So... no number of shooting deaths can affect policy but we're gonna fuck with the constitution

[whatchamacallit]

to prevent another Jeff Gannon? There is some crazy up in here.

[ZombieHorde]

1. I am not sure what this is about.

Jeff Gannon the reporter? What did I miss?

[Arkansas Granny]

2. Yeah. I was wondering the same thing.

[NYC_SKP]

3. Guess: Defending the First Amendment, Couldn't Care Less about the Second.

Judging from the subject line. Not much more to go on.

It might be "selective amendment support phenomenon".

We see a lot of that here.

[Igel]

6. I think there's a bit more, too.

Just as they redefine terms in the 2nd, so they're redefining terms in the 1st.

The press was something that was controlled: You had to be registered, you had to pay taxes. It was easy to control what was printed when you controlled the power of the press as a government. Free press? If you have a press, you can say what you want. As the USSR in the age of photocopies found, this would be hard to avoid these days.

Some are redefining "press" to mean "the field of journalism", something it didn't mean back in 1800 and something only politically useful now because it serves as a political test--do we shield reporters from the consequences of law breaking and grant them special "press" privileges not reserved to the states or to the citizenry or not? But to redefine part of the constitution as granting special rights only to part of the citizenry is immoral. Perhaps one day we'll have professional "speakers" and "assemblers" that the freedom of speech and of assembly can apply to.

[NYC_SKP]

7. I agree.

At the time written, freedom of press was really an extension of speech.

If ever it was appropriate to have a shield law for journalists, and I'm not saying there ever was such a time, that time may have passed.

These days there are far too many forms of broadcast, publication, transmission, communication.

With the Internet and cellular communications, we are all now, or are all now capable of being, the press.

[JI7]

4. because Feinstein never pushes for Gun Control

[Egalitarian Thug]

5. Welcome to America sans backdrop and sets. n/t