LETTER: Armed men were also exercising their First Amendment rights

To Ozaukee Press:

I have read your paper for 50 years and paid for a subscription for 42 of them. The editorial is last week’s Ozaukee Press took some liberties with the First and Second Amendment as written in the Bill of Rights, which was ratified on Dec.15, 1791.

The First Amendment allows for free speech and free assembly. The Second Amendment allows for individuals, not just militias, to possess weapons, and state law allows for the open carry of firearms. Local laws cannot override state statutes.

The Second Amendment does not cancel First Amendments rights, as correctly
stated in the editorial. But the so-called gun-toting individuals also came to protest. That is what the First Amendment allows.         So the way I see it, it is you who want to take away those gun-toting individuals’ right to assemble and protest, as guaranteed by the First Amendment. Just because you do not agree with their viewpoint does not allow you to remove their expression of free speech.

Please don’t turn a lawful constitutional discussion of the BLM issue by individuals into a First and Second Amendment issue when there is no basis to.

Ken Watry
Fredonia