First Amendment For Dummies

 There seems to be a lot of discussion around free speech, lately, with Elmo allowing spewers of hatred and disinformation back onto the cesspool that Twitter has become.  Almost every comment on the topic displays a complete lack of understanding of the First Amendment.  Let's begin with the actual text:

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."

It actually seems pretty straightforward to me, but for some reason, many have the completely fucking wrong idea that Twitter must allow free speech.  News flash kids; as a private corporation, it doesn't have to allow jack.  

Let's say I owned a bar; as a business owner, I want a positive experience for my customers, so they'll return and maybe recommend my establishment to others.  What I don't want is to be seen as someone who endorses and gives a platform to that which most reasonable people find objectionable.  Therefore, if someone came in, spouting praise for Hitler, their ass would be tossed with malice.  That person has the freedom to espouse their love for Hitler all they want, but not in my private business.  I have the right to abridge free speech all day in my establishment, because I'm not the government.

It's the same situation for Twitter, in that the (previous) management was focused on providing a safe platform to exchange ideas, and cat pictures.  More users ultimately results in greater advertising revenue.  Right wing hate speech, meant to incite violence, and dangerous medical non-advice degrades that safe environment for users.  It also drives away advertisers who don't wish to be associated with such material.  News flash for the right wing looneys; most people find that shit objectionable.  

Yet, there are those who continue to clamor for all of the banned accounts to be restored, claiming their voices are being suppressed.  To that, I offer a hearty, "who gives a shit?"  Twitter can ban whomever they want, whenever they want, and remove people for saying things they don't like, because again, they aren't the government.  

Since I started writing this one, the whole Twitter file nonsense has broken.  As expected, it was a big fat pile of nothing.  Twitter suppressed some tweets, which were essentially revenge porn of Hunter; something that's quite illegal.  BOTH the Biden and Trump campaign had interactions with Twitter on these types of situations.  

I'll make one comment on the Hunter Biden laptop, which is one more than it deserves.  The data on that hard drive has been spread far and wide and is well known at this point.  If there were damning evidence present, it would have been broken by now, by more than the fringe right wing media.  

The Far Right - Completely Uninformed

 As regular readers know, I've had my encounters with the far right on shooting message boards.  These were mostly cult members, who refused to believe anything negative about the Orange Traitor.  As an example, I noted Cheeto Face's raging sociopathic narcissism, to which I was challenged, of course.  I posted links to articles from a wide range of sources (to prevent being accused of believing "commie garbage") and none of those cult members believed any of it.  Not shocking, I know.  The thing is there were a finite number of right wing looneys who did most of the screaming.  

Fast forward to today, with me more active on Twitter, and discovering more cultists.  There seems to be an unending supply of them on the site and they know absolutely nothing about reality.  Recently, I interacted with someone who was part of the "investigate Biden" crowd.  I'd commented about how odd I found it that not one Republican Congressperson took the least bit of interest in Jarod's $2 billion payment from the Saudis.  There were two folks who chimed in, calling my comment a lie.  Long story short, they were completely unaware of that payment until I posted proof.  

My favorite of the week, so far, is the guy who refused to believe Trump had been in legal trouble before, so I posted an official link to the outcome and settlement.  His response?  "That's your opinion."

I just remembered my true favorite for the week.  There was outrage amongst the looneys that the Orange Traitor was forced to turn over his tax returns, with numerous comments to the effect that "if our lord and savior had to turn his over, where's Biden's or Obama's?  They should be forced as well."  After I explained that Trump had to turn his over as part of an investigation, I posted links to the tax returns they demanded and informed them the only Presidential candidate, in over 50 years, who hasn't voluntarily provided their tax returns was Cheeto Face.  

These people have literally zero understanding of the world around them.  Fortunately, I've reached that point of zen where I won't waste time spoon feeding anymore...they just get blocked.

Physical Appearance and Lack of Differentiation

 Life here in RTP remains blissful, but I discovered a challenge to living in my neighborhood.  As I mentioned in Minority Report, most of my neighbors are Indian.  As I also mentioned, they've been kind, friendly, and welcoming, but I can't tell them apart!  Specifically, I'm referring to the women in the neighborhood where most of them look like they're out of central casting.  Every one of the Indian women on my street, between their 30's and 50's are 5'4", slenderish build, with long, straight, black hair, no makeup, and very subdued clothing.  What doesn't help matters is my distance vision is on the edge of needing correction (thanks laser surgery for lasting almost 20 years!) so making out fine facial features any further than 25 feet is all but impossible.  As I mentioned, they're all very friendly, but I never know whether I'm looking at my next door neighbor or someone from two blocks over.  I find this frustrating, because it prevents me from "placing" them and offering more than a "Hi".  

The fact of the matter is white women are easier to place because of the greater variations in body type, hair color / style, height, and mannerisms.  Facial features are easier to place at some distance because of heritage.  Women with Italian genetics look different than ones with Scandinavian or Slavic.  Makeup also plays a big role in differentiating.  That all means that white "familiar stranger" women tend to stick in the memory banks more easily.  

The men are much easier because of build, facial hair, the way they carry themselves, and a bit more varied heights.  

These are the things I spend my days pondering...damn, I need a life!

It's The Guns - Revisited

 Despite my best, good faith efforts to illustrate the relationship (or lack thereof) between gun violence and gun ownership, there are those who remain unconvinced, some of whom have been nasty, insulting, little pansies about it.  They continue to cry "it's the guns" that are causing the epidemic of firearm related homicides.  Obviously, you can't have firearm related homicides without firearms, but that's where the correlation ends.  

Consider a basic equation: 

GO+X*XX=GH

GO represents the percentage of households that own guns and has been declining steadily since the 70's.  It's probably increased slightly since the pandemic, based on how many new buyers have been purchasing guns.  For the purpose of this exercise, we'll peg it at 35%

GH is the number of gun related homicides

It's simple math that if GO remains constant (or within a margin of error), and GH changes dramatically, there must be a factor that impacts the outcome of the calculation.  

Some visuals may be helpful.  

This chart represents the total number of homicides by year, from 1985 through 2021.*

Things to note:

Upward trend, beginning in 2013, totals in line with early 2000's

Massive decrease over the course of the 1990's

These are raw numbers, not per capita.

The red line illustrates the downward trend in firearm ownership, per household.

Takeaway:  Our murder rate has definitely increased since 2014, but remains nowhere near what it was a few decades ago.  

This next chart illustrates number of firearm related deaths resulting from mass shootings.**  

This chart shows a clear upward trend on deaths from mass shootings, particularly in the past three years.  Of note is how the total remains less than 10% of all firearm related homicides.  

Finally, because everyone loves charts, this one illustrates number of mass homicide fatalities by year.***  One could argue the average is trending downward.    

In summary, any rational, intelligent individual would conclude guns are not to blame for the increase in firearm homicides.  Looking at the data, one could argue there really isn't an epidemic.  Gun violence is absolutely something we need to address as a society, but we won't make any progress while simpletons blame everything on one factor.  You're not helping!

*Source - FBI CDE Expanded Data, includes all homicides, not just firearm related.  However the vast majority are.  FBI changed their data availability last year to where you're no longer able to download large chunks of data, instead being forced to use their explorer, which offers zero granularity.  

** Source - Gun Violence Archive

***Source - Mother Jones Mass Homicide Database (their name is mass shooting database, but it isn't)

This entry is part of my "Gun Series" that focuses on providing insight into the gun debate and gun violence.  You can find the other entries in the series HERE. 

 

About the author: Sean R is a recovering conservative who owns a consulting firm specializing in strategic marketing.  He's been a competitive shooter since the early 90's and holds a High Master classification in PPC and a Master classification in USPSA.  Additionally, he's served as an instructor for gun safety and competition courses.  He lives in Raleigh, North Carolina with his overly vocal white dog, Sadie..