Investigations based on speech:

Keepandbeararms.com is objecting that a gun rights activist is apparently being investigated by the San Francisco police for writing the following letter to government officials:

Disregarding Laws We Oppose
An Open Letter to San Francisco Civil Authority

By David Codrea
codrea4@adelphia.net

February 16, 2004

Dear Mayor Newsom (gavin.newsom@sfgov.org), Judge Warren (wsuperiorct@sftc.org) and Acting Chief Fong (sfpdpbaf@pacbell.net),

Mayor, I see you are authorizing city employees to perform homosexual marriages, Judge Warren, you are allowing them to proceed, and Chief Fong, you are allowing California law, as enacted by a vote of the people, to be publicly and repeatedly broken without making any arrests.

I’m not commenting on that issue, per se, so much as observing that you are all three instigating and abetting the violation of that law.

Judge Warren, you went so far as to state that you couldn’t issue a restraining order to halt the marriages because, as Reuters reported, “there was not enough evidence presented showing that immediate damage would be done by allowing them.”

Which leaves me with an interesting dilemma.

You see, I also belong to a group that is forced by social prejudices to keep a low profile?often times to hide my choices and practices lest I suffer disapproval and ultimately, life-threatening persecution by the state.

I am a gun owner and I live a gun owner life style.

I don’t know if I was born with a tendency to be this way, or if it was an acquired disposition. All I know is, I don’t see why I should be forced to change. Truth be known, I like owning guns, and am happy with who I am. I hope I suffer no repercussions by “coming out of the safe,” but I just can’t hide the truth any longer.

We gun owners have been living and working among you. Our kids go to school with yours. We may be your doctor, or minister, or your child’s teacher. We may even work in city administration, or the courts, or on the police force. And we are sick of being abused for simply being who we are, all because of hoplophobic* prejudice and fear. We don’t see any reason why we should have to put up with it any more.

Which brings me back to my dilemma and the reason I am writing you.

You have shown progressive thinking and tolerance for that which the majority condemns. So I was thinking of coming up to San Francisco and exercising my right to keep and bear arms, maybe showing up at City Hall with a state-banned AR-15 and a couple 30-round magazines, and also carrying several pistols concealed without a permit.

Yes, I know, it will be a violation of California laws, but you’ve shown that you’re willing to disregard those when it serves your goals. And because I am a peaceable citizen, I should easily meet Judge Warren’s criterion that no immediate damage would be done by allowing this.

So what do you think, if I visit your city and proudly display my lifestyle choices, can I count on your support? As a private citizen, don’t I have as much right to disregard laws I find reprehensible as you public officials? Isn’t that what equality is supposed to be all about, where no class of citizen enjoys privileges and immunities not extended to all?

How about it? You wouldn’t have me arrested, would you?

Please let me know if I have your support.

Sincerely,
David Codrea

* Credit and gratitude to the peerless Col. Jeff Cooper for coining this term.

     I generally have a hard time getting particularly outraged about stories like this. Keepandbearms.com opens its report by saying:

Did you know that writing a rhetorical letter to the civil authorities in California challenging their hypocrisy results in a police investigation that includes not only calls from detectives but two black and white police cruisers coming to your home?

Well, saying that it’s a rhetorical letter is assuming the conclusion. The police might strongly suspect that the letter is rhetorical, but it’s hard to tell that for sure. And if it isn’t rhetorical — if the writer does want to show up with those guns — and the writer also wants to do something with those guns when he shows up, then we could have a bad scene.

     If you were a responsible, freedom-loving police officer, would you just say “Nah, sounds like nothing to me”? Or might you think it’s worth some more investigation? The letter-writer writes, as a follow-up, “I do find it bizarre that civil authority is so fearful of an armed citizenry that if they feel there is any chance of it happening, their response is to send armed men.” Why is it so bizarre? Armed citizens have at times done quite a bit of damage, including to a past Mayor of San Francisco. That’s not reason to disarm them or throw them in jail for writing letters — but it is reason to look closely at people who say they want to carry an arsenal to city hall.

     Of course, people can point out that even investigation — in this case, a phone call from the San Francisco police, and two police cars sent to the person’s home, which left after they confirmed that the S.F. police had talked to him — can be disquieting to the target. Some people might decide not to write letters like that (letters which I think should be and are fully constitutionally protected against suppression) for fear of drawing the police department’s attention. No doubt about that.

     But freedom of speech can’t mean freedom from even disquieting investigations based on your speech. You can’t be convicted for that letter; you can’t be fined for it; but the police are entitled to talk to you to see whether you seem like an upstanding citizen (which by all accounts the author is) or someone who seems like a John Hinckley, and who therefore bears closer watching. Extremist groups are entitled to express their views; but I certainly hope that the police are investigating them more closely to see whether there might be extremist action, and not just extremist speech, in the offing. Likewise even for perfectly reasonable people who make statements that are also of the sort sometimes made by unreasonable people. It’s part of the police department’s job to investigate a bit more closely to see whether the speaker seems reasonable or unreasonable.

     This having been said, I stress again that Codrea is entitled to write his letter, and not get actually legally punished for it. If there’s any attempted punishment (and I know that there have been some incidents where speakers have been punished based on alleged threats that probably didn’t merit punishment), I’ll gladly speak up in his defense. Likewise, he’s certainly entitled to publicize the police department’s actions; it’s probably good that he’s doing so.

     I just won’t feel too bothered by what the police did, at least based on the account that the site provides.