The First Amendment loses.
Here we have the full flowering of the First Amendment -- free speech about matters of public urgency -- marching headlong the unbridled expansion of the Second Amendment -- citizens openly brandishing loaded rifles, often semiautomatic ones, in public places.
These two cherished American principles do not meet on equal footing, because a gun is the opposite of speech. A loaded weapon discourages speech, intimidates, and demands compliance. Even someone who intends no harm with a gun -- and I believe that these counterprotesters intend no harm -- is quashing the free speech of those around them, because it is impossible to speak openly when someone who hates your opinion is holding a loaded gun near you and telling you to shut up and leave.
It's right-wing cancel culture.
-- David Plotz (1970 -), American journalist, Guns are the enemy of free speech, Insider Today, 28 August 2020
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