Imagine a movement where citizens demand their "1A" right to concealed and open carry of cameras

[phantom power]

As Digby reported yesterday at Salon, Republican state legislators are "extremely bothered by the idea that a citizen might film the police in the course of their duties." Ergo:

The House Bill 2918 introduced by Texas Representative Jason Villalba (R-Dallas) would make private citizens photographing or recording the police within 25 feet of them a class B misdemeanor, and those who are armed would not be able to stand recording within 100 feet of an officer.

...Why should Second Amendment activists be the only ones to act like jerks about how their rights under the constitution "shall not be infringed"? It is, after all, the second amendment. Who gave them sole rights to what is "explicitly American"? Imagine a movement where citizen journalists demand their First Amendment right to concealed and open carry of cameras and recording devices just as belligerently as gun rights activists. Any where. Any time. Free-DOM!

We would loudly decry anything less as tyranny, a slippery slope leading inevitably to "abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press," to jack-booted, government thugs kicking in our doors and confiscating our phones and digital cameras.

We would go to phone-and-camera shows where we could buy accessories and gear without background checks, trade vintage Nikons and Nagras, and buy flash memory in bulk. We would train on weekends and whisper threateningly of "First Amendment remedies."

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2015/03/from-my-cold-dead-fingers-by-bloggersrus.html

[rock]

1. Enlighten me

What does taking pictures have to do with free speech?

[DetlefK]

4. What does Open Carry have to do with the 2nd Amendment?

[rock]

5. Both are about guns

Duh.

[DetlefK]

6. See?

Open Carry For Cameras and the First Amendment are both about the right to share information without oppression.

[rock]

10. Not really

I don't believe either Open Carry for Cameras or 1A is about sharing information. At least I don't see it that way.

[DetlefK]

11. ?

If the 1A is not about the right to share information (as opposed to censorship), then what is its purpose???

[rock]

13. It does not restrict what you have to say

But I don't have to listen. It's not about sharing at all.

[JDPriestly]

15. Freedom of the press could be interpreted to mean freedom both of disseminating and of

collecting information including photos of government employees at work.

Cameras can be a more effective form of self-defense than a gun. We all have the right to defend ourselves.

Why would anyone object to the photographing of police officers at work?

The only reason I can think of would be to protect officers who are abusing suspects or violating laws or both.

[Orsino]

7. Pictures elevate rumors to the status of evidence.

Not that testimony isn't evidence, but pictures can speak long after an eyewitness is dead, and in any case pictures are worth thousands of words.

That the puggish forces of law 'n' order want to ban our cameras from their public displays of brutality--even potential sites--ought to be enough to make us guard our freedom.

[Stryst]

16. The first amendemnt also covers fredom of the press.

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Don't prohibitions from public recording abridge the freedom of the press?

[ffr]

2. I openly carry.

[FSogol]

3. Anywhere? So, you could carry a camera into a movie theater?

[Fumesucker]

9. Most people do these days..

Smartphones all have cameras and most of them even do pretty decent video as well.

[Brickbat]

8. "We would go to phone-and-camera shows where we could buy accessories and gear without background

checks, trade vintage Nikons and Nagras, and buy flash memory in bulk."

Does this not happen now?

[Scuba]

12. Lacking the satire gene, eh?

[MrNJ]

14. False analogy

It's legal to carry both photo/video cameras and guns
It's illegal to point (and shoot) guns at cops.
The bill would make it illegal to point and shoot cameras at cops. It's still legal to carry them both open and concealed.

The bill is wrong but nothing to do with 2A.