Conflicting Reports: When Gun Rights Threaten Free Speech

Abstract

This Article catalogs and analyzes collisions between free speech and gun rights. The most important and hotly debated of those collisions is the clash between the First Amendment rights to assemble and speak in public political protests and the asserted Second Amendment right to carry firearms openly in public places. Beyond protests, public university students’ First Amendment rights to speak and learn clash with the asserted Second Amendment right to carry concealed weapons on university campuses; First Amendment interests in robust political deliberation clash with Second Amendment interests in promoting and securing the right to keep and bear arms; and First Amendment interests in disclosures of information clash with privacy interests grounded in the Second Amendment. In addition, debates about how to address rampant gun violence have led Second Amendment advocates to urge restricting the expressive content of entertainment media as a way of avoiding gun regulations