Perspective: Violence Should Not Dim the First Amendment

Before shots were fired, July 13’s rally was a classic example of the First Amendment at work: A crowd peaceably assembled to hear a freely delivered speech from a leading presidential candidate — all exercising their collective right to “petition … for a redress of grievances.”

The gunshots that followed defied those very freedoms. But they did not defile them.

Journalists were there to document the horrifying moment for all of us to witness and to experience for ourselves. They provided the photos — including one of a bullet zooming past former President Donald Trump – that will live on in history, and they produced videos that may help law enforcement agencies piece together a full picture of the crime. People in the crowd recorded videos showing the shooter on a nearby building roof and a police sniper firing in response.

After absorbing the news, people across the nation exercised their right to free speech, to speak truth to power. Through social media and in-person conversations, many have challenged government officials on the obvious failure to protect Trump and those at the rally.

None of those journalists who documented the stunning moments, none of the people who voiced their opinions, need to fear a late-night arrest by authorities who would silence them, or face retribution or punishment from a government stung by their comments. The First Amendment stands between them and the government.

In the days following the shooting, the nation has freely debated the responsibility or blame for the incident. Some have blamed the news media for stoking emotions, while others condemn the political and social voices that dominate the news.

Still others simply see angry and hateful rhetoric — regardless of the source — that has divided a nation and wonder if it played some part in the shooter’s unknown motivation.

Republicans and Democrats alike have called for a resetting of public rhetoric and of strident media criticism, of demonizing political attacks from conservatives and liberals alike.

To be sure, not everyone abandoned words intended to inflame the public discourse.

From unsupported charges that President Joe Biden or the “Deep State” ordered the attack to blaming Trump for his own injuries because of National Rifle Association support or his inflammatory position on various social issues, the extreme right and left polluted social media. All of that is protected speech, of course.

Lest the debate tempt us to call for censorship, recall what U.S. Supreme Court Justice Robert Jackson said in the late 1940s: We should be exposed sometimes to ideas we find vile and repugnant, if only to be better prepared to argue against them.

In an Oval Office address, Biden said, “There’s no place for this kind of violence in America. We must unite as one nation to condemn it." And former first lady Melania Trump said that America must “ascend above the hate, the vitriol, and the simple-minded ideas that ignite violence."

The Republican National Convention opened on schedule two days after the assassination attempt, with Trump present and speaking. Democrats will meet starting Aug. 19. Both demonstrate that our democratic process moves forward, even under duress.

Still, citizens and journalists can rely on the First Amendment to ensure the right to challenge the powerful, and ask the probing, difficult and sometimes impolitic questions of public officials and private powerbrokers, and voice critical and controversial comments.

Tough questions and sharp criticism and the responses and ideas they provoke are the stuff of a democratic republic, of active self-governance, of a nation engaged in (sometimes angry) conversations with itself. The provision for free and open debate, civil discussion and disagreement gave the nation’s founders hope. With those tools, their fledgling country would use freedom of expression and freedom of conscience to self-correct — not just to survive over time but to thrive.

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis wrote in 1927 that “those who won our independence by revolution were not cowards. They did not fear political change. They did not exalt order at the cost of liberty.”

Having the right to say virtually anything we want does not mean we should always say it. We need free speech to prompt serious exchanges. Those who use First Amendment freedoms to incite violence should be held accountable for the tragedies that can result.

Strong protections for our core First Amendment freedoms — religion, speech, the press, assembly and petition — are a bulwark against those who would use violence, repression, censorship and hatred to extinguish liberty through force.

Sadly, those freedoms cannot stop a shooter's bullets. But they can blunt and perhaps extinguish its damage to the rule of law, to the nation and to democracy itself.

Gene Policinski is a senior fellow for the First Amendment at Freedom Forum.