Audio By Carbonatix
When Arizona Senator Russell Pearce voted in favor of a law prohibiting protests and pickets near funeral services, he called it a “balance of rights,” according to Arizona Republic reporter Alia Rau.
Where is that balance of rights when Pearce proposes other laws that impact the rights and freedoms of Arizona residents?
He and other like-minded politicians have successfully abolished
training and licensing requirements to carry a concealed weapon. The
Constitution, they say, is their license to carry. Now, they want to
allow guns on college campuses.
When Governor Jan Brewer signed
the funeral protection bill into law on Tuesday, she said that families
have the right to grieve without feeling intimidated or harassed.
Lawmakers
adopted the law specifically because they didn’t want members of the
Westboro Baptist Church, based in Topeka, Kansas, to protest too close
to the funerals of a 9-year-old girl, federal judge and other victims of
suspected shooter Jared Loughner.
The fundamentalist church
preaches extreme and hate-filled messages, and keeping them away from
the funerals of victims in this high-profile shooting rampage was a
politically popular “balancing of rights.”
Imagine if Pearce and
other had voted against that measure? If they said that they could not
even consider it because they stood in “full support” of the First
Amendment?
But in Arizona’s current political climate, there is no balancing of Second Amendment rights.
Guns
on college campuses? Is there any consideration for students who might
be intimidated sitting next to a gun-toting classmate? What about the
rights of university or college officials to make decisions about
creating the best learning environment for their students?
Second
Amendment says that the “right of the people to keep and bear arms,
shall not be infringed.” The First Amendment says that “Congress shall
make no law … abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the
right of the people peaceably to assemble…”
When Pearce and
the rest of Arizona’s lawmakers voted on Tuesday to keep protesters 300
feet away from a funeral or burial service, they managed to find a
balance by not outright banning protests of funerals, but limiting the protests in time and scope.
It’s not the case when it comes to the Second Amendment. How can he and other politicians reconcile the hypocrisy?
They
allow the discomfort or intimidation caused by a protester spewing
hateful speech to abridge, if even in a small way, the First Amendment,
but do not consider the discomfort or intimidation felt by students in a
learning environment with guns.
It seems that when it comes to
the First Amendment, Pearce stands with the grieving families of those
who lost their lives in Saturday’s shooting in Tucson. Yet, when it
comes to the Second Amendment, Pearce stands with Jared Loughner.
