When they are stealing other people’s property and burning other people’s property, I can’t stretch peaceably assemble far enough to cover that. Standing around shouting and cussing, yes. Stealing and burning, no.
Like I said, that’s two different groups of people in Ferguson right now. One is the criminal element, i.e. the out-of-town thugs that are looting and stealing. The other is the peaceful protesters who have repeatedly joined arms and walked down the street as a human chain to drive the thugs and gangbangers out. We should be proud of them, because they self-organized to drive out the scum. Their Constitutional rights stand because they haven’t broken any laws.