Cross-posted from: https://feddit.de/post/8243678
A Chinese music student was convicted on Thursday of U.S. charges that he harassed an activist who posted fliers at the Berklee College of Music in Boston supporting democracy in China and threatened to report her activities to Chinese law enforcement. A federal jury in Boston found Xiaolei Wu, 25, who sent the activist online messages saying he would chop off her hands and demanding she tear down her “reactionary posters,” guilty at the end of a four-day trial.
If I have a gun but the government doesn’t care, am I not exercising my 2a rights?
The government can’t restrict your right to free speech until you exercise it. They didn’t, which is why this isn’t a 1a case, but that doesn’t mean they weren’t exercising their rights.
The fact of owning a gun isn’t a 2nd amendment issue as your comment would imply… The government coming to take that gun in some way? Second amendment issue. Government tries to impede your purchase of that gun? 2nd amendment issue.
Whether or not the Chinese student didn’t like what she was saying has nothing to do with it being about or not being about freedom of speech.
So you’re proposing that bearing arms, the right guaranteed by the second amendment is not exercising of said right unless the government tries to stop you? So rights are like Schrodinger’s laws, where they only exist when we try to violate them?