“If we’re okay with someone getting a license to exercise their Second Amendment right, explain to me how that can’t be applied to other constitutional rights?” Oh, the irony.
Thanks to Coop LoPresto for this link.
A state lawmaker in Indiana has drafted a measure to require licenses for journalists akin to those that pertain to handgun owners, a proposal legal experts says directly violates the First Amendment.
The measure would require journalists — defined as anyone writing or broadcasting news for a newspaper, magazine, website or television or radio station — to be registered and fingerprinted by the police and vetted for their “character and reputation.”
State Rep. Jim Lucas, a Republican from the southeastern part of Indiana and a vocal critic of his state’s gun restrictions, drafted the bill by copying language from a state law that requires a license to carry a handgun in public.
With these laws proposed for journalists, Lucas’s measure reads like satire.
Committing journalism without a license within 500 feet of school or on a school bus would bump the penalty up from a misdemeanor to a felony. Journalists with felony or domestic battery convictions would be prevented from getting licenses. And unlicensed people would still be able to engage in journalism on property they own or rent.
by Eli Rosenberg
