By Jon Gibbon
The way that the major social platforms treat firearms content, and by proxy, those that own them, is deeply disturbing. It is a lot like the baker that refuses to make a cake, but the implications are far more dangerous. In the former situation, someone might not get a cake on time. In the latter situation, an enumerated Constitutional right being constantly trampled in plain sight has become commonplace.
Some will claim that is an over-statement. Well consider the following. What other Constitutional rights are not allowed to be discussed on major social media platforms? That is correct, the answer is zero.
Unlike all other rights, the Right to Keep and Bear arms requires access to certain inanimate objects. Because of this, and some seriously lenient interpretation of the Commerce Clause, these objects, and this Constitutional right, are jointly the most regulated in the history of our country.
If you can’t talk about buying or selling the precise objects whose ownership are protected on any of the prolific communication platforms of the day, do you really still have that right?
The freedom haters who have weaseled their way into elected office have, as of the time of this writing, been unable to take firearms from peaceable citizens. Make no mistake, that is their goal. They have however been able to infiltrate the tech sector with their toxic culture enough to accomplish this goal through wholly separate means.
Take Armslist.com for example. I have been running this site for nearly a decade. It is one of the few places where speech on the internet regarding the proposed purchase or sale of the aforementioned inanimate objects is permitted. Rather than being lauded for protecting this valuable Constitutional right, it is the subject of media scrutiny, and lawsuits. The first of which we defeated in Federal Court. But that doesn’t stop the anti-gun movement. There have been 2 more since then, in different states. And the cost, aggravation, and bad PR continue for years, despite the fact that these lawsuits are prohibited by Federal Law. A Federal Law that protects free speech on the internet.
“No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider” (47 U.S.C. § 230)
These lawsuits attempt to make Armslist liable for the conduct of third parties who choose of their own volition to break the law. Imagine if we treated highways, phone lines, television, or any other infrastructure like that. Society would grind to a halt.
These lawsuits endanger all free speech on the Internet, not just firearms related content. Because the groups that are willing to destroy your 2nd Amendment rights, are not concerned with whatever other rights are harmed in the process.
The news media is part of the attack on the Right to Keep and Bear Arms as well. If a few people are victims in some type of crime involving a firearm, it will get non-stop national news coverage for days. If a person lawfully defends his life and kills multiple attackers, there is a now-predictable, complete and total radio silence by the national media. You can find these stories, but rarely are they reported by anyone other than the local news channel. It is because the first story fits their narrative, and the second does not fit the narrative against firearms and firearms owners.
Unless we unite and labor to reverse this abhorrent treatment of such a sacrosanct right that we are uniquely privileged to have in this country, it will be a short road to the end of all of them. Just look at Venezuela.