Posted on 01/20/2016 2:32:36 PM PST by Torcert
Yesterday, a proposal by South Carolina state representative Mike Pitts floated the idea of requiring journalists to register with the state to ensure a responsible approach to the First Amendment. As someone who has more than a passing familiarity with Second Amendment activism, the "South Carolina Responsible Journalism Registry Law" was immediately recognizable as a provocation to the media over its reporting on gun control demands. Unfortunately, a number of journalists showed themselves to be woefully unfamiliar with the gun-rights argument about regulating the First Amendment to match the way gun-control advocates want to regulate the Second Amendment, as could be seen in numerous tweets.
Washington Post reporter Callum Borchers unfortunately took his outrage to print … without actually doing enough due diligence to ask Pitts exactly what he had in mind:
My visceral reaction isn't printable but can be summarized thusly: This is a naked attack on the First Amendment you know, the one that says - Congress shall make no law "abridging the freedom of speech or of the press." I realize we're talking about a state legislature here, not Congress, but we're also talking about one of the nation's founding principles.
That aside, this kind of law would be completely unworkable. Look, there's plenty of media garbage out there, but everyone has a different definition of what garbage is. Does anyone want a bunch of self-interested government officials setting the standard?
There's also a practical problem: How on Earth would South Carolina's secretary of state, charged with maintaining the registry, do its job here, anyway? Journalists can't even define who is a journalist anymore, what with all the bloggers and tweeters posting the kind of information and opinion that used to come only from a highly institutionalized press. Good luck to Pitts when it comes to crafting a legal definition of journalism.
Come to think of it, that's really the great folly here. What Pitts is proposing isn't just wrong; it simply can't be done. There's no stopping people from spreading the news in a digital society - certainly not with some outdated idea for a registry.
This, as I noted last night, is what is called falling into the trap.
Charles C. W. Cooke@charlescwcooke
Fantastic argument against gun registries from @callumborchers, on both practical and constitutional grounds.https://t.co/4Z8FMfo9Cj
Gabriel Malor @gabrielmalor
If @callumborchers @theFix had done even tiniest journalistic diligence, they would have been told that the point was to contrast gun laws.
Make sure you bookmark this.
"Common sense" speech control.
The left's next step after "common sense" gun control.
So rich!
Note that the same national socialists who want to register guns balk when it’s their Rights on the chopping block.
You are correct. The next time this is floated, it will be with the full approval of the MSM. It’s how they intend to obtain a government monopoly on information, and to enforce politically correct speech codes.
PS: And as for the “Free Exercise” of religion, we will be allowed to freely exercise any religion we wish, in the confines of the properly zoned structure for religious worship during officially established church hours of 8:00 a.m. to noon on Sundays, where we can hear a lesson from the politically correct redacted version of the Bible delivered by the licensed pastor.
now borchers is jumping through hoops, creating strawmen to try and get his foot out of his mouth.
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