the government, decide what it’s subjects can say and what they can’t say. Which means that viewpoints which the government or powerful lobbies don’t like, are banned or seriously curtailed.

This freedom of speech issue used to be taken very seriously in the US by just about everyone. In 1977 the Illinois Supreme Court ruled that the village of Skokie could not prevent American Nazi Party from marching through the predominantly Jewish parts of the village despite the fact that doing so would be offensive to several of the residents, which included Holocaust survivors.

Now, no one hates Illinois Nazis more than I do, but as offensive as their behavior might have been, it’s protected  free speech.

Speech codes that are prevalent on many universities aren’t there to protect anyone. They are there to suppress the expression of ideas of which the administration does not approve. This is prohibited of government operated schools and is bad policy at privately run schools.

The flimsy excuses of “triggering words” and other psycho-babble exist to justify the unjustifiable suppression of thoughts with which some people disagree.

Once that particularly ugly camel’s nose is in the tent, there is just no stopping it. Any speech can be deemed “offensive” and banned. Any expression of opinion contrary to the orthodoxy will be an excuse to punish the person expressing it.

Once the government, or it’s agencies, can do that, then we are doomed.

Here is an example of what can happen when public school administrators try to decide what is and what isn’t permissive speech.

School officials say they were wrong to punish boy over NRA T-shirt

GRAND ISLAND, N.Y. (WIVB) – The Grand Island Central School District is changing its dress code policy after an outcry when a boy was suspended for refusing to take-off or turn his NRA T-shirt inside out.

Protestors rallied outside Grand Island High School in March after the student was suspended for insubordination when school officials said he violated the dress code and refused to take-off or turn his T-shirt inside out.

Once interesting here is that the school district didn’t need to be reminded by a lawyer or a judge that what they were doing is illegal.

Keep in mind that the NRA is a completely legal organization that supports completely legal activity. Yet, for some reason this school district found a T shirt supporting that offensive.

This sort of thing isn’t all that unusual. If you do a quick search on the Internet, you’ll find a variety of cases where school staff thought that an item of clothing was “offensive” and meted out punishment.

Even political speech is under attack. Yes, one of the reasons that the Colonists in America broke away from the British Crown over is now under attack. John Hancock is spinning in his grave.

Students told they cannot lampoon U.S. presidents because campus forbids ‘mocking’

“Dixie State is a public university bound by the First Amendment, and the First Amendment is quite clear that you have the unequivocal right to criticize or mock political figures,” FIRE President and CEO Greg Lukianoff said in a statement. “One has to wonder how Dixie State students can engage in serious political discussions—or any discussion at all—when they are forced to follow the university’s ridiculous policies, which go so far as to forbid any poster in a residence hall that students or administrators can claim creates an ‘uncomfortable’ environment.”

There will be more of these suits as long as public officials think that they can stifle free speech.

Of course the media doesn’t help since they self censor news items that might offend some group or another.

Offensive speech shouldn’t be suppressed because it offensiveness is such a subjective idea. Most new ideas are offensive to someone at some point. Offensive speech serves the important function of encouraging the debate of ideas.

If nothing else, it serves to identify people with whom we might not want to associate.

Unfortunately, attempts to stifle freedom of speech are not rare, in fact they seem to be increasingly common.

Whether it’s college speech codes that eliminate debate because it might cause hurt feelings, or protests against a law in Indiana that protect freedom to follow ones religion, the enemies of freedom are attempting not only to control our speech, but our actions, and even out thoughts.

As with Gun Control, this is all about control and for the same reasons it this battle also needs to be fought.