There is a major problem with one of the lines in this article:
A gun-rights activist is taking the city of Phoenix back to court over its refusal to put up a bus-stop ad that declares “Guns Save Lives.”
The case is as much about the First Amendment as it is about the Second. The Arizona Republic reports that the three-year legal battle is heading to the Arizona Court of Appeals on Tuesday.
The decision could have sweeping implications for free speech in the state, and on whether advertisers should be limited in what topics they can and cannot address on city property.
The battle started when the city removed 50 of the ads, put up by activist Alan Korwin, from city bus stops.
This case has NOTHING to do with the 2nd Amendment. The 2nd Amendment is the right to keep and bear arms. The right to talk about guns, and to research if indeed guns do save lives is all in the 1st Amendment.
Also I would say there IS a 1st Amendment right in what can be published on the property of others. There are blogs I will not cite or discuss. They’re on my much talked-about “Black List”, I have no issue that those blogs exist, or continue to operate, but I will not use MY blog to further their garbage.
Still this is PUBLIC space, and the rules state that if you pay for the signage you can post the signage. The Public is the Government, and the Government both has no rights, and has the Amendments of the Constitution, of both the United States, and the State of Arizona to remind it what it can and cannot do.
Hopefully the courts will note that this is one of those things it cannot do, and it is in the wrong.
I think the city government can set up guidelines for what it will or will not accept as advertising. That is the power given to any property owner; however the government is greatly restricted in the exercise of that power.
That is what the 1st Amendment is about — restricting the government after all.
The posters were not lewd, crude or advocate violence. They didn’t advocate the breaking of any law. In short, the ads met the guidelines the city had in place at the time.
After all, they did post them. It wasn’t until the anti-rights cultists (groups and within the government) realized what the posters were about and raised a ruckus they were pulled down. This is a breach of contract suit in the most basic terms.
And that is why it is so important; if the government (at any level) can change the terms of a contract arbitrarily — then we really don’t have a social contract. We have petty tyranny.
I bet the court lets Phoenix continue to censor the ads, probably as a “zero-tolerance” policy “for the children”. Statists gotta state.
You know the end of the world is nigh when Phoenix gets embroiled in this nonsense.
Well sadly any large city will eventually foster enough “Progressives” to start seeing that silliness. What the people of that state need to be sure is that their major red-state cities don’t become “Progressive Ivory Towers”.