Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, March 8, 1992 TAG: 9203090199
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: F-3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: BOB WILLIS
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Geoff may not concur in that; I haven't asked him. But man, I'm glad those cats are out there with their guns, backing the First Amendment and every other constitutional protection the people enjoy. With press and speech freedoms under constant siege from government, we media wimps need all the help we can get.
In that, we could always count on gun owners. They've been on our side, ready to put the fear of God in those who'd chip away at anyone else's rights. I recollect back in 1971, the federal government wanted to stop The New York Times and The Washington Post from publishing the Pentagon Papers, parts of a secret study of the Vietnam War, on the grounds it could harm national security.
It was a defining moment for press freedom. Realizing the peril, gun owners from all over America marched on the national capital and surrounded the U.S. Supreme Court. "We've got you in our crosshairs," the group's leader thundered through a bullhorn at Chief Justice Warren Burger, demanding that the justices declare such suppression unconstitutional.
Needless to say, the court complied. Others may not remember that, but I do; it still puts a lump in my throat. Thanks, guys.
Lower-court judges also tried during the 1970s to issue gag orders forbidding the press to publish information the judges said could violate a defendant's right to a fair trial. A chastened Supreme Court, fearful of being put under siege again by the militia, ruled that except in unusual circumstances, gag orders violate the First Amendment.
In 1981 Ronald Reagan became president, and we all breathed a sigh of relief. After all, he was a life member of the National Rifle Association. He was never a friend of big government, and if any hint of oppression issued from the administration he led, he could be counted on to take up arms against it himself.
Maybe we were lulled. All of a sudden, Reagan's attorney general was arguing that the protections in the Bill of Rights didn't necessarily apply to the states. Edward Meese III also opined that if a person were innocent, he wouldn't be a suspect in a crime. The Fifth, Sixth and Seventh Amendments all seemed called into question by the country's chief law-enforcement officer.
Well, that turned out to be chatter. Nothing really happened. Ronald Reagan, on top of every development during his presidency, probably took Ed Meese aside for a fatherly talk and a reminder about the gun owners' vigilance.
Meantime, he appointed to the Supreme Court a lot of people who couldn't sleep nights lest authorities somewhere might be taking away our rights, such as the Fourth Amendment safeguards against warrantless police searches. Anyway, if the high court had shown any such tendencies itself, it knew there were all those gun people with itchy trigger fingers, ready to defend freedom.
The militia couldn't be everywhere. It was late arriving in the Middle East, weapons drawn, to protect the right of a free press to inform the people what was going on with the war their sons and daughters were fighting. But it was tardy only because the ground war was so short; otherwise, it would surely have made those generals back down in a minute, tanks or no tanks, warplanes or no warplanes.
Fortunately, the gun people were alert when George Bush, another NRA member, sought a constitutional amendment to prevent flag desecration. Motorcades of armed tyranny-haters formed in towns and hamlets across the country, ready for another descent on Washington. Aware that the NRA and its friends would not tolerate such encroachment on freedom of expression, Congress failed to approve the amendment.
Maybe Bush has been too busy shopping for socks and groceries to notice that some in his administration would like to expand the executive branch's power to keep things from the citizenry. (Seven million new secrets a year aren't enough.) And his Justice Department has sought to allow localities to prescribe official prayers for children in public schools, another transgression on the First Amendment.
I know he'll get the word on that. I just kind of wish the gun lobby would hurry it up.
Meantime, don't think for a minute that I feel insecure. Nobody's tried for a long time to quarter any soldiers in my house.
by CNB