Those in the Media Should be Required to Undergo Background Checks

by Gary DeMar 
 

Melissa Harris-Perry is the gift that keeps on giving. She wants background checks on every person who wants to purchase a firearm. I’m calling on Congress to call for a similar requirement for anyone in the media. What’s sauce for the Second Amendment goose, is sauce for the First Amendment gander.
She’s the one who said that a baby growing in her mother’s womb is a “thing.” Just recently she made the comment that children are really owned by the community. So it’s OK to kill preborn babies, but once they’re born, they belong to the community.
Her latest rant is about background checks. She laments the fact that 40 percent of guns are purchased without background checks.

Would background checks have stopped Adam Lanza? No. He got the guns and ammunition to kill those elementary school children and teachers from his mother. If she had gone through a background check, she most likely would have passed with flying colors.
The thing of it is, a Los Angeles Times article reported that Lanza “tried to purchase a ‘long gun’ rifle from a local shop but was turned away because he did not want to wait for the required 14-day background check. . . .”


Do criminals care about background checks? About as much as they care about locks on doors, automobile security systems, and laws prohibiting the sale of drugs. Criminals always find a way to subvert the law. All hoops and hurdles that law-abiding citizens have to endure are a godsend for criminals. Its less competition for them.
Why should there be background checks to exercise the right to “keep and bear arms”? How is it possible that a fundamental right written into the Constitution should require a background check to exercise it? Should the same apply to the Fourth Amendment? If police came to your home and wanted to search it, and you refused because they did not have a warrant, they might say, “Well, you need a background check before you can exercise that right. Step aside.”

Should a background check be necessary if you wanted to exercise your right not to be a witness against yourself?
You can see how ridiculous marking one amendment for extra-legal requirements. Maybe applying the same standard to an amendment viewed as sacrosanct by the media might get them to consider that some (most? all?) their arguments are fallacious.
I propose that we require background checks on people like Harris-Perry who is operating under the freedoms outlined in the First Amendment. If background checks should be implemented for a right specified in the Second Amendment, why not implement the same requirement for those exercising their First Amendment rights?
The rights of speech and press are equal to the right to keep and bear arms. If it’s required for one, then why not the other?