Could George Washington have envisioned Twitter?
If not, you shouldn’t be able to say what you want.
So goes something like the message from ABC’s The View.
On Tuesday, co-host Joy Behar reckoned it’s time to overhaul the First Amendment — or at least make some much-needed modification.
The Second’s due for a change, too, since Thomas Jefferson had no clue the future would feature futuristic firearms.
The segment began with Whoopi Goldberg’s mention of Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey stepping down.
Jack, she said, had fought “defamatory” speech on the social media staple.
Whoopi brought up bullying and Australia’s latest move against would-be trolls:
“Australia wants to go a step further, drafting a legal process for people who they feel have been defamed, bullied, or harassed, that would force companies to hand over the identities of the accused bully to the courts. Now, if we had a legal process like this, would it actually make people think twice about trolling or would people just find…a new way to troll?”
Sunny Hostin loved the idea.
But guest host and New York Times podcaster Jane Coaston interjected the slippery slope:
“My concern is always, like, if I’m on Twitter…and I start, you know, going after somebody who is supportive of something that I find abhorrent, am I a troll? Can they get my identify?”
For her part, Whoopi simply won’t read nasty messages aimed her way.
“[W]hy do we take your word for something you don’t know anything about — me? Why am I taking your word that I’m all these things when you don’t know me? I’m not looking at you.”
Soon, Joy jumped in, waxing on words and weapons of war:
“[Y]ou’re not reading. You’re smart not to. You know, when the Founding Fathers were busy with the amendments, the First and Second Amendments did not have AR-15s in there — weapons of war — and they didn’t have Twitter.”
As for her war comment, of course, she’s wrong.
They did, in fact, have weapons of war — “arms.”
Their rifles and other weaponry — serving citizens at home and potentially in battle — were the day’s war-suited weapons.
Blades are also weapons of war, which existed much the same then as now.
According to company folklore, the iconic KA-BAR knife favored by U.S. Marines got its name after a fur trapper sent the manufacturer a message in which he stated that he had been attacked by a grizzly but then managed to use one of their knives to "kill-a-b'ar". #FunFactFriday pic.twitter.com/hMsERfvSxi
— U.S. Naval Institute (@NavalInstitute) September 3, 2021
As for the contemporary and commercially-available AR-15, it hasn’t been used in a war. Or by the military.
Meanwhile, as you likely know, the vast majority of gun murders are committed with handguns.
Why do some on the Left vilify America’s most popular hunting rifle while glossing over those commonly used in crimes?
Perhaps there’s no emotion attached.
It appears many on TV would rather go with their gut than, for instance, waste 12 seconds on an online search.
Apropos of that, given that handguns were rocked on The Rockford Files and slung on Gunsmoke, they don’t carry a lot of consternation-catalyzing cache.
But serve up something spooky, and Eureka.
Meanwhile, there are boring-looking wooden arms that do the same damage as AR-15s.
The Ruger Mini-14 (top) is identical in function to the AR-15 (bottom) but isn’t as popular & is largely ignored by gun control advocates & policymakers. @GunsReporting looks at why the gun debate is obsessed with form & largely ignores function. | https://t.co/x967hDc5VO pic.twitter.com/HzdqKGVWPU
— KERA News (@keranews) November 27, 2019
And where the common narrative’s concerned, the fact that that damage is usually wreaked upon targets and game, from what I can tell, is neither here nor there.
As for the Constitution’s creators not possessing a smartphone and a penchant for disrespectful debate in 280 characters or less, Joy is clearly correct.
Even so, what might stand out most about her remarks is the idea that those who gave birth to the nation weren’t smart enough to know guns or communication would ever improve.
Fortunately, good guys’ guns evolved just like ones bore by the bad.
Curiously, some American laws prevent the good guys from carrying what the bad guys can.
Regardless, what’s Behar’s fix for the Founding Fathers’ flub?
Joy’s gestated it:
“[B]oth amendments, I think, need to be tweaked a little bit.”
Before coming to that conclusion, it seems warranted to first learn the ins and outs of the AR-15.
Was that remedial task performed by the longtime political commentator?
If I had to guess, I’d take a stab and say no.
But I won’t — to stab would be to use a weapon of war.
According to FBI data for 2019, more Americans were killed by knives: 1,476; personal weapons (hands, fists, feet): 600; blunt objects (clubs, hammers, etc.): 397; than by rifles: 364. The knife-to-rifle murder weapon ratio was 4-to-1. 🤔👇 pic.twitter.com/fMNhDkyKqf
— Mark J. Perry (@Mark_J_Perry) April 1, 2021
-ALEX
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