As I’m watching Republicans and gun rights activists do their usual whiny crybaby dance, because President Obama took a reasonable step to protect human lives, I can’t help wonder why they think the Second Amendment deserves absolute status when other amendments do not. Interpretation of the First Amendment, for instance, is flexible enough to accommodate the greater good when one right infringes on another.
In fact, I learned the hard way that the First Amendment didn’t necessarily protect me, even when I told the truth. Before my first book, “Cool Creatures, Hot Planet: Exploring the Seven Continents,” went to press, I sent the manuscript to a literary attorney for review. What I learned was that a private citizen’s right to privacy outweighs my freedom of speech to publicly expose that person in a story.
Several real life characters in my book did what could be considered unethical or embarrassing things. For instance, I tell a story about a scientist I accompanied in the Amazon rainforest, who I nearly punched because I thought he was treating an animal cruelly. Since that scientist was a private citizen, I couldn’t rip that actual person in my book. I could still tell the story; I just had to change that person’s name and make him totally unrecognizable—with a fictitious physical appearance, voice, etc.
Considering that there were several ill-behaving private citizens in my first book, making those people unrecognizable was a sizable task. But rather than doing a whiny crybaby dance, I delayed the publication of my book until every private citizen I wrote about negatively was totally unrecognizable. And later, accepting that the First Amendment has limits, I did the same thing with an uncouth character in my next book as well.
Additionally, slander and libel laws further limit freedom of speech. And just try to shout-down Donald Trump at a rally to see how quickly your words can be forced to the ground.
That gets us back to the Second Amendment. If we can accept and recognize that the First Amendment’s words “Congress shall make no law . . . abridging the freedom of speech or of the press,” have some flexibility, surely then we can also accept and recognize that the Second Amendment’s words, “A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed,” have some flexibility as well.
Just as a private citizen has a right to not be publicly embarrassed by an author telling a true story, a private citizen also has a right to not be shot by an easily well-armed domestic terrorist, acting out on what he believes his chosen religion, favorite politician, or froth-mouthed news commentator demands of him. Reasonable flexibility and a little consideration for others is a good thing—not something to get all whiny and crybaby about.
Marty Essen
Victor