Second Amendment Foundation Launches Hotline For Students Bullied Over Pro-Gun Stance

With schools all over the nation essentially providing material support for an anti-gun protest, it’s easy to see where they stand on the issue. While the courts have routinely allowed students their free speech rights, as they should, the overt support from supposed educators makes it clear where many schools stand when it comes to the Second Amendment.

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As anti-gun activists continue to try and stigmatize gun owners, life could get a little interesting for pro-gun students. To that end, the Second Amendment Foundation has created a hotline to help address potential bullying by anti-gun students and teachers.

SAF TO HELP STUDENTS DEFEND THEIR 1st AMENDMENT RIGHT TO SUPPORT 2nd

BELLEVUE, WA – The Second Amendment Foundation today announced a project to help students who have been harassed, intimidated or bullied for resisting peer pressure to join the wave of protests against guns and the right to keep and bear arms.

“A student’s First Amendment rights should not be violated because they support the Second Amendment,” said SAF founder and Executive Vice President Alan M. Gottlieb. “There have been several reports over the past couple of weeks about students who have been harassed or encountered other problems from students, teachers or administrators for not joining in the protests. If that’s happening, it isn’t right and should not be tolerated.

“Students can call the SAF toll-free hotline to obtain information about legal help and report violations of their First Amendment rights,” he added. “The foundation is prepared to take legal action if necessary.”

The SAF toll-free hotline number is 800-426-4302.

“All schools should be safe for all students,” Gottlieb observed. “We should all be on alert for harassment or intimidation of students who disagree with an uncivil mob mentality. After all, not all school age Americans agree with the current demands for more erosion of our Second Amendment rights.

“While we encourage young Americans to speak their minds and engage in productive debate and dialogue about this issue,” he said, “we cannot condone any behavior designed to silence or intimidate others with different viewpoints. That is why we are announcing this project to help students who support their constitutional rights.

“We recognize that in times of high emotion and short tempers, there is inevitably the potential for disagreement to get out of hand,” Gottlieb noted. “It is often too easy to go beyond the bounds of rational discourse and enter the realm of vindictiveness. If we are to find the common ground everyone seems to seek, we’ve got to find it together. If students are penalized for exercising their First Amendment rights to defend the Second Amendment, we want to know about it.”

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This is a good thing, but I wish to hell it wasn’t a needed thing. It shouldn’t be, but it is.

In the aftermath of the Parkland killings and the subsequent protests, especially the March 14th student walkouts, kids whose biggest concerns should be passing Algebra or getting a date for the prom are now being thrust into politics. Those who don’t oppose gun control at certain schools may well be ostracized because of the school’s permitting of the walkouts.

Without that permission, kids who supported gun control may have remained in class to avoid punishment. Because of this, those who didn’t take part in the walkout may or may not have been against gun control, but no one would know. Now, because of the actions of some school administrators, the dividing line has been drawn. Now people know, and that makes it possible to single out students who hold the “wrong” opinions.

This is because of those administrators, and now it’s up to the Second Amendment Foundation and the rest of us to clean up the mess.

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