Subdeacon Joe Posted January 21, 2016 Share Posted January 21, 2016 http://www.thestate.com/news/politics-government/politics-columns-blogs/the-buzz/article55449025.html That whole "equal protection" thing. If you require background checks, testing, licenses for one civil right, you should require them for all civil rights. State Rep. Mike Pitts, R-Laurens, filed a bill Tuesday in the S.C. House to establish a “responsible journalism registry” to be operated by the S.C. secretary of state. That bill’s summary says the bill would “establish requirements for persons before working as a journalist for a media outlet and for media outlets before hiring a journalist.” The summary also includes registration fees, and sets fines and criminal penalties for violations. A person seeking to register with the state as a journalist would have to submit a criminal record background check and “an affidavit from the media outlet attesting to the applicant’s journalistic competence.” The proposed registry “is ridiculous and totally unconstitutional,” said Bill Rogers, executive director of the S.C. Press Association. The State newspaper is a member of the Press Association. The government cannot require journalists to register, Rogers said, citing the First Amendment to the Bill of Rights, which ensures freedom of the press. The bill is not a reaction to any particular news story, Pitts told The Post and Courier newspaper, but was intended to stimulate discussion over how he sees gun issues being reported. “It strikes me as ironic that the first question is constitutionality from a press that has no problem demonizing firearms,” Pitts said. “With this statement I’m talking primarily about printed press and TV. The TV stations, the six o’clock news and the printed press has no qualms demonizing gun owners and gun ownership.” Last summer, the former law enforcement officer opposed an ultimately successful push to remove the Confederate flag from the State House grounds following the slayings of nine black parishioners at Emanuel AME in Charleston. Read more here: http://www.thestate.com/news/politics-government/politics-columns-blogs/the-buzz/article55449025.html#storylink=cpy Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Badger Mountain Charlie SASS #43172 Posted January 21, 2016 Share Posted January 21, 2016 Well, the view from my fence rail, is that if they ever break one of the 10, none of the others will be safe and we will be living as slaves of the government. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cat Brules Posted January 21, 2016 Share Posted January 21, 2016 I think the NRA should rush in to raise a protest against the government essentially licensing and regulating journalists. The parallel (as noted) is chilling. Your lesser enemies may have enemies in common with you. 'Nuf said. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DocWard Posted January 21, 2016 Share Posted January 21, 2016 Clever! I find it amusing that the reporter finds it necessary to mention the confederate flag controversy, in order to negatively portray Pitts. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Badger Mountain Charlie SASS #43172 Posted January 21, 2016 Share Posted January 21, 2016 They will reach for any crow bar they can find to leverage their sick ideas. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Subdeacon Joe Posted January 21, 2016 Author Share Posted January 21, 2016 Clever! I find it amusing that the reporter finds it necessary to mention the confederate flag controversy, in order to negatively portray Pitts. I found this: "The proposed registry “is ridiculous and totally unconstitutional,” said Bill Rogers, executive director of the S.C. Press Association. The State newspaper is a member of the Press Association. The government cannot require journalists to register, Rogers said, citing the First Amendment to the Bill of Rights, which ensures freedom of the press." to be particularly interesting. The reporter instantly falls back on the protections of the Bill of Rights for the press, but is willing to ignore the same kind of proposal in regard to the 2nd. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Badger Mountain Charlie SASS #43172 Posted January 21, 2016 Share Posted January 21, 2016 If they take the second away, I wonder if he will be happy, and I wonder how loud he will squeal when they take the first? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Outrider Outlaw Posted January 21, 2016 Share Posted January 21, 2016 If they take the second away, I wonder if he will be happy, and I wonder how loud he will squeal when they take the first? If they take the first he won't be able to squeal at all. That freedom will be gone. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Smuteye John SASS#24774 Posted January 22, 2016 Share Posted January 22, 2016 I've used a similar argument with folks against the 2nd Amendment before. Had one guy on another board that was trying to use the old argument that the Founding Fathers couldn't have foreseen repeating firearms, small, multi shot handguns, etc... when they wrote the 2nd Amendment. I quoted him and said if that's true, then the 1st Amendment should be curtailed to only the printed word and the unamplified human voice since the Founding Fathers also couldn't have foreseen the development of PA systems, television, radio or the internet. Then I suggested that Freedom of Religion should be limited to only those religious groups that were in existence prior to 1787, since the Founding Fathers couldn't have foreseen their existence either. Needless to say, that didn't go over well with the Soci- I mean, Progressives- that I was arguing with. When they pointed out how stupid the idea was, I pointed out that all I did was take their argument about the 2nd Amendment and applied it to the 1st Amendment. For some reason, they didn't take that too well either. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Subdeacon Joe Posted January 22, 2016 Author Share Posted January 22, 2016 I've used a similar argument with folks against the 2nd Amendment before. Had one guy on another board that was trying to use the old argument that the Founding Fathers couldn't have foreseen repeating firearms, small, multi shot handguns, etc... when they wrote the 2nd Amendment. I quoted him and said if that's true, then the 1st Amendment should be curtailed to only the printed word and the unamplified human voice since the Founding Fathers also couldn't have foreseen the development of PA systems, television, radio or the internet. Then I suggested that Freedom of Religion should be limited to only those religious groups that were in existence prior to 1787, since the Founding Fathers couldn't have foreseen their existence either. Needless to say, that didn't go over well with the Soci- I mean, Progressives- that I was arguing with. When they pointed out how stupid the idea was, I pointed out that all I did was take their argument about the 2nd Amendment and applied it to the 1st Amendment. For some reason, they didn't take that too well either. Many of them have no sense of humor. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Badger Mountain Charlie SASS #43172 Posted January 22, 2016 Share Posted January 22, 2016 Many of them have no sense at all. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Smuteye John SASS#24774 Posted January 22, 2016 Share Posted January 22, 2016 Many of them have no sense of humor. Yeah, but it was fun to do. I could almost imagine the veins on their little foreheads throbbing. None of them caught onto what I'd done until I pointed it out (in a later post, of course), so they were all sanctimonious about defending constitutional freedoms. Well, that and accusing me of being stupid, crazy or a fascist. It's amazing how fast they fall back on name calling. Once I explained that all I'd done was taken the theory one of their little group had applied to the 2nd Amendment and applied it to the 1st, that's when things got real fun. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chili Ron Posted January 23, 2016 Share Posted January 23, 2016 Howdy, Hey can we play with whichever ammendments we want? This could be F-U-N Best CR Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Palmetto Traveller Posted January 24, 2016 Share Posted January 24, 2016 The rest of the story is this was merely bait to lure them in and then show them that all of our constitutional amendments are equally valid and if they're so adamant about defending the first why weren't they equally as adamant about defending the 2nd. Got all of em's drawers wadded up when he revealed the real purpose for the proposal. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Seamus McGillicuddy Posted January 27, 2016 Share Posted January 27, 2016 But aren't these just "common sense" restrictions on dangerous journalists?! Rep. Pitts could probably even cite a poll showing that 92.6% of Americans support such a law... Seamus Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Forty Rod SASS 3935 Posted January 28, 2016 Share Posted January 28, 2016 Have a contest. We gunowners / shooters are pretty certain to outnumber journalists. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Archived
This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.